88 Days Calculator
Backpacker Job Board has created an 88 Days Calculator tool. You can download our Google Sheets spreadsheet template which will help you calculator and track your 88 days progress.
Download
Download our 88 Days Calculator template here.
How to count your 88 days
You’re loving your time in Oz so far. You’re keen to stay another year. Who can blame you?
But as a working holiday maker (a 417 or 462 visa holder), you need to do at least 88 days of ‘specified work’ in order to qualify for that second year visa.
This specified work – usually regional, often agricultural – is easy enough to find thanks to Backpacker Job Board. But for many backpackers the tricky bit is trying to work out what the heck 88 days means.
It’s a bit of a weird number. 88 days is equal to three months of full-time work – based on the 3 shortest 'calendar' months of the year – and is primarily there to ensure that Australia’s farmers have the help they need during harvest (though specified work covers plenty of other industries too).
In this guide we’ll tell you everything you need to know about how to count your 88 days.
What counts as a workday?
TL;DR:
- A workday is the number of hours that a person in your role would normally work in a day or shift for a given job.
In Australia, the traditional workday is eight hours long, most commonly spanning 9am-5pm. But that figure is based on white collar and retail jobs, which aren’t really the focus of the specified work that the Australian government wants backpackers to engage in.
Instead, the government defines a workday as “the normal number of hours per day or shift that is considered standard practice in the industry and role in which you are employed.”
In some harvest jobs, a standard workday might be five hours long. In some hospitality jobs, a standard shift might be six hours long. In both of those examples, one workday would be added to your tally.
Double Shift
What if you pull a double shift? Instead of working a six hour shift at the pub, you do 12 hours in a single day. Unfortunately you are unable to count that as two days of work: the rules explicitly state that only calendar days can be counted.
Examples
Example: Christian is working on a farm harvesting stone fruit in the middle of the Australian summer. The heat means that workers need to start picking at 5am and finish by 10am – a five hour workday that is standard for that situation. By mid-morning Christian has already tallied one of his 88 days.
Example: Genevieve works at a cafe that gets busy during breakfast and lunch, so works two shifts: 7am-10am and 12pm-3pm. Between these two shifts she totals six hours of work, relatively standard for the hospitality industry. The hours were all tallied on the same calendar day, so count as a single workday.
Example: Emma is working 12-hour night shifts at a remote mine, spanning 6pm to 6am. That 12-hour shift is standard for the role, and despite spanning two calendar days, it still counts as a single workday, as it was a single, continuous shift.
Understanding the 88-day calculation
TL;DR:
- Your 88 day calculation includes weekends/ rest days.
- You can take longer than 88 days to tally that number, but you can’t get there faster than 88 days.
Okay – we know what a workday is. Now we need to understand how to collect 88 of them.
Firstly, and most importantly, ‘88 days’ doesn’t necessarily mean 88 workdays, because you can include weekends or rest days during your period of employment.
If you are employed in a full-time capacity, by a single employer, for a period of 88 calendar days, you’ve completed your task – even if you only work five days a week.
The same system applies if you work for multiple employers, allowing you to break up your 88 days of work across the first year of your working holiday maker (WHM) visa. You might tally 25 days on a farm in Tasmania, go exploring for a few months, then do another 63 days working at a campground in Far North Queensland.
If your employment is only part-time, you may take longer than 88 days to tally those 88 days. Let’s say you work five days a fortnight, while full-time workers work ten days a fortnight. In this situation you would tally seven days of specified work per fortnight (rather than the 14 that a full-timer would), and would eventually complete your 88 days over the course of 176 calendar days.
And as discussed in the section above, you can only log one workday per calendar day, so there’s no way to complete your 88 days in less than 88 calendar days.
Examples
Example: Rashid has casual employment at a grain silo during harvest. He works ten hours every day of January, and tallies 31 of his 88 days. He then works full-time at a pub, where he pulls a standard six-hour shift from Wednesday to Sunday, taking Mondays and Tuesdays off. He is employed for the period of 1 March to April 26, in which he tallies his remaining 57 days.
Example: Sara finds work at a remote cattle station as a jillaroo and farm hand. She works 5-6 days per week, and 5-9 hours per day, over the course of three months. These hours are considered standard for the role, so she meets her 88 day requirement at the end of those three months.
Example: Ben finds casual employment with a wine tour company, working only two days – Saturdays and Sundays – while full-time employees work five. He stays in the role for 88 days, but only tallies 35 days of specified work, as he only did two-fifths of the work of an equivalent full-timer.
How to track your work accurately
TL;DR:
- Tracking your days is critical for securing your second year visa.
- The Backpacker Job Board 88 Days Calculator makes it easy.
Accurately counting your 88 days is absolutely critical. Under-calculating your days can mean that you’re stuck in a job that you don’t necessarily need, at a time when you could be exploring the land down under.
On the flipside – and far more serious side – a slight overcalculation can see you unknowingly fall short of your requirements, which can mean you miss out on a second year WHV visa entirely. That would be a significant bummer!
So how do you accurately tally your 88 days as you go? Technology is your friend… specifically the Backpacker Job Board 88 Days Calculator.
Our downloadable spreadsheet allows you to easily log the work you do. It's a simple way to track your work, and also forms a handy piece of supporting evidence for your second year WHV application.
Some useful links
FAQs
Do public holidays count?
Australian public holidays only count towards your 88 days if you are paid for those days – e.g. casual bar staff working over Easter (who, FYI, should also earn more through penalty rates). Salaried full-time and part-time workers may be paid for public holidays even if they don’t actually work on the day. They key is to check your contract of employment.
The same can apply to sick days. Essentially, if you are receiving paid sick leave, the day will be counted towards your 88 days
Can I include unpaid volunteer work?
For the most part, unpaid volunteer work doesn’t count towards your 88 days – with one exception: bushfire or disaster recovery.
If you volunteer to assist with the recovery from a bushfire, flood, cyclone or any other natural disaster in a declared disaster area, you can count the days volunteered towards your tally.
How do I prove my work when applying?
When you apply for your WHM second-year visa, you’ll need to prove that you’ve completed your 88 days. TheBackpacker Job Board 88 Days Calculator can provide a great overview of your work, but you’ll need to back up the information you log with official documentation, such as:
- Payslips
- Tax records
- Work diaries
- Signed forms or employer letters
Do I need to do 88 days if I’m from the UK?
No, you lucky duck. If you lodge your visa application using a passport issued by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, you don’t need to worry about tallying 88 days of specified work at all.
How Many Months is 88 Days?
The 88-day work requirement is roughly 3 months long.
The 3 months in this context means the shortest three calendar months of the year, which equals 88 calendar days.
How Many Weeks is 88 Days?
88 days is approximately 12.5 weeks.
For full-time workers (5+ days per week), the 88-day requirement is usually completed within about 12.5 weeks. However, if you work fewer days per week, it will take longer to reach 88 eligible days.