Comply with Australian employment law
All workers in Australia have rights and protections at work. People from overseas working in Australia also have these workplace rights.
As an employer of an overseas worker, you must obey all Australian immigration and workplace laws. You must identify and regularly check your legal responsibilities.
Employers do not have the power to cancel or change a visa. Only the Australian Government can give or cancel a visa.
Employers of people from overseas must provide:
- at least the minimum wage or the relevant 'market salary rate' (for sponsored visas)
- payslips, superannuation and taxation documents to the employee
- safe workplaces
- legal pay rates, leave conditions, shift arrangements and dismissal processes to which Australian employees would be entitled
Learn more about your obligations to workers at the
Fair Work Ombudsman.
The Fair Work Omubdsman’s
Pay and Conditions Tool (PACT) gives you information on pay rates, shift calculations, leave arrangements, dismissal notice and redundancy entitlements.
Comply with your obligations as a sponsor
See the obligations for:
You will also need to check the specific obligations for sponsors for the visa held by your employee. Check on the Visa page, under When you are a Sponsor.
Failure to meet sponsorship obligations
A sponsor who fails to meet their sponsorship obligations may face a range of possible sanctions including:
- cancellation of their approval as a sponsor
- being barred from sponsoring other workers
- being barred from making future applications for approval as a sponsor
- being issued with an infringement notice imposing a specified financial penalty with different penalties imposed against individuals and bodies corporate for first or subsequent infringement notices
- civil penalties imposed by the courts (for example, up to $63,000 for a corporation and $12,600 for an individual for each failure)
- Enforceable Undertaking between the sponsor and the Department of Home Affairs / Australian Border Force.
More than one sanction can be imposed.
Failure to meet employer obligations
A employer who fails to meet their obligations may receive an infringement notice for:
- allowing an unlawful non-citizen to work (s245AB)
- allowing a lawful non-citizen to work in breach of a work-related condition (s245AC)
- referring an unlawful non-citizen for work (s245AE)
- referring a lawful non-citizen for work in breach of a work-related condition (s245AEA).
Paying an employer or sponsor infringement notice
To pay an infringement notice you can use the Westpac online payment facility or BPAY. For further information, see Paying an employer or sponsor infringement notice.
