What Employers Need to Know About Hiring International Students in Australia
There were approximately 709,000 Subclass 500 student visa holders in Australia as of late 2025 (Department of Education international student data). If you work in hospitality, retail, or logistics, lots of these visa holders are probably on your rosters.
Hiring international students is a key way Australian employers fill their rosters, but their visa conditions can change without warning, and employers who miss it face warnings and heavy fines. This article covers what you need to know before hiring a student visa holder, and what you need to do to stay compliant after they start.
How many hours can a student visa holder work?
48 hours per fortnight while their course is in session, with no limit during official course breaks. This is set by visa Condition 8105.
- During study periods: Students can work a maximum of 48 hours per fortnight. A fortnight is a rolling 14-day period that always starts on a Monday. It is not a calendar reset tied to a pay cycle. Employers cannot rely on payroll periods to track compliance.
- During official course breaks: There is no work hour limit. Students can work full-time during semester breaks, summer, and winter holidays.
- Before the course commences: Students cannot work before their course officially starts, unless they held another work-entitled visa when they applied for their student visa.
- Multiple employers: The 48-hour limit applies across all employers combined. A student working 30 hours at one job and 20 hours at another has breached their visa conditions.
- Unpaid work: Unpaid internships or placements that are mandatory and CRICOS-listed under the student’s course do not count toward the limit. Optional or independently arranged unpaid work does.
Can a student’s partner or children work?
Yes, but the rules depend on the student’s course level, and they sit under a different condition (8104, not 8105).If the student is enrolled in a bachelor degree or below, their partner can work up to 48 hours per fortnight under Condition 8104. The same limit applies. If the student is enrolled in a master’s by research or doctoral degree, their partner can work unlimited hours, including during study periods. Dependent children under 18 cannot work. Once they turn 18 and are no longer in continuous full-time education, they are no longer considered dependants under the visa.
Can a student visa be cancelled without the employer knowing?
Yes. Most cancellation grounds are entirely outside an employer’s control, and the Department doesn’t notify employers when it happens.
Common grounds include:
- The student provides false information on their visa application
- The student fails to maintain satisfactory course attendance or academic progress
- The student works more than the permitted hours during study periods
- The student changes to an ineligible course
- The student engages in criminal conduct
Employers have no direct visibility over most of these triggers. A student who looks fully compliant on paper can have their visa cancelled without the employer knowing. That is why ongoing VEVO checks matter. A check at the point of hire tells you the status on that day. It does not tell you what happens in month three or month seven.
What does a VEVO check actually confirm?
VEVO (Visa Entitlement Verification Online) is the Department of Home Affairs’ system for checking visa status and conditions. Employers can run a VEVO check for free at homeaffairs.gov.au.
A VEVO check confirms:
- Whether the visa is current
- What work conditions apply (e.g., 48-hour limit, no restriction, no work)
- The visa expiry date
VEVO does not confirm how many hours the worker has worked elsewhere, or whether the worker is currently meeting their course requirements. Those are employer-side and student-side obligations respectively.
Checking VEVO once at hire is not enough. Department of Home Affairs guidance and current legal practice treat regular rechecks as a component of “reasonable steps” under the Migration Act 1958. Monthly or at minimum quarterly rechecks are standard practice for student visa holders given the frequency with which conditions can change.
For employers with dozens or hundreds of visa holders across multiple sites, manual rechecks at that cadence will fail eventually. Compliance software with a direct API connection to the Department of Home Affairs (like CheckWorkRights) automates the check cycle, alerts HR to status changes as they happen, and produces the evidence trail needed to defend a civil penalty claim.
What happens when a student moves to a different visa?
Their work conditions change, and the employer has to track the new visa, not the person. Students do not always stay on a Subclass 500 visa. When they transition, their work conditions change. Employers need to track the visa, not just the person.
Common transitions include:
- Temporary Graduate visa (Subclass 485) – post-study work rights, generally unrestricted
- Working Holiday visa (Subclass 417 or 462) – different hour and employer restrictions apply
- General Skilled Migration – permanent residence pathway
- Partner visa – conditions depend on the sponsoring partner’s status
- Employer-sponsored visa – conditions tied to the sponsoring employer
Each change carries different work entitlements. An employee whose student visa expires and who transitions to a bridging visa may have work rights preserved or restricted depending on the visa they applied for. A VEVO check will reflect the current position.Visa transitions are another point where compliance breaks down. An employer who verified work rights at hire and never rechecked may not know an employee moved from a valid visa to a bridging visa with limited conditions. The conditions that applied on day one do not apply forever.
Compliance software that monitors visa status continuously, rather than at a single point in time, catches these transitions as they happen. When a visa changes, the system updates the worker’s record and alerts HR, so the employer knows what conditions now apply without relying on the worker to self-report.
Condition 8105 caps student visa holders at 48 hours of work per fortnight while enrolled, with no work permitted before their course starts. Managing that manually means site managers roster by memory and HR teams chase paperwork. Many employers default to 24 hours per week because tracking exemptions is too hard, leaving rosterable hours on the table alongside the compliance risk.
CheckWorkRights tracks hours, flags limits, handles exemptions, and feeds current entitlements directly into your rostering system.
What counts as “reasonable steps” for employers?
Running a VEVO check before employment starts, recording it, rechecking regularly, and acting on any change. Get this right and you have a defence under the Migration Act even if a worker later turns out to have been working unlawfully.
Under the Migration Act 1958, employers who took reasonable steps to verify work rights before and during employment can avoid civil penalty under section 245AC, even if a worker later turns out to have been working unlawfully. The Department also has discretion under section 116(1)(b) to not cancel a visa where the breach sits with the employer’s rostering rather than the worker’s conduct, though this is exercised case by case and should not be relied on as a substitute for compliance.
“Reasonable steps” means:
- Running a VEVO check before employment starts
- Recording the result and keeping it
- Rechecking at regular intervals. Monthly for student visa holders is defensible; quarterly is the minimum
- Acting on any change (e.g., visa cancelled, conditions changed)
Accepting a printed visa label, a Tax File Number, or a Medicare card is not sufficient. These documents do not confirm current visa conditions or work rights.
Employers can run VEVO checks manually via homeaffairs.gov.au, or through software with a direct API connection to the Department of Home Affairs, which automates checks and alert monitoring across the full employee lifecycle.
Is the student work limit increasing to 60 hours?
No. As of 1 July 2026, the legal limit remains 48 hours per fortnight. The 60-hour figure is a Coalition proposal, not legislation.
A proposal costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office in its 2025 Election Commitments Report (ECR-2025-2848) would raise the cap to 60 hours per fortnight, with a proposed start date of 1 July 2026. As of this date, no legislative instrument has been issued under the Migration Regulations 1994 and the proposal has not passed. Employers should not act on this change until the Department of Home Affairs issues updated guidance, and should treat the 1 July 2026 date as a proposal milestone only, not a rule change.
Last verified: 1 July 2026, against the Federal Register of Legislation and homeaffairs.gov.au
