Minimum $24.95/hr — $31.19 casual. Two-thirds of migrant workers get paid less. Know the numbers, keep the evidence, and report safely.
Visa status changes nothing about your workplace rights: minimum wage, super, breaks, and safety rules apply fully to international students. Employers who rely on you not knowing that are common — a 2026 survey found two-thirds of migrant workers paid below the legal minimum. This guide is the antidote.
Here is the single most financially valuable fact on this site: Australian workplace law does not care about your visa. The minimum wage, penalty rates, superannuation, breaks, and safety protections apply to you identically as to the Australian working next to you.
And here is the uncomfortable fact that makes the first one matter: employers of international students break these laws constantly. The Migrant Justice Institute's 2026 survey of nearly 10,000 migrant workers — mostly students — found two-thirds paid below the legal minimum, and a quarter underpaid by $10 an hour or more. Wage theft in student-heavy industries isn't a scandal; it's a business model that prices in your silence.
Five minutes on the Fair Work P.A.C.T. calculator gives you your exact legal rate. Screenshot it.
Wage theft cases are won on records. Yours: every payslip (legally required within a working day of payday), a running log of actual hours (notes app is fine, photos of rosters better), and your super fund's transaction history. If an employer 'doesn't do payslips', they've told you the plan — start the log that day.
The fear is always the same: "If I complain, they'll report my hours and I'll lose my visa." The system anticipated the threat: the FWO–Home Affairs protocol protects visa holders who report exploitation from visa cancellation over related work-condition breaches. Reports can be anonymous and in your language. And before any of that: your university's student legal service is free, confidential, and handles precisely this every single week.
You came here to study, not to subsidise a cafe's margins. Know the two numbers. Keep the log. The law is, for once, unambiguously on your side.
From 1 July 2025 the National Minimum Wage is $24.95/hour; casual employees get a 25% loading on top — $31.19/hour minimum. Most student jobs (hospitality, retail, cleaning) sit under awards that pay MORE than these floors, plus penalty rates for evenings, weekends and public holidays. Look up your exact award rate with the Fair Work Ombudsman's P.A.C.T. calculator — it takes five minutes and it's the same tool inspectors use.
Payslips are legally required and must show hours, rate, gross/net pay, and super. 'We don't do payslips' or cash with no record is the signature of an employer planning to underpay you. Keep every payslip and a personal log of actual hours worked (photos of rosters, a notes-app diary) — in any dispute, your contemporaneous records carry real weight.
Employers must pay 12% superannuation (from 1 July 2025) into your fund on top of wages, whatever your visa. Log into your super fund (or myGov → ATO → Super) quarterly and confirm deposits match your payslips. Unpaid super is one of the most common thefts from student workers — and one of the easiest to prove.
Casuals: minimum shift lengths under most awards (often 2–3 hours) — a 90-minute 'shift' still pays the minimum engagement. Breaks after ~5 hours under most awards. Safety gear provided free. Toilet breaks, safe equipment, and freedom from sexual harassment aren't perks; they're law (WorkSafe/SafeWork in your state handles safety, FWO handles pay).
The Fair Work Ombudsman and Home Affairs run a formal protocol: visa holders who report workplace exploitation will not have their visa cancelled for a work-condition breach connected to that exploitation. Reports can be anonymous, in your own language. Start with your university's free student legal service if you want a human to walk you through it — they handle these cases weekly.
Unpaid trials are legal only if brief (think: an hour demonstrating you can pour coffee) and genuinely demonstrative. Multi-shift 'trials', unpaid 'training weeks', or 'we pay $18 while you learn' are wage theft with a friendly name. If they watched you do productive work, that's paid time.
Cash jobs at $15–$20/hr feel like income, but you lose: legal pay rates, super, workers' comp if injured, proof of employment for future visas, and negotiating power (they're breaking the law and so, they'll imply, are you). The 2026 Migrant Justice Institute data shows a quarter of migrant workers earn $10+/hr below the minimum — almost all in exactly these arrangements.
Docking pay for a dropped glass or requiring you to buy a $90 branded uniform without reimbursement is generally unlawful. Deductions need to be reasonable, in writing, and mainly for your benefit — a rule employers break casually and constantly with student staff.