Labour hire licensing by state: Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and the ACT

Labour hire licensing is a state or territory scheme that requires a business supplying workers to another business to hold a licence, and in some places penalises the business that uses an unlicensed supplier. It matters to an overseas company because any set-up where the worker’s pay comes from one business while the work itself is done for a different one may fall within these definitions.

Queensland’s definition shows how wide the net is. According to the Queensland regulator’s questions and answers, a person provides labour hire services if, in carrying on a business, they supply a worker to do work for another person and they are obliged to pay the worker for that work. Whether a specific arrangement falls inside that definition is a legal question, and the answer depends on the facts.

No Australian statute defines an employer of record arrangement as its own category, and the regulators’ published materials describe labour hire in general terms. That is why the licensing position of the business that employs the worker is a question to ask directly, state by state, rather than a point to assume.

Three parties are involved in the arrangements these laws target: the business where the work is done (the host), the business that employs and pays the worker (the provider), and the worker. In an employer of record set-up, your company is the one directing the work, and the employer of record is the one on the payroll side. Both positions can carry obligations where a licensing Act applies.

The schemes are separate from each other. Each runs under its own Act, so the licence position has to be checked for every jurisdiction where work is performed, and the state where each worker actually works is the starting point.

Queensland requires every labour hire provider to hold a licence under the Labour Hire Licensing Act 2017, and it is an offence both to provide labour hire services without one and to use an unlicensed provider. The regulator is Labour Hire Licensing Queensland.

Penalties are substantial. From 1 July 2026, the Queensland penalties page puts the maximum at AUD 518,100 for a corporation, and AUD 178,571.80 or 3 years’ imprisonment for an individual, for providing services unlicensed or using an unlicensed provider.

The Act has exemptions, including where every supplied worker earns above the high income threshold under the Fair Work Act, which is AUD 190,100 from 1 July 2026. Other exemptions cover a sole director who is the only worker supplied, genuine in-house secondees, and group employees.

The high-income exemption needs care. It applies only where all the workers supplied earn above the threshold, so one supplied worker below it is enough to bring the arrangement back into scope. A business that expects to hire a mix of senior and mid-level staff in Queensland should not plan around the exemption.

The threshold also moves each year. It was AUD 183,100 for 2025-26 and rose to AUD 190,100 on 1 July 2026, so a worker paid AUD 185,000 sat above the line last year and below it this year without any change in pay. Any reliance on the exemption needs a fresh check every July.

For a Queensland host, the working rule is simple: before any worker supplied by another business starts, confirm with the provider that it holds a Queensland licence, or obtain a clear written explanation of why the arrangement falls outside the Act. Keep that record with the contract. More on how that threshold works across Australian employment law is in the AUD 190,100 high income threshold.

Victoria requires labour hire providers to be licensed under the Labour Hire Licensing Act 2018, and hosts must use only licensed providers. The scheme is run by the Labour Hire Authority.

The Labour Hire Authority site sets out the licensing duty for providers and the matching obligation on hosts. For an overseas business, the practical consequence is that a Victorian host carries its own exposure if the provider it relies on is not licensed.

Before relying on any older summary of who is covered, particularly in supply chains or construction, check the Authority’s current guidance.

For a host, the sensible habit is to confirm a provider’s licence status with the Authority before work starts in Victoria and to repeat the check at intervals rather than once. Keep a record of each check with the date, so the host can show what it knew and when.

A Victorian host’s position does not depend on where the host itself is incorporated. An overseas company whose staff are supplied to it in Victoria is a host for these purposes if the arrangement falls within the Act, so the question applies as much to a US or UK parent as to an Australian business.

South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory both have labour hire licensing Acts, so work performed there should be treated as within a licensing jurisdiction until advice says otherwise.

South Australia’s scheme sits under its own Labour Hire Licensing Act 2017. We have not confirmed the current coverage, compliance deadlines or penalty amounts from a South Australian government source, so check them with the South Australian regulator before relying on any figure.

In the ACT, licensing is governed by the Labour Hire Licensing Act 2020 and administered by WorkSafe ACT. The scope of the ACT scheme and its penalties should likewise be checked against the Act and the regulator’s current guidance for the specific arrangement.

For both jurisdictions, the questions are the same as elsewhere: does the arrangement involve supplying a worker to another business, which entity pays the worker, and does that entity hold the licence required where the work is done.

Roles in Canberra, including those serving federal government clients, should prompt the licensing question just as a hire in Brisbane or Melbourne would. The ACT is small, but it is a separate jurisdiction with its own Act, so the licence position there should be checked on its own terms rather than inferred from New South Wales, which surrounds it.

The quickest way to read the map is jurisdiction by jurisdiction:

• Queensland: Labour Hire Licensing Act 2017, with offences for providers and hosts.
• Victoria: Labour Hire Licensing Act 2018, with duties on providers and hosts.
• South Australia: Labour Hire Licensing Act 2017; confirm current scope locally.
• Australian Capital Territory: Labour Hire Licensing Act 2020, administered by WorkSafe ACT.
• New South Wales, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory: no scheme found in our September 2026 research.

As of September 2026, our research has not found a labour hire licensing scheme in New South Wales, Western Australia, Tasmania or the Northern Territory. Even so, check for any new scheme before assuming none applies to work performed only in those places.

A national labour hire licensing scheme was committed to in 2023, and its current status should be checked before any long-term planning. If it proceeds, it could change the position in every state, so a structure chosen today should be reviewed when national rules are announced.

Remote work complicates the map. An employee who moves from Sydney to Brisbane moves from a jurisdiction without licensing into one with it, and the same employment arrangement may need a licence in its new location. Build a check into the relocation process, alongside the payroll tax and workers’ compensation changes a move already triggers.

Same Job Same Pay is a federal rule, separate from state licensing, that lets the Fair Work Commission (FWC) order a labour hire employer to pay a supplied worker at least the rate in the host’s enterprise agreement. The rules sit in Part 2-7A of the Fair Work Act and apply in every state.

The FWC’s page on regulated labour hire arrangement orders explains that applications can come from the workers, the host’s employees, a union or the host, but not from the labour hire employer. The pay floor that results is called the protected rate of pay.

• Orders are not available where the host is a small business employer.
• Orders do not apply where the arrangement is wholly or mainly the provision of a service rather than the supply of labour.
• An exemption period, usually 3 months, applies before the protected rate takes effect.
• Training arrangements are excluded.

For most overseas companies hiring their first Australian employees, the host has no enterprise agreement, so there is no host rate to match. The question becomes live once your business has an enterprise agreement covering Australian staff doing similar work.

Same Job Same Pay does not replace licensing, and licensing does not answer Same Job Same Pay. A provider can be licensed and still be subject to an order, and an order can be sought in a state with no licensing scheme at all, such as New South Wales. Treat the two as separate items on the compliance checklist.

Ask the provider, in writing, how it approaches labour hire licensing in each state where your people will work, and ask for evidence you can verify with the relevant state regulator.

• Which entity is the legal employer, and in which states does that entity hold a labour hire licence?
• How does the provider decide whether a given arrangement falls within a state’s definition?
• What happens if a worker relocates into Queensland, Victoria, South Australia or the ACT?
• How would a Same Job Same Pay application be handled, and who bears any resulting pay difference?

Employer of Record Australia acts as the legal employer of your staff in Australia, and we will answer these questions for the specific states in your hiring plan rather than in general terms. The wider set of checks is in questions to ask before signing an Australian EOR, and the model itself is explained in employer of record for Australian hires.