Aged Care Job Ads Promising Visa Sponsorship: How to Spot the Fake Ones
Search for aged care work in Australia and you will find thousands of ads carrying some version of the same line. Visa sponsorship available. Sponsorship for the right candidate. 482 sponsorship offered. Most of them are not scams. That is the part nobody tells you, and it matters, because the advice to simply avoid anything that mentions sponsorship would have you ignore the real opportunities too.
Aged Care Gives You a Decisive Public Test That Almost No Other Industry Has.
What you need is a test that separates the real ads from the fake ones. Aged care gives you one that works, because sponsorship capacity in this sector is a yes or no fact you can look up, not a judgement call.
If an aged care employer is advertising 482 sponsorship and does not hold an aged care industry labour agreement, that sponsorship does not exist, whatever the person who wrote the ad believes.
The Ordinary 482 Route Is Simply Not Available for Direct Care Occupations.
Aged care direct care occupations are not on the Core Skills Occupation List. For a carer, a personal care assistant or a nursing support worker, sponsorship runs through the Aged Care Industry Labour Agreement, which an employer has to negotiate and sign with the Government before it can nominate anybody.
And it is a short list.
Roughly 176 employers held an aged care industry labour agreement in mid 2026, against roughly 5,276 registered aged care providers in Australia. About three in a hundred.
Looking at a Sponsorship Ad and Not Sure Whether It Is Real? Send Us the Details and We Will Tell You What the Public Record Shows.
Whether the advertiser actually holds an aged care industry labour agreement, whether the terms you have been offered are lawful, and whether anything that has already happened puts you at risk, all turn on the specifics. We check for free, and if the answer is that it is not real, we will say so plainly.
How to Run It
- Get the legal entity name and ABN. Search the business name on the free ABN Lookup at abr.business.gov.au. The name on the job ad is usually a brand, not the entity on the agreement.
- Open the Department of Home Affairs list of current labour agreements. It is free, it is public, and it is updated at the end of each month.
- Search that entity name. Look for the agreement type Industry, Aged Care, and check the end date has not passed.
- If it is there with a future end date, the employer has the legal capacity to sponsor. That is not a promise of a job, but the ad is at least possible.
- If it is not there, ask the advertiser directly which labour agreement they hold. The answer, or the silence, tells you everything.
We walk through that list in full, including the five things being on it does not prove and the other registers worth checking, in our aged care sponsor list guide. If you want to understand what the agreement itself involves, the ACILA explainer covers it.
Three Kinds of Ad, and Only One of Them Is a Crime
Running the test will sort ads into three groups. They need different responses, and lumping them together is why people either get burned or give up entirely.
The Mistaken Ad
A recruiter or a small provider writes "visa sponsorship available" because they have heard aged care is short staffed and assume sponsorship follows. They have no agreement, they have never looked into one, and they are not trying to deceive anyone.
There is no crime here and often no bad intent. There is still a cost to you, because you can spend months in a role on the strength of a promise that was never deliverable. Treat a mistaken ad as a no, politely, and move on.
The Bait Ad
A real job at a real provider, where sponsorship is dangled as something that will happen later. Work hard, prove yourself, and we will look at sponsoring you.
Sometimes this is sincere. Often it is a retention tactic aimed at someone whose visa is running down and who will therefore accept conditions an Australian worker would not.
The question that separates the two is specific and you are entitled to ask it: have you started the labour agreement process, and where is it up to? A provider genuinely heading for an agreement will be in discussions with a union and will be able to say so. A provider using the word as a leash will change the subject. We cover that situation in detail in our guide on the employer who says sponsorship is coming later.
The Paid Ad
Money changes hands for the job offer, the nomination or the sponsorship itself. This is the one that is against the law, and the law is more protective of you than most people realise.
The Money Rule, and Which Way It Points
Section 245AR of the Migration Act prohibits asking for, receiving, offering or providing a benefit in return for a sponsorship related event. Criminal and civil penalties apply, and a benefit is not limited to cash.
The Person Asking You for Money Is the One Committing the Offence.
You are not in trouble for having been asked, and in most cases you are not in trouble for having paid.
Separately, the Migration Regulations prevent an employer passing certain sponsorship costs to the worker at all, and an agreement in which you consent to repay them does not make it lawful.
The prohibition runs in one direction: against the employer, agent or recruiter who demands the payment. Not against you.
Who Must Pay What
| Cost | Who Must Pay It |
|---|---|
| Skilling Australians Fund levy | The employer. Recovering it from you, directly or by wage deduction, is unlawful. |
| Sponsorship and nomination application fees | The employer. These cannot be transferred to you regardless of any written agreement. |
| Migration agent fees for the sponsorship or nomination | The employer. |
| Recruitment and advertising costs | The employer. |
| Your own visa application charge | You. |
| Your medicals, police checks and English test | You. |
| Migration agent fees for your own visa application | You, and this is legitimate. |
Clawback Agreements Are Not Enforceable Just Because You Signed Them
A common version of this is a contract saying you must repay sponsorship costs if you leave within two or three years. Costs the employer is legally required to carry cannot be recovered from you by agreement, by deduction or by any other route. If you have signed something like this, it does not make the arrangement lawful and it does not mean you owe the money. Our page on that is at employer wants you to pay sponsorship costs.
One More Thing Changed in Your Favour on 1 July 2024
The old offence that applied to visa holders who breached their work conditions was repealed, specifically so that people could report exploitation without the report itself putting them at risk. That does not make every situation safe, and it does not mean a visa can never be affected, but the particular trap that kept people silent for years is gone. The practical detail is at report employer exploitation without risking your visa.
Eight Patterns Worth Walking Away From
None of these on its own proves anything. Two or more together, and you are almost certainly looking at the third kind of ad.
| Pattern | What It Usually Means |
|---|---|
| A fee to be matched with a sponsor | There is no matching service. Sponsorship capacity is a public fact you can check for free. |
| A fee for the job offer or the nomination | This is the conduct section 245AR prohibits. Walk away and keep the messages. |
| Payment to a personal bank account | No legitimate provider or agency takes recruitment money into an individual account. |
| A guaranteed visa, or guaranteed permanent residence | Nobody can guarantee a decision. Any guarantee is either ignorance or a lie. |
| Pressure and a short deadline | Urgency exists to stop you running the two minute check. That is its only purpose. |
| The advertiser cannot name the agreement | Ask which labour agreement they hold. A real sponsor knows. Vagueness here is the single most reliable signal on this list. |
| Contact only by messaging app, no company email domain | Legitimate recruitment leaves a paper trail at a verifiable business. |
| A repayment or clawback agreement for sponsorship costs | Unlawful as described above, and a strong indicator of how the rest of the arrangement will go. |
The Other Scam, Which Looks Nothing Like a Job Ad
There is a second pattern aimed at the same people, and it does not involve an employer at all.
Scammers Are Impersonating Senior Department Officers, Offering Help With Visa Applications and Asking for Money to Speed Up Processing.
The advice given was direct: hang up or delete the message, contact the Department through its official website, check whether anything is genuine by looking at your own ImmiAccount, and call back only on a number you have found yourself rather than one you were given.
If an agent rather than an official is involved, check them before you check anything else. Only registered migration agents and Australian legal practitioners may give immigration assistance, and the register is public and free. A common version of this is that the person advising you is not the person who is registered. Our guide is at how to check a migration agent.
The Registers That Help, and the One That Does Not Exist Yet
Three public sources are worth running an employer through, and it is worth knowing what the fourth would give you if it existed.
| Source | What It Gives You |
|---|---|
| List of current labour agreements, Home Affairs | Whether the employer can sponsor in aged care at all. The decisive check. |
| Register of sanctioned sponsors, Australian Border Force | Whether a sponsor has been sanctioned for breaching sponsorship obligations, covering breaches since 18 March 2015. A name here is a serious finding. Absence proves little. |
| ABN Lookup | Whether the business exists, its legal entity name, and whether the ABN is active. Thirty seconds, and it catches invented employers. |
| A public list of prohibited employers | Does not appear to be available. See below. |
That last row is worth explaining. Since 1 July 2024 the Government has been able to declare an employer prohibited, which bars it from employing more migrant workers for a period where it has seriously, deliberately or repeatedly broken the law. Commentary on the reforms indicated that the names of barred employers would be published. We could not locate a public list of prohibited employers, and the Border Force overview of the regime does not point to one.
So for now the sanctioned sponsors register is the closest thing you have to a conduct check, and it only captures sponsorship obligation breaches. It will not tell you that an employer has been declared prohibited, and it will not tell you that an employer underpays.
If You Have Already Paid
A lot of people reading this have already handed over money. The useful thing to say is not that you should have known better.
What to Do Now
- Keep everything. Messages, receipts, bank transfers, the job ad itself, screenshots of any profile or page that has since disappeared. Evidence is the only asset you have here.
- Understand your position. The offence is committed by the person who asked for or received the benefit. Being the person who paid does not make you the offender.
- Do not pay more to fix it. The second request, framed as a processing fee, a government charge or a refund fee, is part of the same pattern.
- Check whether anything was actually lodged. Your ImmiAccount shows what exists in your name. If nothing was lodged, nothing was lodged, whatever you were told.
- Get advice before you confront anyone, particularly if you are currently employed by them or your visa depends on them.
If the person who took the money was acting as a migration agent without being registered, that is a separate problem and a reportable one. If the person who took it was your employer, the exploitation protections are the relevant route and they are stronger than they were two years ago.
The Whole Check, in One Place
- ABN Lookup. Confirm the business exists and get the legal entity name.
- Home Affairs list of current labour agreements. Search that entity name for an Industry, Aged Care agreement with a future end date.
- Register of sanctioned sponsors. Search the same entity name.
- Ask the advertiser which labour agreement they hold. Note whether they can answer.
- If an agent is involved, check the register before anything else.
- If you are asked for money at any point for the job, the nomination or the sponsorship, stop. That request is itself the answer.
- Write down the date you ran these checks. All of them change.
Seven steps, about fifteen minutes, and no cost. It will not find you a sponsor, but it will stop you spending a year on one that was never there.
Frequently Asked Questions
Seven Checks, Fifteen Minutes, and No Cost. If You Would Rather Have Someone Else Run Them, That Is Fine Too.
Send us the details of the employer or the offer and we will tell you what the public record actually shows, including whether they can sponsor in aged care at all. If the answer is that it is not real, we will say so plainly, and there is nothing to pay for that.
Written by
Founder and Editor, Aussie Migration Guide
Karan Rawat is the Founder and Editor of Aussie Migration Guide. With nearly 4 years of experience in SEO and digital content, including work with Australian migration law clients, he specialises in turning complex Australian visa rules, fees and eligibility criteria into clear, practical guides. Every article is checked against current official sources such as the Department of Home Affairs before it goes live. Karan is not a registered migration agent, and the content on this site is general information, not migration advice.