The Aged Care Industry Labour Agreement Explained: How Providers Actually Get One

This article sits inside a three-part series. If you want the worker-side view of ACILA eligibility, our guide on how a Certificate III care worker gets sponsored on a 482 covers that in full. If you are a worker trying to check whether a specific employer can sponsor you, our guide on which aged care employers can sponsor you and how to check is the companion piece. This article is the mechanics: how a provider actually obtains an agreement.

What the Agreement Covers, and What It Does Not

ACILA covers three direct care occupations and no others.

Step One: The Memorandum of Understanding

This is the stage that takes the time, and it is the stage almost no published guidance explains properly.

Three unions are parties to ACILA arrangements: the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, the Health Services Union, and the United Workers Union. Which one or ones you approach depends on three variables: the occupation group, whether the service is residential or home care, and the state or territory where the care is delivered.

The combinations are not intuitive. The Department of Health has published the breakdown, and it is worth setting out in full because getting it wrong wastes weeks.

A provider operating across several states may need MoUs involving different combinations of unions. A Queensland residential provider is dealing with four unions. A Northern Territory home care provider is dealing with one.

The MoU can be entered into by the employer as a single entity, or by a geographically distinct group of facilities, which gives larger organisations some flexibility in how they structure the arrangement.

Union Contact Points

Confirm the current contact address on each union's website before you send initial correspondence, as details can change.

Labour Market Testing Happens Inside the Union Negotiation

This is the most misunderstood feature of ACILA and the one that catches out providers who assume standard sponsorship rules apply.

Under the standard 482 pathway, labour market testing means advertising the role, usually for at least 28 days, and keeping evidence. Under ACILA, labour market testing is treated as satisfied while the provider is party to a current MoU and the unions have not raised concerns about the provider's recruitment practices.

That does not make it easier. It relocates the test into the union conversation, where the standard is broader than posting a job advertisement. The objective is to establish that all reasonable measures have been taken to fill vacancies from the existing domestic workforce. In practice the unions look for evidence such as:

• Offering additional hours to existing part-time employees before recruiting from overseas
• Assessing casual workers for conversion to permanent employment, where suitable
• Implementing predictable rosters with set hours so people can reliably access work
• Creating development and training opportunities for existing staff that support progression

A provider that has not done these things will find the MoU conversation difficult, and reasonably so. The design intent is that overseas recruitment is a response to genuine shortage rather than a substitute for improving conditions.

Why the Agreement Count Is Lower Than You Would Expect

As at 30 June 2025 there were 132 Aged Care Industry Labour Agreements in effect nationally, providing capacity for more than 30,000 direct care workers. Against the thousands of aged care providers operating in Australia, that is a small number. The MoU requirement is the reason. It is a real negotiation with a real counterparty, and many providers either do not start it or do not finish it.

Step Two: The Labour Agreement Request

Once the MoU is signed, the provider lodges a labour agreement request through ImmiAccount, attaching the signed MoU. The request must specify which occupations the provider wants to nominate and how many visas it is seeking. That number needs thought in advance, because it sets the ceiling.

The Department assesses the genuineness of the MoU and either approves or refuses access on that basis.

Step Three: The Two Versions of the Agreement, and Why It Matters Enormously

This is the single most consequential detail in the entire arrangement, and it is almost never mentioned in worker-facing content.

If you are a worker, this is the question to ask. If you are a provider, it is the decision to make deliberately, because Option 1 offers no retention benefit at the end of four years. Our guide on how workers should check an employer's sponsorship arrangement covers how this question can be raised in the interview conversation.

What Providers Get Under the Agreement

The Concessions, Set Against the Standard Pathway

What This Means If You Are Already Working in Aged Care

If you hold a student visa or a Subclass 485 graduate visa and you are working in a care role, the practical implications are fairly direct.

Your Certificate III in Individual Support meets the occupation requirement. If you completed it in Australia, you do not need a skills assessment, which removes months from the process. The English requirement is achievable for most people who have completed vocational study here. What you cannot supply yourself is the agreement.

So the useful conversation with your employer is more specific than asking whether they sponsor. Ask whether they hold an ACILA, whether it is Option 1 or Option 2, and if they do not hold one, whether they have ever approached the relevant union. If the answer to the last question is no, you now know which union to name, and that specificity sometimes moves a conversation that would otherwise stall. Our detailed guide on the 482 visa pathway for Cert III aged care workers covers the full worker-side view.

One Thing to Be Careful About

If you are ever pressured into an arrangement of this kind, our guide on reporting employer exploitation without risking your visa covers the safe channels for raising it.

Realistic Timelines

For a worker, the planning implication is that a provider starting from nothing is unlikely to have an agreement in place quickly. Do not build a visa strategy around an agreement that has not been signed.