There is no separate minimum wage for international students in Australia — your rate depends on the award or registered agreement that covers your job. If no award or registered agreement covers you, the National Minimum Wage applies, and as of 1 July 2026 that is $26.44 an hour or $1004.90 a week. On top of the right rate, you must receive a payslip within one working day of pay day that lists your employer's details, the pay period, your gross and net pay, and the hourly figures that explain how the total was reached.
Is there a separate minimum wage for international students in Australia?
No. You keep the same entitlements and protections under the Fair Work Act as other employees, regardless of your migration status, according to the Fair Work Ombudsman's international students fact sheet. The same principle is stated more broadly on the agency's visa protections page: visa holders and migrant workers have the same workplace entitlements and protections as all other employees in Australia, whatever their migration status.
What follows from that is practical rather than theoretical. "You're a student", "you're on a visa" and "you agreed to a lower rate" are not answers an employer can give once your pay falls below the floor that applies to your job. An agreement to work for less does not switch the entitlement off, and the rate does not become negotiable because the work suits your study timetable. The analysis always runs the same way: identify the instrument that covers your role, then check what that instrument says you must be paid for the hours and times you actually worked.
Which minimum rate applies to your job?
Start with the award. For most employees, the minimum wage is set by the award that covers their industry or occupation, and the Fair Work Ombudsman's minimum wages page is the place to begin that check. Café and restaurant work, retail, cleaning, security and clerical work each tend to sit under their own award, and awards are written around classifications — not job titles — so two people doing similar-looking tasks can land on different rates depending on duties and qualifications.
If you are covered by an award or registered agreement, you are entitled to its minimum pay rates, including penalty rates and allowances, and those can sit above the national figure. Casual loading, weekend and public holiday penalties and late-night allowances frequently move the hourly amount well clear of the base rate, which is why comparing your pay against a single headline number can be misleading. Both a badly underpaid worker and a correctly paid one can be earning "more than $26.44 an hour"; the test is whether the award rate for your classification, plus the loadings and penalties you were owed, adds up to what landed in your account.
Employees not covered by an award or registered agreement fall back on the National Minimum Wage — the minimum pay rate provided by the Fair Work Act 2009 — which is $26.44 per hour or $1004.90 per week as of 1 July 2026.
One more reason to re-check each year: the Fair Work Commission reviews both the National Minimum Wage and award minimum rates annually, and most changes begin on the first full pay period on or after 1 July. If your rate has not moved after 1 July, it is worth asking why, rather than assuming your employer's payroll is current.
What does a Fair Work payslip have to show?
A payslip has to be given to you within one working day of pay day — including when you are on leave — and it must be either electronic or hard copy, per Fair Work's guidance on pay slips. The same page sets out what the document has to contain.
| Required on your payslip | What to check |
|---|---|
| Employer's name and your name | Both names should appear, so the document can be tied to the correct employing entity. |
| Employer's Australian Business Number (if applicable) | Useful where several trading names or a labour-hire chain are involved. |
| Pay period | The dates the payment actually covers. |
| Date of payment | When the money was paid, not when the period ended. |
| Gross and net pay | The total before deductions and the amount that reached your account. |
| If paid hourly: the ordinary hourly rate, the number of hours worked at that rate, and the total amount of pay at that rate | Compare the hourly rate against your award rate, and the hours against your actual shifts. |
Those hourly lines are the ones that matter most for underpayment. A payslip showing a single lump sum under "wages" leaves you unable to see whether casual loading was applied, whether overtime or penalty hours are recorded at the right rate, or whether your ordinary hours were quietly averaged down. If any required line is missing, ask for it in writing before worrying about how to escalate.
Employers take a real risk here. Fair Work Inspectors can issue an infringement notice where an employer fails to include the right information, fails to issue payslips at all, or issues them outside that one-working-day window, and it is unlawful for an employer to give a payslip it knows to be false or misleading. In practice that means a record which omits penalty hours, misdescribes classification, or shows a "training" rate for productive work is a compliance problem for the employer, not a document you have to accept.
What if you are paid in cash?
Cash on its own is not the warning sign. Under the international students fact sheet, your employer may pay you in cash as long as tax has been taken from your earnings and sent to the Australian Taxation Office, and generally you should also be receiving super. Check your payslip every time you are paid to confirm that has happened; the requirement to receive a payslip does not depend on whether payment arrives by bank transfer or in an envelope.
"Cash in hand", though, means something narrower and illegal: cash payments where tax has not been taken out. If you are being offered a lower hourly rate on the basis that it will not be declared, that arrangement is unlawful, and it also removes the paper trail you would need later to show what you were owed. Keeping your own record of shifts, times and hours is not a substitute for a correct payslip, but it makes a dispute far easier to resolve.
Can you report underpayment without risking your visa?
Yes. Fair Work states plainly in its international students fact sheet that you cannot get into trouble or have your visa cancelled for contacting the agency to ask about your pay or other workplace rights. There is also no work-rights precondition to being helped: if you are a migrant worker, you can ask Fair Work for help recovering your minimum entitlements even if, under the Migration Act, you have breached your visa conditions, do not have work rights, or do not have the right to be in Australia.
The specific visa-protection arrangement has changed recently. The Assurance Protocol between the Fair Work Ombudsman and the Department of Home Affairs has been paused while two pilots run — the Strengthening Reporting Protections Pilot and the Workplace Justice Visa Pilot — and this is set out on the visa protections page. Under the Strengthening Reporting Protections Pilot, Home Affairs will not cancel a person's visa even where they have breached a work-related visa condition, provided certain eligibility criteria and conditions are met. Whether those criteria cover your situation is a question for Fair Work before you decide how to proceed; the source describes the criteria without listing them here.
One distinction removes a common fear. Your employer cannot cancel your visa, even if you have breached your visa conditions; only the Department of Home Affairs grants, refuses or cancels visas, as the same page explains. A threat to "have your visa cancelled" is therefore not a power any employer holds. To talk through your situation, the Fair Work Infoline is 13 13 94.
What this page does not settle
Student visa work-hour limits, including visa condition 8105, are a Department of Home Affairs matter and are not covered by the sources used here — check directly with Home Affairs for current work conditions on your visa. Junior rates and casual loadings are set award by award, and the material above gives only the National Minimum Wage headline, so use the Fair Work Pay and Conditions Tool to get the specific award rates for your classification. General information only; it is not personal legal, migration, tax or financial advice.