Labour Hire Licence
Business Plan

Four schemes, and only one of them asks for a plan

Labour hire licensing is state and territory law. Four jurisdictions license: Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory. No scheme operates in New South Wales, Western Australia, Tasmania or the Northern Territory.

We would rather tell you this plainly than sell a document three regulators do not ask for:

So what do we write for the other three? The financial viability submission and a structured, evidenced response to the disclosure schedule — which is where applications actually stall. None of it is a legislated “plan”, and we will not describe it as one. South Australia is the interesting case: its fit and proper test is the only one of the four that examines business knowledge, experience and skills rather than just integrity and compliance history, so a written submission addressing that limb does real work even though no document is prescribed.

Victoria’s business compliance plan: what it has to do

The Labour Hire Authority is specific about the standard, and specific about what it will reject. The plan must explain how your operating model will ensure compliance with the legislation the Act lists, and in the Authority’s own words it “must be specific to your industry, workforce and business model”. The Authority warns that generic or templated plans may not be accepted, and that marketing-style plans may be rejected.

The minimum content is three things: the operating model; how that model meets your legal obligations in practice; and the key compliance controls, industry-specific.

• The operating model, described as it actually works How workers are engaged, who hosts them, what the contractual chain looks like, and where subcontracting sits in it

• Obligations mapped to practice Each legal obligation set against the actual control that discharges it — not a restatement of the obligation

• Industry-specific controls Award classification and payroll, induction, supervision on host sites, and the controls the Authority now attaches to high-risk industries

• Who makes decisions The nominated officer and every relevant person, including shadow and de facto directors and anyone deciding on a substantial part of the business

• Accommodation and deductions Where the business provides accommodation or transport, the addresses, the charges and the standards applied

• Payment practices Payroll service provider use, cash payment practices and worker deductions, which Victoria now requires in licensing transactions

The new standard licence conditions change what a plan has to cover. For licences granted after 1 June 2026 in horticulture, commercial cleaning, security, and meat and poultry processing, Victoria attaches standard conditions: limits on supplying independent contractors, subcontracting restricted to one tier, an Authority information sheet to all workers, reporting on payroll service provider use, restrictions on cash payments, personal protective equipment at no charge, and minimum accommodation standards in horticulture and meat and poultry processing. Existing licensees in those industries are being moved onto them progressively from late 2026. A plan written without them is already out of date.

Fit and proper, suitable, and who it reaches

Every scheme tests the people behind the business, and the reach is wider than most applicants expect.

Victoria’s test applies to the nominated officer and all relevant persons — directors including shadow and de facto directors, company secretaries, and anyone making decisions affecting the whole or a substantial part of the business. External accountants and lawyers are excluded. From 1 June 2026 the Authority weighs compliance across a wider set of laws, including bankruptcy, consumer protection, fair trading and corporate regulation, and applicants must declare whether any relevant person is controlled or substantially influenced by someone not already listed — a shareholder, an external adviser, a holding company, a spouse or a relative — even where the answer is no. Non-disclosure is itself a ground for refusal or cancellation.

Queensland requires the chief executive to be satisfied that each applicant, each proposed nominated officer and, for a corporation, the corporation and its executive officers are fit and proper persons, and that the business is financially viable. The statutory matters include character, compliance history, previous licensing action, convictions, insolvency, director disqualification — and whether the person is controlled or substantially influenced by someone who is not fit and proper.

What each scheme costs, and how long a licence lasts

The differences are large enough to change where a business licenses first.

The ACT is the most expensive scheme per year for a small provider, by a wide margin. A twelve-month maximum term and a single flat application fee of A$3,461 compares with roughly A$1,160 for a one-year Queensland Tier 1 licence and A$1,295.25 a year in Victoria’s Tier 1. South Australia is the structural outlier in the other direction: the licence never expires — but if the annual fee and report are not lodged, the Commissioner can issue a notice, and the licence is cancelled if the default is not made good within 28 days.

Who needs a licence — and the exemptions worth checking first

Each scheme defines the supply of workers slightly differently, and the differences decide whether you are caught.

• Queensland A person provides labour hire services if, in the course of carrying on a business, they supply a worker to another person to do work. Industry-neutral and very broad. Exemptions cover private employment agents, certain construction contractors engaging subcontractors, and prescribed classes — but a class can only be prescribed where supplying workers is not a dominant purpose of the business.

• Victoria Reaches further than Queensland. Beyond the core definition, it captures recruitment or placement businesses that also procure accommodation for the individuals, and providers of contractor management services. Seven classes are excluded by regulation, including secondees, workers within a group operating as one recognisable business, small bodies corporate supplying a director, public sector arrangements, students, vocational placements, and sole traders supplying only their own labour.

• South Australia Catches supply whether it is direct or indirect, whether the work is controlled by the provider or the host, and whether or not the worker is the provider’s employee. Registered group training organisations are outside the Act to the extent they supply apprentices and trainees, and the Commissioner can exempt a person or class by notice — with breach of an exemption condition carrying a A$10,000 maximum penalty.

• Australian Capital Territory The narrowest exemptions of the four. The Act provides only that a regulation may prescribe that a stated person is not a provider, and none appear in the current republication. A worker is supplied when they start work for the hirer.

Independent contractors and high-income earners are not a safe assumption anywhere. Queensland prescribes certain employees above the Fair Work high income threshold who are not covered by an industrial instrument as not being workers — but the carve-out is narrow and conditional. South Australia has a comparable high-income exclusion. Victoria does not rely on income at all. These are the provisions most often read too generously, and reading them too generously is what produces an unlicensed-operation exposure.

What happens if you operate unlicensed — including as a host

The penalties are serious, and in two jurisdictions they reach the business that uses an unlicensed provider as hard as the provider itself.

Checking the register is the statutory defence. Queensland, South Australia and the ACT each provide that it is a reasonable excuse, or an exception, that the provider was shown on the public register as a licence holder when the arrangement was entered into. If you are a host, the register check is not diligence theatre — it is the defence, and it needs to be dated and kept.

Reporting, after the licence is granted

A licence is the start of the obligation, not the end of it, and the cycles differ sharply.

• Queensland A report every six months, due within 28 days after each reporting period ends, with periods running from the grant date. Failure to report carries a maximum of 200 penalty units. Changes to a licensee must be declared within 14 days.

• Victoria An annual report through the licensing portal, within 28 days of the end of each reporting period, covering business address, relevant persons, turnover and operations, and compliance — including whether relevant persons remain fit and proper. Plus ongoing disclosure of investigations, proceedings, work health and safety notifications and workers compensation claims affecting relevant persons.

• South Australia An annual fee and report, on or before the last day of the grant month each year, covering contact details, worker numbers and industries, and compliance and enforcement history. Non-lodgement leads to a notice, and cancellation if not remedied within 28 days.

• Australian Capital Territory No periodic report at all. Obligations are event-driven: notice of a change of contact details or trading name within 7 days, notice as soon as possible of regulatory action in another jurisdiction, and compliance information on request.

New South Wales: worth watching, not yet law

There is no labour hire licensing scheme in New South Wales. A parliamentary committee recommended one, and in August 2026 the NSW Government said it was “examining all options including implementing its own labour hire licensing scheme”, while maintaining that its preference is for a nationally harmonised scheme. The committee suggested modelling any NSW scheme on Victoria’s.

What NSW has committed to, so far, is not licensing: a Labour Hire Code of Practice with penalties for non-compliant providers, a Migrant Workers’ Centre, and a supply chain compliance program.

If you supply workers in NSW, nothing is required of you today. If you are building compliance systems now, building them to the Victorian model is the hedge that costs least — and we write to that assumption where a client asks us to.

Victoria has one more tranche to come. The Labour Hire Authority has flagged that the final changes to the Victorian Act take effect “later in 2026” — clarifying what labour hire services are, covering supply-chain arrangements, and defining certain construction activities as labour hire in the Regulations. No commencement date has been published. Construction businesses that have never considered themselves labour hire providers should be watching that one closely.

Turnaround and price

A$1,400 incl GST at 10 to 12 working days, or 5 to 7 working days for 30% more and 1 to 2 working days for 50% more — chosen on the form. Choose the scheme on the form and the compliance sections are written to it.

We write the plan and the supporting narrative. Lodgement, and dealings with the regulator, remain with you or your lawyer. Where you need both a labour hire licence plan and a visa business plan, order both — they answer different regulators and neither substitutes for the other.

General information, current at October 2026. Labour hire licensing law changes frequently and by jurisdiction, and the Victorian and South Australian schemes both changed during 2026. We check the governing scheme at the date we write, and we say so in the document. Zeolla Solutions prepares documentation, research and reports — we are not a law practice and this is not legal advice. Fees and penalty amounts are indexed in most jurisdictions; confirm current figures with the regulator before you rely on them.