Right to work in Australia: VEVO and visa checks for care employers

Before a care worker can start a shift, a provider has to answer two separate questions. Can this person legally work in Australia? And are they safe and qualified to work with the people in your care? These are different checks with different sources, and confusing them is a common audit gap.

Right to work is confirmed through documents and, for non-citizens, the Visa Entitlement Verification Online (VEVO) service run by the Department of Home Affairs. Worker screening (police certificates, NDIS Worker Screening Clearances, working with children checks) is a separate process entirely. This guide covers the right to work side: who needs what, how VEVO works for employers, and what to keep on file.

Citizens and permanent residents versus visa holders

Right to work falls into a few clear groups:

• Australian citizens have an unrestricted right to work. You confirm status with documents, not VEVO.
• New Zealand citizens are granted a Special Category visa (subclass 444) automatically on arrival, which carries unrestricted work rights for as long as they remain a New Zealand citizen. You can confirm this with their New Zealand passport or through VEVO.
• Australian permanent residents also have full work rights. A permanent visa carries no work restriction.
• Temporary visa holders may have full work rights, limited work rights (for example a cap on hours), or no work rights at all, depending on the visa and its conditions.

For citizens and permanent residents, the Department of Home Affairs notes that acceptable evidence includes an Australian passport, a citizenship certificate with photo identification, or a full Australian birth certificate with photo identification. A current passport that shows the holder is a citizen is the simplest single document.

For temporary visa holders, the document alone is not enough. Visas are electronic, conditions change, and a person can hold a visa that does not permit the work you are offering. That is where VEVO comes in.

What VEVO does, and what it does not

VEVO is a free online service from the Department of Home Affairs that lets visa holders, employers and other organisations check current visa details and conditions directly against departmental records.

For an employer, a VEVO check confirms:

• whether the person currently holds a valid visa
• whether that visa permits work in Australia
• any work conditions, such as a limit on hours or a restriction to a particular employer
• when the visa expires

What VEVO does not tell you is anything about a worker's criminal history, suitability to work with vulnerable people, or qualifications. It is a right to work check, not a screening check. A worker can have a flawless visa and still need an NDIS Worker Screening Check or a working with children check before they go near a client.

Using VEVO for organisations

Employers and labour hire intermediaries can check a worker's visa details through the organisation version of VEVO. According to the Department of Home Affairs, the process generally runs like this:

• Register an ImmiAccount and register your organisation for VEVO.
• Get the visa holder's permission before you check their details. You cannot check a person's visa without their consent.
• Run the check using identifiers the worker provides, such as their passport details and visa grant or transaction reference numbers.
• Save the result as a record that you checked the person's work rights on a given date.

The service is free. The worker's consent and accurate identifiers are the two things you need to complete a check. VEVO returns current information only, so a result reflects the visa position at the moment you run it, not a guarantee of future status.

Why one check at hire is not enough

For permanent residents and citizens, a single confirmation at hire is usually the end of it. For temporary visa holders it is the start, not the finish.

Temporary visas expire. Conditions can change. A worker who had full work rights when you hired them might move onto a bridging visa, hit a work hour cap, or have a visa lapse. If the worker keeps working past expiry and you have not re-checked, you can be exposed even though the original check was clean.

Sound practice for temporary visa holders:

• record the visa expiry date at onboarding
• re-run VEVO before that date, and periodically through a long engagement
• keep a dated record of every check, so you can show a continuous chain

This matters because the law puts the obligation on the employer, not the worker. It is a criminal offence to allow a non-citizen to work without permission, and the Department of Home Affairs sets out the work-related contraventions and penalties that can apply per worker. The defence available to employers is having taken reasonable steps to verify work rights, and a documented VEVO check is the clearest evidence of that. The Migration Act 1958 was further strengthened by the Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Act 2024, which added new offences around coercing or exploiting temporary visa holders.

Record-keeping for audits

Whether the issue is an immigration inquiry or a care sector audit, the question is the same: can you show, with dated evidence, that you confirmed each worker's right to work before they started and kept it current?

Keep on file:

• the document used to establish citizenship or permanent residence, or the VEVO result for visa holders
• the date each check was run and the result
• the recorded visa expiry date for temporary visa holders, plus any re-check dates
• the worker's consent to the VEVO check

Right to work records sit alongside screening, qualifications and training in a worker's overall compliance picture. For the full list a new starter needs, see documents to start working in care, and for how this fits into hiring, the care worker onboarding workflow. Right to work is especially worth getting right for overseas trained care workers, where visa status and qualifications both need careful handling.

Where Koora fits

Koora is a Career Passport platform that consolidates a worker's reviewed credentials and monitors their compliance status. Right to work evidence can live alongside screening, qualifications and training so a provider sees a single current-state view rather than chasing documents across spreadsheets and inboxes.

Koora pre-clears what it can: it reviews documents and verifies certain items at source, such as AHPRA registration and state working with children checks. Right to work confirmation through VEVO remains the provider's own check, made with the worker's consent, and the legal duty to sight evidence and decide stays with the provider. Koora gives you a clear, dated place to hold the record and a status view as documents move, but it does not replace your obligation to verify and decide. To see how the broader compliance view works, read what is a Career Passport.