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A Department audit can happen at any time — with or without warning. Knowing what the Australian Border Force checks, and having your records in order, keeps most audits routine.
An employer sponsorship audit is a compliance check by the Australian Border Force that your business is meeting its sponsor obligations. To prepare, keep five years of records, make sure each sponsored worker’s pay and duties match the nomination, and report notifiable events within 28 days. Good records make most audits routine.
Auditors compare what you promised in the nomination against what is actually happening in the workplace.
The worker is paid at least the Core Skills Income Threshold ($76,515 for 2025–26) and the Annual Market Salary Rate for the role.
Conditions are no less favourable than an Australian doing the same job.
Employed only in the approved occupation, location, and hours.
Contracts, payslips, duties, training and travel-cost requests, retrievable on request.
The Skilling Australians Fund levy was paid and never deducted from the worker.
Advertising records on file where the stream required them.
You must tell Home Affairs about certain changes within 28 days — via ImmiAccount or email to the ABF.
The worker’s employment ends, or never starts.
A change to the worker’s duties, location, or salary.
Changes to your legal name, address, owners, directors, or structure.
The business enters administration, becomes insolvent, or ceases to exist.
Even when the underlying event is routine, a late notification is far better than none. Build it into your HR offboarding and role-change steps.
Record-keeping obligations can survive the end of employment by up to five years. Store these so you can produce five years of evidence quickly:
Employment contracts, payslips and earnings records for every sponsored worker.
Position descriptions proving the worker is in the nominated role.
SAF levy receipts and Labour Market Testing advertising evidence.
Copies of every notification you have sent the Department.
The single most common audit finding.
Or terms less favourable than local staff.
The worker doing different work than the nomination.
Evidence not retrievable on request.
Recovering the SAF levy or recruitment costs is unlawful.
You don’t need to wait for an audit to start. These six steps significantly reduce your compliance risk.
Check that every sponsored worker's contract, salary, hours, duties, and work location match what was approved in the nomination. Mismatches are the most common audit finding.
Keep payslips, employment contracts, position descriptions, labour market testing evidence, SAF levy receipts, travel-cost requests, and copies of every notification — retrievable quickly for at least five years.
Assign someone to report notifiable events to Home Affairs within 28 days via ImmiAccount or the ABF email. Build it into your HR offboarding and role-change steps.
Check the levy was paid at nomination and never deducted from the worker's pay. Recovering it is a breach.
Everyone who manages sponsored workers should understand the pay, duties, and notification rules — not just the person who lodged the nomination.
Spot-check a sample of sponsored workers against their nominations once a year. Fix gaps before the ABF finds them.
Enforcement escalates with the seriousness of the breach: a formal warning, then an infringement notice (indicatively up to around $15,840 per breach for an individual and $79,200 for a company), then civil penalties of up to roughly $396,000 per contravention. The ABF can also bar or cancel your sponsorship and publish your business name. These figures are indicative and indexed — we confirm current amounts for your situation.
We help Australian employers stay compliant — from Standard Business Sponsor approval to ongoing obligations and a full pre-audit review. If the ABF has already contacted you, we can help you respond.
The Australian Border Force (ABF), on behalf of the Department of Home Affairs, monitors approved sponsors. It checks compliance with your sponsor obligations through requests for information, site visits, and data-matching with agencies such as the ATO and Fair Work. A monitoring check can happen at any time while you are sponsoring a worker, and for a period after the sponsorship ends.
You must keep sponsorship records for at least five years, and some obligations continue for up to five years after the sponsorship ends. An audit can therefore review records well beyond a worker's current employment. The safest approach is a record system that can produce five years of pay, duties, and notification evidence quickly on request.
A notifiable event is a change you must report to Home Affairs within 28 days, usually through ImmiAccount or by email to the ABF. Examples include the worker's employment ending or never starting, a change in their duties, location or salary, and changes to your business structure, ownership, or solvency. Missing the 28-day window is itself a breach, so report late rather than not at all.
Enforcement escalates with severity. The ABF can issue a formal warning, then an infringement notice (up to around $15,840 per breach for an individual and $79,200 for a company), then pursue civil penalties of up to roughly $396,000 per contravention. It can also bar or cancel your sponsorship and publish your business name. Figures are indicative and indexed — confirm current amounts.
No. The Skilling Australians Fund levy and recruitment or sponsorship costs are the employer's responsibility and cannot be recovered from the sponsored worker, including by salary deduction. Passing these costs on is a breach of your obligations and a common audit finding. You can, however, ask the worker to pay their own visa application charge and personal document costs.
Check that each worker's contract, pay, hours, duties, and location match the approved nomination, build a system that produces five years of records on request, set a process to report notifiable events within 28 days, confirm the SAF levy was paid and not recovered from the worker, and brief your HR team. A short internal audit each year catches most issues before the ABF does.
Book a consultation for a proactive pre-audit review, or check your eligibility to sponsor for free — and know exactly where your business stands before the Department does.