Pay for a job in Australia? Why it is illegal and what Kenyans can do

Tips · 2026-11-02 · 10 min read

A Kenyan woman reads her phone at a kitchen table in Nairobi, with an open notebook and a folder of papers beside her.

Paying an employer, or someone acting for one, to get a job or visa sponsorship in Australia is illegal, and New Zealand employers cannot charge you for a job either. If a message to a Kenyan applicant says "send money and the contract follows", the safest answer is to stop and check. This guide separates the costs a worker may genuinely meet from the payments that should never be made.

What the rules say about paying for sponsorship

Home Affairs is direct on this point: it is illegal for a person to pay an employer to sponsor them for a visa, including through salary deductions, and doing so can lead to visa refusal or cancellation, fines or imprisonment. You can read the wording on the Home Affairs cost of sponsoring page.

The Skills in Demand visa (subclass 482) adds a second layer. Applicants must not have asked for, offered, received or provided a benefit in return for visa sponsorship in the past 3 years. That means a payment can damage your own application long after the money has gone.

If you are still working out how sponsored routes work, our guide to moving to Australia from Kenya on a Skills in Demand (482) visa explains the visa itself before money enters the conversation.

Cash back and "refunds" after you arrive

Some demands arrive later. An employer may ask you to hand back part of your wages, or to pay a lump sum "to keep the job". Cashback schemes, where an employer unreasonably requires someone to pay them in exchange for a job, are illegal in Australia. The Fair Work Ombudsman's page for visa holders and migrants is the official place to read about your workplace rights.

Salary deductions deserve the same attention. A deduction that quietly repays a sponsorship cost is covered by the Home Affairs wording above, so check your payslip against the pay you were promised in writing.

New Zealand: no fees for a job

Immigration New Zealand says employers cannot charge you fees for a job or make you pay any of their recruitment costs, including indirectly through a third party. For the Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV), INZ will decline an application if the applicant or their agent offered or promised money to the employer, or its agent, in exchange for a job offer.

An AEWV employment agreement also cannot include unlawful deductions, a trial period or unacceptable bonding clauses. If you are weighing a New Zealand offer, read AEWV for Kenyans before you reply to any request for money. INZ's own page on protecting yourself from immigration scams sets out these rules.

Who pays what: a quick comparison

Cost or payment	Who it belongs to	What to do
Employer fee to become an approved 482 sponsor (AUD420)	The employer	Never accept a request to repay it
Employer fee to nominate for a 482 visa (AUD330)	The employer	Never accept a request to repay it
Skilling Australians Fund levy (AUD1200 a year for a small business, AUD1800 for others, on a 482 visa)	The employer, who must not pass it on to the visa applicant	Ask for any deduction to be explained in writing
Money paid to an employer for sponsorship or a job	Nobody: illegal in Australia	Stop and check the official pages
Fees for a job in New Zealand	Nobody: employers cannot charge them	Do not pay, directly or through a third party
English tests, health checks, police certificates, biometrics	The applicant, paid to the service concerned	Pay only through the official provider

The employer figures come from the same Home Affairs page, and are subject to stream and location, so check the current amounts there. The point of the table is the direction of the money: employer costs stay with the employer.

Costs that are the worker's own

Not every payment is a warning sign. Home Affairs says applicants pay other costs besides the visa charge, for English language tests, health checks, police certificates and biometrics. For scale, the Visa Pricing Table lists the base application charge for the subclass 482 visa at AUD4,015.00 in each stream. These are published government or provider charges, paid through an official route.

The difference is the destination of the money. A fee set by Home Affairs is paid on the official application. A clinic or test centre issues its own receipt. Neither involves sending cash to an employer or to a person who "arranges" the job.

Police clearance from Kenya

If a visa or an employer asks for a police certificate, Home Affairs describes the Kenyan document as a Police Clearance Certificate, linked to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and eCitizen. For a Kenyan citizen living in Kenya, the steps are to log in to eCitizen, choose the Police Clearance Certificate service, pick a fingerprinting area, choose a payment mode and pay, then take the C24, the invoices and the original birth certificate to that area. An SMS says when the certificate can be downloaded. Everything runs through your own eCitizen account, so there is no reason to hand the task to a middleman.

Warning signs in the messages you receive

Scamwatch lists these signs of job scams: unexpected contact on WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram, a quick hiring process with no interview, and being asked to pay a "recruitment fee" or for training materials before starting. Scamwatch also advises never sending your passport or identity documents to an employer or recruitment firm unless you are certain they are genuine. Its jobs and employment scams page has the full list.

Other points from Home Affairs are worth keeping beside your phone:

Anyone promising a visa, permanent residency or citizenship is misleading you.
Australia does not issue "work permits", visa labels or Labour Market Impact Assessments, so anyone offering one is running a scam.
You cannot work in Australia on an Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) or Visitor visa.
Emails claiming to be from the Department of Home Affairs whose address does not end in .gov.au are scams.

For New Zealand, official INZ email addresses end with immigration.govt.nz or mbie.govt.nz. INZ never asks for visa fees to be paid into a bank account; it accepts debit or credit card payment on its forms, or payment at an approved Visa Application Centre.

What to do if someone asks you for money

Pause the conversation. Do not send money, including by mobile money or a bank transfer, while you check.
Ask for the request in writing, with the full details of what the payment is for and who receives it.
Compare it with the Home Affairs and INZ pages linked above. If the payment goes to an employer or a go-between for the job or sponsorship, it is not a normal cost.
Check the helper. Anyone giving immigration assistance with an Australian visa must be a registered migration agent, a legal practitioner or an exempt person, and a registered agent has a Migration Agents Registration Number (MARN) listed on the MARA register. For New Zealand, advisers must be licensed with the Immigration Advisers Authority unless exempt.
Keep every message, receipt and screenshot, and be careful about which documents you send. Your passport details should go only to someone you have confirmed is genuine.
Read about your rights on the Fair Work Ombudsman and INZ pages above, and look for independent legal advice if money has already moved. We cannot promise any outcome or recovery.

Check the offer before you reply

A genuine employer can answer plain questions: the job title, the pay, who is sponsoring, and which visa is planned. For New Zealand, an AEWV job offer must be for at least 30 hours of work a week, from an accredited employer with an approved job check, and paid at least the market rate for the job. A vague offer that skips these details but asks for money fast is the reverse of that.

Browsing real listings helps you spot the difference. For example, this Sydney chef role shows how a clear ad reads, and our visa guides explain each route before you speak to anyone. Employers who sponsor carry their own costs: Employer Sponsored Jobs has a line-by-line guide to who pays for sponsorship, which is a useful second read.

Keep your own paperwork tidy while you wait. A clear CV you wrote yourself, such as one built with Build AI CV, means you are the one controlling what goes to employers, rather than a stranger collecting your details. Our note on criminal record checks for visa applicants explains why police certificates matter, and why they should go only through the right channel.

Common mistakes

Paying to "hold" a place. A deposit for a job or a sponsorship is the payment Home Affairs describes as illegal.
Treating a small amount as harmless. The rule does not depend on the size of the payment.
Paying a person rather than an official service. Visa charges, medicals and police certificates go to the organisation concerned.
Sending passport scans to a stranger. Scamwatch advises against it unless you are certain they are genuine.
Trusting a screenshot of a visa. A visa grant that cannot be found in VEVO is probably fake, and ImmiAccount is the only official website for applying for an Australian visa.
Believing a promise of residence. A temporary New Zealand visa does not mean residence will follow, and scammers often overstate the odds.

Frequently asked questions

Is it illegal to pay an employer for a job in Australia?

Home Affairs says it is illegal for a person to pay an employer to sponsor them for a visa, including through salary deductions. Doing so can lead to visa refusal or cancellation, fines or imprisonment, so the worker carries real risk as well as the employer.

Can a New Zealand employer ask me to cover its recruitment costs?

No. Immigration New Zealand says employers cannot charge you fees for a job or make you pay any of their recruitment costs, including indirectly through a third party. It will also decline an Accredited Employer Work Visa application if you or your agent offered or promised money for the job offer.

Which costs can a Kenyan applicant normally expect to pay themselves?

Home Affairs says applicants pay other costs besides the visa charge, such as English tests, health checks, police certificates and biometrics. These are paid to the test centre, clinic or government service involved, not to an employer or a go-between, and the official page for your visa should say which ones apply.

What if a recruiter says the payment is only a small service fee?

A small amount does not change the rule. If the money goes to an employer, or to someone acting for the employer, in return for a job or sponsorship, it falls inside what Home Affairs and Immigration New Zealand describe. Ask for the request in writing and check it against the official pages before paying anything.

Can anyone promise me an Australian visa if I pay?

No. Home Affairs states that anyone promising a visa, permanent residency or citizenship is misleading you, because the department alone decides. Treat a promise like this as a reason to stop and check the person, not as a reason to pay faster.

Key takeaways

Paying an employer to sponsor you is illegal in Australia, and can lead to visa refusal or cancellation.
New Zealand employers cannot charge you for a job, directly or through a third party.
Employer sponsorship costs stay with the employer; a worker's own costs are tests, medicals, certificates and the charges set by government.
Nobody can promise a visa, so a promise attached to a payment is a reason to stop.
Keep written records and check any helper against the official registers.

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