VISA Checklist — What You Need to Know

This page is a practical checklist for international students coming to Australia to study with a registered provider. It is not migration advice. In Australia, immigration assistance may only be given by a registered migration agent or an Australian legal practitioner. Check the OMARA register before taking advice from anyone.

What follows is the sequence, and the parts people most often get wrong.

Before you apply

Confirm the course is CRICOS-registered. Only a CRICOS-registered course at a CRICOS-registered provider can support a student visa. We are CRICOS provider 04242E and have exactly three CRICOS courses:

Nothing else on our scope is CRICOS-registered. In particular, neither dedicated cookery qualification is, so the culinary stream of SIT50422 is the only culinary route open on a student visa. If you are weighing the two streams, see the difference between the culinary and hotel management streams. Verify any provider's CRICOS registration on the government register rather than on their website.

One more scope point worth knowing before you commit: both diplomas are on our scope in Victoria only. That matters if you were planning to study in Sydney.

Understand the agent relationship. If you are using an education agent, they should have a written agreement with the provider and be recorded in PRISMS. Providers are required to publish a list of their agents. Ask us for theirs before you engage anyone. See contact.

Read the written agreement before you pay anything

This is the document that decides what you get back if things go wrong, and under the ESOS framework it must be entered into concurrently with or prior to the provider accepting your payment. It must be in plain English, and links to other pages may only supplement it, not replace its content. It must set out:

• all tuition fees and the periods they relate to, and the payment options available
• whether you may pay more than 50 per cent of your tuition fees before the course commences. That threshold is in the framework specifically, so a demand for more than half up front is something to look at rather than assume
• all non-tuition fees — reassessment, deferral, late payment and anything else
• refund terms: which amounts are repayable and which are not, the process for claiming, and who may receive a refund
• a plain-English explanation of what happens if the course is not delivered, including the role of the Tuition Protection Service
• the required Australian Consumer Law statement, which tells you the agreement does not remove your consumer-law rights

The provider must retain your written agreement and the receipts for two years after you cease to be an accepted student, so a copy exists on their side as well as yours. Keep yours anyway.

Your document set

• Confirmation of Enrolment (CoE), issued by the provider after you accept an offer and pay
• Overseas Student Health Cover (OSHC), required for the duration of your visa
• Passport, valid well beyond your intended stay
• Genuine Student evidence, as required by Home Affairs
• English language evidence, per the provider's and Home Affairs' requirements
• Financial capacity evidence
• Academic transcripts and any prior qualifications. Keep these, they may support credit transfer

On that last point: prior study may reduce your course through recognition of prior learning or credit transfer. RTOs must offer RPL under Standard 1.6 of the Outcome Standards for RTOs, and credit transfer is the separate process under Standard 1.7 — it recognises a unit you have already completed at any RTO, with no reassessment. Both are raised at the pre-training review, required under Standard 2.2 of the Outcome Standards for RTOs, before you enrol rather than after. RPL is a genuine assessment against the same evidence requirements as the taught unit. It is not a waiver, and it is not a shortcut around a competency you do not have. We first verify the evidence and equivalence, check that the units fit your training product, and check for licensing or regulatory restrictions before granting credit. See ASQA’s credit-transfer guidance.

A note on which Standard 2.2: two different instruments both have one. The Outcome Standards for RTOs, Standard 2.2, is the pre-enrolment suitability review that applies to every learner. The National Code 2018 also has a Standard 2.2, which is about assessing an overseas student's English, qualifications or work experience for course entry. Different instrument, different purpose.

After you arrive

Four administrative tasks, best done in the first fortnight:

1. Tax File Number, free from the ATO. Without it your employer withholds at the top rate
2. Bank account. Many banks let you open one before you fly
3. Unique Student Identifier (USI), free and generally required before a nationally recognised credential can be issued, unless an applicable exemption applies
4. Orientation, which the National Code requires your provider to give you, age and culturally appropriate, covering the support available

Find out at orientation who your named student contact is. Under Standard 6.5 the provider must designate a named member or members of staff as the official point of contact for overseas students, with access to current details of support services. It is a person, not a generic inbox, and knowing the name before you need it is worth more than finding it during a crisis.

The USI rule that stops certificates being issued

For nationally recognised training, a USI is generally required before your qualification or Statement of Attainment can be issued, unless an applicable exemption applies. We can explain the requirements for your enrolment. See the official USI exemption guidance. Creating a USI is free; recover an existing one rather than creating another.

Four things follow from that, and they all catch international students:

The USI must also never be printed on your qualification or statement of attainment, and an RTO should not be using it as its internal student number or exposing it in reports, because it is a government-related identifier under Australian Privacy Principle 9. If an exemption from the USI requirement ever applies to you, the RTO has to tell you before enrolment completes or training starts, whichever is first, that your results will not be accessible through the Commonwealth and will not appear on an authenticated VET transcript.

There is one narrow exemption: international students who complete all of their study outside Australia. Australian students studying overseas with an Australian provider still need a USI and can create one with an Australian passport.

The visa conditions that actually end enrolments

Three conditions cause most problems, and none of them is about paperwork at the border.

Work limits. Student visas restrict how much you may work while your course is in session, lifting during scheduled breaks. The figure has changed more than once recently, so read your own grant letter and check the current Home Affairs position. Unpaid and volunteer work can count. Breaching a work condition is a visa matter and the consequence falls on you, not your employer.

Course progress. You must maintain satisfactory progress. Taking too many shifts is the most common way students fail this.

Attendance. Relevant, but not in the same way for every provider — see the distinction below, which is worth getting right before you assume a rule applies to you.

Course progress is always monitored. Attendance may not be.

For a VET provider such as CHT, course progress monitoring is unconditional and applies now. Attendance monitoring is conditional — it applies only where ASQA has imposed it as a condition of the provider's registration. So "attendance is a visa condition" is not the whole picture: whether your provider is required to monitor and report your attendance depends on its registration conditions. Ask, rather than assume either way.

Where course progress is concerned, Standard 8.9 requires a VET provider to have and implement a documented policy and process covering:

• the requirements for satisfactory course progress, including policies that promote academic integrity and address misconduct
• recording and assessing course progress
• identifying students at risk of unsatisfactory progress
• the detail of the intervention strategy used to help at-risk students in sufficient time to actually recover
• how it determines that a student has failed to meet satisfactory progress

The intervention strategy is the part students should ask about, because it is the mechanism that exists to help you before a report is made rather than after.

Where attendance monitoring does apply, Standards 8.10 to 8.12 set the shape of it: the minimum attendance requirement is 80 per cent of scheduled contact hours, and the provider's policy must specify how minimum attendance is calculated, how attendance is recorded, the intervention strategy for a student absent for more than five consecutive days without approval or at risk of dropping below 80 per cent, and how it determines that attendance has become unsatisfactory.

There is also a concession that is not widely known. Under Standard 8.15, for a VET course the provider may decide not to report a student for breaching attendance requirements if the student is still attending at least 70 per cent of scheduled contact hours and is maintaining satisfactory course progress. It is a discretion, not a right, and it depends on progress being satisfactory — which is another reason progress is the thing to protect.

What the provider must do before it reports you

This is the part students do not know, and it is worth knowing before you are in trouble. Under Standards 8.13 and 8.14 of the National Code, before reporting a student for unsatisfactory course progress or attendance a provider must:

1. give written notice as soon as practicable of its intention to report
2. inform you of the reasons for the report
3. advise you of your right to appeal within 20 working days
4. report only after the internal and external complaints processes are complete and the decision supports the provider, or you have chosen not to use them, or you have withdrawn from them in writing

You are not reported silently. Reporting you in PRISMS before the internal appeal window has closed is itself a breach. Separately, Standard 8.5 requires the provider to tell you before the course starts what satisfactory course progress and, where applicable, attendance actually require in each study period, so you should already have that in writing.

If work is starting to affect study, raise it with student support early. See the student toolkit. Providers have obligations to support you; they cannot help with a problem they do not know about.

If you need more time: Standard 8.16

A provider must not extend the duration of your enrolment unless one of three things applies: there are compassionate or compelling circumstances, assessed on demonstrable evidence; the provider has implemented or is implementing an intervention strategy because you are at risk of not meeting course progress requirements; or an approved deferral or suspension has occurred under Standard 9. If the duration is extended, the provider must advise you to contact Immigration about the potential effect on your visa. Extension is not a favour that can simply be requested, and it is not something a provider can grant casually.

Changing providers in your first six months

Students are often told this is impossible. It is restricted rather than impossible, and the rule is specific. Under Standard 7, a provider must not knowingly enrol a student seeking to transfer from another provider's course before the student has completed six months of their principal course, except where:

• the releasing provider or the course has ceased to be registered
• the releasing provider has had a sanction imposed that prevents you continuing
• the releasing provider has agreed to the release and recorded the date and reason in PRISMS
• a government sponsor considers the change to be in your best interests and has given written support

The third of those is the usual route, so the practical question is how your current provider handles release requests. Standard 7.2 requires it to have a documented policy setting out how you lodge a written request, including providing a valid enrolment offer from another provider; the circumstances in which a transfer will be granted — including where you would be reported for unsatisfactory course progress, where there is evidence of compassionate or compelling circumstances, where the provider has failed to deliver as agreed, where your reasonable expectations have not been met, or where there is evidence you were given misleading advice; the reasonable grounds on which it may refuse; and a reasonable timeframe for assessing and replying.

Two further protections. If a release is granted it must be at no cost to you (Standard 7.4), and the releasing provider must tell you to contact Immigration about visa implications. If refusal is intended, Standards 7.5 and 7.6 require the provider to tell you in writing why, and to advise you of your right to use the complaints and appeals process within 20 working days — and it must not finalise the refusal in PRISMS until that process concludes in its favour, you decline to use it, or you withdraw from it.

Students under 18

If you are under 18 and the provider takes responsibility for approving your accommodation, support and general welfare arrangements, Standard 5 imposes a specific set of duties on it. The provider must nominate the approval dates and advise Immigration; ensure working with children clearances for any adults involved in the arrangements; verify the accommodation before approval and at least every six months afterwards; include welfare management in its critical incidents policy; and keep parent, guardian and emergency contact details current.

The deadlines are short. If the provider can no longer approve your welfare arrangements it must notify your parents or legal guardians immediately and advise Immigration within 24 hours. If it cannot contact you and has concerns for your welfare, Standard 5.5 requires it to make all reasonable efforts to locate you, including notifying police and the relevant agencies as soon as practicable. And under section 19(1A)(a) of the ESOS Act, the PRISMS reporting deadline for non-commencement and termination is shortened from 31 days to 14 days for a student under 18.

If you transfer to another provider while welfare arrangements are approved, Standard 5.7 requires the receiving provider to negotiate the transfer date with the releasing one so there is no gap in approval, and to tell you that your visa obliges you to keep current arrangements until the transfer date, have alternative arrangements approved, or return home. A gap in approved welfare arrangements is a visa problem, not an administrative one.

If something serious happens

Under Standard 6.8 the provider must have and implement a documented policy and process for managing critical incidents — incidents that could affect your ability to undertake or complete the course, such as those causing physical or psychological harm. Written records of critical incidents and the action taken must be kept for at least two years after you cease to be an accepted student. Ask where that policy is published before you need it.

Your rights while you are here

Being on a temporary visa does not reduce your workplace rights. The Fair Work Act protects all employees in Australia regardless of visa status, and adverse action for asserting a workplace right is unlawful.

Your provider has duties here too. Standard 6.1.9 requires it to give you information on, or access to, services for information on your employment rights and conditions and how to resolve workplace issues, such as through the Fair Work Ombudsman. Standard 6.2 requires it to give relevant information or appropriate referrals at no additional cost if you ask for help on employment rights. Standard 6.7 requires the staff who deal with you to understand the provider's own obligations and the implications for you of the provider exercising them — including that reporting unsatisfactory course progress can affect your visa status.

You are entitled to the correct award rate, payslips and superannuation. See working hours, rosters and public holidays and superannuation, tax and payslips.

Which award covers you depends on the premises, not your job title, and there are four in play: MA000009 for hotels, pubs, motels, resorts, casinos and caterers; MA000058 for not-for-profit registered clubs; MA000119 for standalone restaurants, cafes, night clubs, reception centres and roadhouses; and MA000003 where food is sold primarily to be eaten away from the counter.

Under MA000009, MA000119 and MA000058, a relevant AQF Certificate III or higher that you actually use at work sets a minimum classification of Level 4. The fast food award, MA000003, has no equivalent provision. So the qualification argument works in a pub, a restaurant, a cafe and a registered club, and fails in a food court. That is a concrete reason to finish the qualification rather than abandon it for shifts, and a reason to look closely at where the shifts are.

The three definitions differ in detail. MA000009 cl 18.1 and MA000119 cl 18.1 use the same wording: Certificate III or higher relevant to the classification, and the employee makes use of those competencies. MA000058 cl 18.3 is narrower, saying "Certificate III qualifications relevant to the classification" without "or higher", and allowing the Fair Work Commission to require you to demonstrate that you use the relevant skills. If your employer disagrees with your classification, the dispute route is MA000009 clause 40, MA000119 clause 34, or for MA000058 referral to the Fair Work Commission.

Under MA000009 specifically, the certificate can also reach a trade grade. Level 4 is that award's reference point — the standard weekly and hourly rate from which its apprentice percentages are calculated — and it is attached to cook (tradesperson) grade 3. The cook stream reaches grade 3 by apprenticeship, trade test or "the appropriate level of training", and that term is defined in MA000009 clause 2 as completing an appropriate training program meeting the requirements of a qualification or units of competency from a training package; or being assessed by a qualified skills assessor as having at least equivalent skills; or, as at 30 June 2010, having been doing that classification's work for at least 3 months. That third limb is anchored to a closed date, so it is not a rolling three-month rule and it will not apply to a student who started work recently. Do not assume MA000119 or MA000058 carry the same grade names or the same clause 2 limbs — check the award covering your workplace.

One practical point on your own copy of the rules: under MA000009 clause 3.3 the employer must make copies of the award and the National Employment Standards available to all employees, on a noticeboard or by accessible electronic means. If nobody can tell you where the award is, that is itself a signal.

As a student you also have complaints and appeals rights under both the Outcome Standards and the National Code. Under Standard 10 of the National Code the provider must commence assessing a complaint or appeal within 10 working days of it being made, finalise the outcome as soon as practicable, give you a written statement of outcome including detailed reasons, advise you of external appeal rights within 10 working days of concluding an unsuccessful internal review, and immediately implement any decision made in your favour. See policies.

If the long-term plan is skilled migration, read this carefully

This is where hospitality students most often build a plan on an assumption. The position, as at 1 September 2026:

We are an appointed Trades Recognition Australia assessment body for Chef (351311) and Cook (351411) only, across the Temporary Skills Shortage assessment program and the Offshore Skills Assessment Program. See skills assessment.

Four consequences, in plain terms:

• Our TRA appointment covers Chef and Cook. It does not extend to graduates seeking assessment in hospitality-management occupations. The relevant occupation list and assessing authority must be checked for the exact nominated occupation.
• Cafe or Restaurant Manager is not on the Core Skills Occupation List, so it does not currently support Skills in Demand (subclass 482) sponsorship through the Core Skills stream. Other hospitality management codes remain listed, but 141111 is not one of them.
• The qualifications that map to the two assessable occupations are the cookery ones. TRA accepts SIT40521 Certificate IV in Kitchen Management for Chef, and SIT30821 Certificate III in Commercial Cookery or SIT40521 for Cook. Neither is CRICOS-registered with us, so neither can be studied here on a student visa. That is the tension at the heart of the cookery-to-migration plan, and it is better understood before you enrol than after.
• Home Affairs applies caveats to Chef and Cook in certain circumstances, relating to matters such as fast food outlets, limited-service restaurants and business size. Those caveats were not able to be verified for this page and could materially narrow the practical pathway. Do not treat the two ticks in the table above as a clear route. Verify the caveats and the current list with Home Affairs or a registered migration agent before making any decision.

The experience requirements are also substantial. For Chef, at least three years of relevant experience may substitute for formal qualifications, and in some cases experience or on-the-job training is required in addition to the qualification. For Cook, the indicative requirement is a minimum of 3 years relevant full-time paid work with formal training, or 5 years without it. Chefs, Fast Food Cooks and Kitchenhands are expressly excluded from the Cook unit group, and Cooks, Fast Food Cooks and Kitchenhands from the Chef unit group, so the job title on your reference matters.

Before you leave Australia

• Claim your superannuation if eligible, through a Departing Australia Superannuation Payment
• Lodge a final tax return
• Download your USI transcript. Your Australian training record is permanent and retrievable from anywhere, which is the practical payoff of the USI regime described above

About us

We are Complete Hospitality Training, RTO 3722, CRICOS 04242E. Legal name Complete Hospitality Training (Vic) Pty Ltd, ABN 27 006 947 262, ACN 006 947 262. Registered as RTO 3722 since 1 June 1994, transferred from the Victorian regulator to the national regulator, ASQA, on 8 September 2017, with the current registration period running 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2032. Level 3, 28 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne VIC 3000, and 410 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010. Contact melbourne@cht.edu.au or +61 3 9654 1554.

We link to the relevant course and regulatory sources in this guide. Check those sources for current requirements, and confirm course availability, delivery, fees and entry requirements with us before enrolling.

Source records and further guidance

We link the unit records and regulator guidance relevant to this page below. Check the current source before making an enrolment, licensing or employment decision.

• SIT50422 Diploma of Hospitality Management
• SIT40422 Certificate IV in Hospitality
• SIT40521 Certificate IV in Kitchen Management
• SIT50322 Diploma of Event Management
• SIT30821 Certificate III in Commercial Cookery
• Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020 (MA000009)
• Restaurant Industry Award 2020 (MA000119)
• National Code of Practice for Providers of Education and Training to Overseas Students 2018 — Standards 1 to 11
• Outcome Standards for Registered Training Organisations 2025 (full text)
• Unique Student Identifier (USI) requirements for RTOs