SIT40422 Certificate IV in Hospitality

We deliver this course through workplace. Our official course page lists a duration of 6 - 24 months. These are our delivery arrangements for this course; the qualification and unit comparisons below explain the national requirements. Check the official course page for current intake and enrolment details.

View our official course details and booking information. Course details checked 2 October 2026.

Course background and related accredited requirements

SIT40422 is a twenty-one-unit Certificate IV from the SIT Tourism, Travel and Hospitality Training Package — nine core units and twelve electives. It is the supervision qualification: the point at which a hospitality worker stops being responsible only for their own shift and becomes responsible for other people's.

It is also one of our three CRICOS-registered courses, under provider code 04242E and course code 116358F, which makes it available to international students on a student visa.

This is the canonical page for SIT40422 on this site. The qualification is also described in shorter form at /courses/certificate-iv-in-hospitality and /workplace-training/certificate-iv-in-hospitality-2. There is one qualification, not three.

At a glance

We hold 17 current qualifications and 81 current skill sets on our scope of registration. SIT40422 is one of only three that international students may enrol in. See about us for the full registration record.

The nine core units

The shift from Certificate III is visible in the verbs. At Certificate III the core says provide service, participate in safe work practices. Here it says manage conflict, manage finances, roster staff, lead and manage people, monitor work operations, and implement and monitor work health and safety.

Three of the nine core units are human resources units. That is the clearest signal of what this qualification is for: the supervisory layer between the floor and management.

SITXWHS007 is worth singling out. Implementing and monitoring work health and safety practices is a supervisor's legal exposure as much as an operational task, and the obligations differ by jurisdiction — Victoria operates under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 and places duties on the employer, while every other state and territory uses the model work health and safety laws and the term PCBU. A multi-state operator cannot paste one set of procedures across both.

SITXHRM008 Roster staff deserves the same attention for a different reason. Rostering is where award compliance actually happens — a roster that ignores the classification structure, minimum engagement periods or break provisions of the applicable award creates an underpayment before anyone has worked a shift. Which award applies is covered below, and it is not always the one people assume.

Structure and packaging rules

Twenty-one units must be completed: nine core and twelve elective. The electives are structured as:

• 1 unit from Group A — Hygiene
• 8 units from Group B — Hospitality
• 3 units from Group B, Group C, elsewhere in the SIT Training Package, or any other current training package or accredited course

Eighteen of the twenty-one units are therefore drawn from defined lists, leaving three genuinely open. Elective selection must be guided by the job outcome sought, local industry requirements and the complexity of skills appropriate to the AQF level, and every elective must contribute to a valid, industry-supported vocational outcome.

Group A is hygiene, and it is not optional

Group A contains exactly two units, and you must take one of them:

• SITHIND005 Use hygienic practices for hospitality service
• SITXFSA005 Use hygienic practices for food safety

This is worth being precise about, because it is easy to misread. SITXFSA005 is not a core unit of SIT40422 — but since Group A is compulsory and contains only these two, every SIT40422 graduate holds a hygiene unit. If you want the food safety one specifically, because it is the unit that satisfies the Standard 3.2.2A food handler obligation and is a prerequisite elsewhere, choose SITXFSA005 at Group A rather than assuming it is included.

See food handling for what SITXFSA005 does and does not achieve.

Group B is where the qualification takes its shape

Eight of your twelve electives come from Group B, and it spans seven service areas. This is what lets two graduates of the same qualification be prepared for quite different jobs:

Two points worth drawing out. SITHFAB021 Provide responsible service of alcohol sits in Group B, so RSA can be built into this qualification as an elective rather than bought separately — though note the state-specific rules on RSA still apply to the licensing outcome. And SITXFSA006 is also in Group B, which means a student choosing SITXFSA005 at Group A and SITXFSA006 at Group B completes the Food Safety Supervisor unit pair inside this qualification.

Group C, which supplies some of the three open electives, is smaller and general — leading diversity and inclusion, protocol requirements, business documents and spreadsheets, social media standards, and sourcing hospitality industry information.

Units with prerequisites

A substantial number of Group B units carry prerequisites and must be sequenced. In food and beverage that includes SITHFAB022 Clean and tidy bar areas, SITHFAB023 Operate a bar, SITHFAB024 Prepare and serve non-alcoholic beverages, SITHFAB025 Prepare and serve espresso coffee, SITHFAB026 Provide room service, SITHFAB029 through SITHFAB035, SITHFAB037 and SITHFAB038. In food safety, SITXFSA007. Most of the gaming units beyond responsible gambling services also carry them.

Because SITXFSA005 is not core, anyone choosing the prerequisite-bearing food and beverage electives needs it in their program — which is another reason to take it at Group A. Raise sequencing at enrolment rather than mid-course.

Duration, licensing and the certificate

Three facts about the qualification itself that are set outside the provider's control, and are worth separating from anything a course page advertises.

No licence attaches to the qualification. At the time of publication, no licensing, legislative or certification requirements apply to SIT40422, and the skills in it must be applied in accordance with Commonwealth and state or territory legislation, Australian standards and industry codes of practice. The distinction matters because individual units inside it can be licensing-linked — SITHFAB021 responsible service of alcohol being the obvious case, where a state regulator controls the certificate that follows the unit. The qualification is not a licence and does not authorise anything a regulator controls.

Duration is anchored by the AQF. The volume of learning for a Certificate IV is 0.5 to 2 years, with the short end intended for specialist qualifications that build on existing knowledge. For comparison, Certificate II is 0.5 to 1 year, Certificate III is 1 to 2 years and Diploma is 1 to 2 years — which is why a twenty-one-unit Certificate IV and a twenty-eight-unit Diploma can sit in overlapping ranges. The volume must be sufficient for graduates to achieve the learning outcomes, and ASQA names "accelerating or shortening training without allowing students sufficient time for skill development and knowledge application" as a compliance risk, alongside "marketing unrealistically short courses" that compromise product integrity or cause extension costs. A very short advertised duration is a question to ask, not a feature, unless recognition of prior learning or credit transfer accounts for it.

Certification has a deadline. An RTO must issue AQF certification documentation within 30 calendar days of completion of the assessment, provided the student has completed the qualification (or the units they subsequently withdrew from) and paid all agreed fees. The testamur must carry the issuing organisation's name, registration code and logo, the code and title of the qualification, the Nationally Recognised Training logo in accordance with the NRT Logo Conditions of Use, the signature of an authorised individual, a seal, corporate identifier or unique watermark, a statement recognising the qualification within the AQF, and where applicable an occupational or functional stream title or an Australian Apprenticeship statement. The USI must not be printed on it, and RTOs must retain records of all AQF certification documentation for thirty years, which is why a replacement copy is obtainable decades later.

What the qualification is worth under the award

This is the part that most directly affects pay, and it is rarely explained on course pages.

Under MA000009 Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020, an employee has the appropriate level of training if they have completed a relevant qualification or the relevant units of competency. The note attached to that definition sets a floor:

The minimum classification level for an employee who has completed AQF Certificate III or higher qualifications relevant to the classification in which they are employed, and who makes use of skills and knowledge derived from those competencies, is Level 4.

SIT40422 is AQF level 4, so it is comfortably above the Certificate III threshold. Holding it and using it at work is direct evidence of an award entitlement — which in-house training, however good, cannot provide.

Which award applies: four, not two

Which award covers you is decided by the nature of the premises, not by job title. There are four destinations in and around hospitality, and each covers its industry "to the exclusion of any other modern award", so exactly one applies to a given venue.

Two boundaries catch supervisors out, and both matter for a rostering unit.

A registered club is not covered by MA000009. Clause 4.4(d)(i) of MA000009 expressly excludes "clubs registered or recognised under State or Territory legislation". Clause 4.3 of MA000058 sets a two-part test for what counts: the club must be registered and licensed under a liquor, gaming, associations incorporation or corporations statute, and be established and operating on a not-for-profit basis for the benefit of members and the community. A commercially owned venue calling itself a "club" is not a club for award purposes.

A night club is not a club either. Being commercial rather than not-for-profit, it falls under MA000119.

So two supervisors doing identical work — same duties, same qualification, same hours — can sit under different instruments with different classification structures and different pay tables, purely because of where the venue sits. The Level 4 floor quoted above is the MA000009 position; each of the other three awards has its own Schedule A classification structure, so do not assume the numbering carries across. And award rates re-set every 1 July, so check the current figure with the Fair Work Ombudsman's Pay and Conditions Tool rather than any published rate.

If you are doing it as a traineeship

SIT40422 is commonly delivered under a training contract, and the award writes part of the arrangement:

• A full-time traineeship is 38 ordinary hours per week, of which 20 per cent must be approved training
• A trainee is entitled to be released from work without loss of pay to attend training and assessment specified in the training contract, and that time counts as time worked
• For apprentices, wage progression is competency-based. Once the employer receives written advice that the RTO has assessed the apprentice as meeting the requirements, the employer has 21 days to raise a disagreement. If none is raised, progression follows

An employer who ignores that written advice is not delaying a formality; they are accruing an underpayment.

There is a consequence for the RTO side of this too. Because progression is tied to training-plan milestones, the training plan has to map units to those milestones or the employer cannot administer wage progression at all. That makes the training plan a wage instrument as much as an education document, which is worth knowing before signing one.

The SIT40416 supersession

SIT40422 supersedes SIT40416 Certificate IV in Hospitality, dated 9 June 2022, and the two are recorded as not equivalent.

Holding SIT40416 is therefore not automatically treated as holding SIT40422. Someone who needs the current qualification should expect a credit transfer and recognition of prior learning assessment rather than an automatic upgrade.

This contrasts with SIT30821 and SIT40521, where the predecessors are equivalent. The flag is set qualification by qualification and should be checked rather than assumed.

SIT40416 is superseded and is not on our scope. Check any advertised code on training.gov.au.

Worth separating two processes people conflate here. Credit transfer, under Standard 1.7 of the Outcome Standards, recognises units you have already completed at any RTO — your Statement of Attainment is the evidence and there is no reassessment. Recognition of prior learning, under Standard 1.6, assesses prior skills, learning and experience, against the same evidence requirements as the unit. Someone moving from SIT40416 to SIT40422 will typically use both: credit transfer for the units that carried over unchanged, RPL for the rest. 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.

For international students

SIT40422 is registered on CRICOS as course code 116358F, delivered by us under provider code 04242E.

We hold three CRICOS-registered courses in total:

An international student on a student visa may only enrol in a CRICOS-registered course at a CRICOS-registered provider. That is a requirement of the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 and the National Code, not a provider preference. Our other qualifications, including both cookery awards and all the business qualifications, are not available on a student visa.

Three National Code points worth knowing before you sign anything. Under Standard 3, the written agreement must be in place before or at the same time as the first fee is taken — including non-tuition fees — and must set out course details, entry prerequisites, all tuition and non-tuition fees, whether more than 50 per cent of tuition may be taken before commencement, refund provisions including the role of the Tuition Protection Service, and the complaints and appeals process. Under Standard 7, a provider must not knowingly enrol a student transferring from another provider before that student has completed six months of their principal course, subject to four defined exceptions. And under Standard 8.5 the provider must tell you, before the course commences, what satisfactory course progress and, where applicable, attendance require in each study period. See the visa checklist.

CRICOS registration covers our Melbourne campus, with a registered capacity of 300 international students across the three courses.

SIT40422 or BSB40520?

We hold two Certificate IV qualifications covering leadership, from different training packages.

SIT40422 embeds rostering, budgets and work health and safety in a hospitality context, and is the only one of the two available to international students. BSB40520 is shorter and transfers across industries — the better choice for someone who may want out of hospitality hours later. It is also the only BSB qualification we hold that is recorded as equivalent to its predecessor, BSB42015.

Entry requirements

The training package sets no entry requirements for SIT40422 — no prerequisite qualification and no prior experience. That is true across the hospitality qualifications in the SIT package.

We apply our own enrolment conditions: minimum age 16, documentation for learners under 17 relating to school attendance, language, literacy and numeracy at or around ACSF Level 3, and for apprentices and trainees, employment under a training contract with employer referral.

International students are additionally subject to the English language and genuine student requirements that apply to the student visa, which are set by the Department of Home Affairs rather than by us.

All learners complete a pre-training review, required under Standard 2.2 of the Outcome Standards for RTOs — the standard obliges the RTO to review, prior to enrolment, a prospective student's skills and competencies including language, literacy, numeracy and digital literacy, and individual requirements including physical skills, prior experience and any prerequisites or entry requirements, and then to advise the student whether the training product suits them. Name the instrument when citing it: the National Code 2018 has a different Standard 2.2, about assessing an overseas student's English and qualifications for entry.

At twenty-one units it is worth using that conversation to raise recognition of prior learning — supervisory experience held without the title is exactly the evidence that shortens a program.

For nationally recognised training, a Unique Student Identifier (USI) is generally required before a qualification or Statement of Attainment can be issued, unless an applicable exemption applies. See the official USI exemption guidance. A USI is free at usi.gov.au. If you already have one, recover it rather than creating another.

Where it leads

The direct progression is SIT50422 Diploma of Hospitality Management at twenty-eight units, which adds budget preparation, quality customer service systems, business relationships and legal risk management.

Note that the Diploma is available with us in Victoria only, according to our current delivery information, whereas SIT40422 is available in all states and territories. AQF 5 is our ceiling — there is no Advanced Diploma on scope.

The training package itself names further study pathways beyond SIT40422: SIT50422 Diploma of Hospitality Management, SIT60322 Advanced Diploma of Hospitality Management, and higher education. SIT60322 is not on our scope, so it would be studied elsewhere.

The descriptor also names the job roles this qualification is written for: bar supervisor or team leader, concierge, duty manager, food and beverage supervisor or team leader, front office supervisor or team leader, housekeeping supervisor or team leader, gaming supervisor or team leader, and shift manager — skilled operators using supervisory skills and sound knowledge of industry operations to plan, monitor and evaluate the work of team members.

One thing SIT40422 does not do is create a migration pathway. Our TRA appointment covers Chef (ANZSCO 351311) and Cook (351411). It does not cover hospitality-management graduates, and Cafe or Restaurant Manager is not on the current Core Skills Occupation List, so SIT40422 does not create that migration pathway. This is a valuable supervision qualification and not a visa route. See skills assessment.

About us

We are Complete Hospitality Training, RTO 3722, CRICOS provider code 04242E, 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. See about us, all courses and the student toolkit.

SIT40422 is on our national scope of registration as deliver and assess, is available in all states and territories according to our current delivery information, and is CRICOS-registered as 116358F. Completing it produces a nationally recognised qualification; partial completion produces a Statement of Attainment for the units achieved, carrying the full title and national code of each unit.

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.