Guide 1 of 5Four Acts: Qld 2017, Vic 2018, SA 2017, ACT 2020
Recruitment services · Labour hire licensing
Labour hire licensing: when recruitment becomes labour hire
Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and the ACT each forbid a person to provide labour hire services without a licence, and each also bars dealing with an unlicensed provider. Plain recruitment is treated differently from place to place: Queensland says being a private employment agent is not, by that alone, labour hire, while Victoria from 1 October 2026 counts recruiting or placing workers as labour hire where the recruiter also procures or provides their accommodation.
General information about four laws, not legal advice. The official places to check are each Act on its state or territory legislation register and the body that grants licences under it.
The four schemes side by side
The penalties differ. In Victoria both are civil penalties rather than offences; in the ACT, providing without a licence is an offence, and using an unlicensed provider carries a civil penalty.
| Place and Act | Providing without a licence | Using an unlicensed provider | The register defence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Queensland: Labour Hire Licensing Act 2017, current from 23 August 2024 | s 10(1): 1034 penalty units or 3 years’ imprisonment for an individual; 3000 penalty units for a corporation | s 11(1): the same maximums | s 11(2): shown on the register as a licence holder when the arrangement was made |
| Victoria: Labour Hire Licensing Act 2018, authorised version 009, 1 October 2026 | s 13, a civil penalty provision: 800 penalty units for a natural person; 3200 for a body corporate (s 94) | s 15(1), a civil penalty provision: 800 and 3200 penalty units (s 94) | s 15(2): included in the Register as a licence holder when the arrangement was made, or another reasonable excuse |
| South Australia: Labour Hire Licensing Act 2017, version 29.1.2026 | s 11(1): $140 000 for a natural person; $400 000 for a body corporate | s 12(1): the same maximums | s 12(2): shown on the register as a licence holder when the arrangement was made |
| ACT: Labour Hire Licensing Act 2020, republication R6, 26 December 2025 | s 33(1): 800 penalty units for an individual; 3 000 for a corporation | s 35(1) and (3), a civil penalty: 800 penalty units for an individual; 3 000 for a corporation | s 35(2): included in the register as a licence holder when the arrangement was made, or another reasonable excuse |
Queensland: where the recruiter stops and the provider starts
Under s 7(1), the test is whether a person, “in the course of carrying on a business”, supplies a worker to another person to do work.
Section 7(3)(a) then says a person does not provide labour hire services “merely because” it is a private employment agent, as the Private Employment Agents Act 2005 defines one. The word “merely” matters: the Act’s own examples of a provider include “an employment agency who on-hires temporary administration staff to a business”. Finding people for a client does not, by itself, make a recruiter a provider; on-hiring temporary staff does.
Victoria from 1 October 2026: two new limbs
Victoria’s general test in s 7 looks at the character of an arrangement: whether it is, wholly or principally, the supply of labour, directly or indirectly. The Labour Hire Authority says the 1 October 2026 change will, in most cases, not alter when a licence is needed, but makes clearer that one is needed to supply labour anywhere in a supply chain.
The new s 8 adds two kinds of business that also provide labour hire services. Each limb has further conditions about the character of the arrangement and who the workers are, which s 8 sets out:
- Recruitment or placement with accommodation. A business providing recruitment or placement services recruits or places workers with a client, and also procures or provides accommodation for them for some or all of the period they perform the labour (s 8(1)(d)).
- Contractor management. A business providing contractor management services recruits or places individuals with a client, where it recruits them as contractors rather than employees and manages the performance of their contracts (s 8(2), with s 9(2)(b)).
By the authorised version’s endnote, the substituted s 8 commenced on 1 October 2026. Under s 10 the regulations set exceptions. Among those in regulation 3B of the Labour Hire Licensing Regulations 2018 (version 002, 1 October 2026) are sole traders supplying only their own labour and people on a vocational placement within the meaning of the Fair Work Act; the regulations list the rest.
Sections 13, 14 and 15(1) each carry a note that the section “is a civil penalty provision”. At $209.10, the value of a Victorian penalty unit for the financial year from 1 July 2026, the s 94 maximums for ss 13 and 15(1) come to $167,280 for a natural person and $669,120 for a body corporate. The Authority expects further regulation changes later in October 2026 for some construction work.
South Australia: one scheme for all labour hire since 29 January 2026
The Labour Hire Licensing (Scope of Act) Amendment Act 2025 commenced on 29 January 2026. Consumer and Business Services said on 12 August 2026 that businesses had had a six-month grace period to become licensed. Section 7(2) lists, in full, when a person does not provide labour hire services: (a) the work is not part of a business or commercial undertaking of the host; (b) a body corporate with no more than 2 directors supplies a director or senior manager who is the only individual it supplies; (c) a partnership of no more than 2 persons supplies one of its partners; (d) a sole trader supplies themselves; (e) the individual’s annual wages are equal to or more than the Fair Work Act’s high income threshold and their employment is not covered by a modern award or enterprise agreement; and (f) circumstances the regulations prescribe.
Registered group training organisations are outside the Act to the extent they supply apprentices or trainees. A licence holder’s advertisements must show the licence number “preceded by the letters ‘LHS’” beside its name or contact details (s 48).
The ACT
Apart from its first two sections, the ACT’s Act commenced on 27 May 2021. It defines labour hire services as supplying a worker to a hirer, in the course of carrying on a business, to do work, whether or not the worker is the provider’s employee. A 2021 declaration treats some classes as not being workers, among them public servants and in-house employees; the declaration lists them all.
The rest of Australia
This guide covers the four Acts above. It does not cover New South Wales, Western Australia, Tasmania or the Northern Territory and makes no statement either way about a scheme there. The pay of on-hired employees is in same job, same pay, and fees charged to the people placed are in the guide to job seeker fees.