Before you accept an unpaid internship, ask these four questions
“Great experience” doesn’t settle whether an internship should be paid. Here’s what Australian students and graduates can check before committing their time.
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An internship offer can feel like a way past the “experience required” barrier. Before agreeing to weeks of unpaid work, ask what you’ll actually do, who benefits and whether the arrangement belongs to your course. Under Australia’s national workplace relations system, some unpaid placements and internships are lawful. Others may be employment and need to be paid. These are existing distinctions, not a newly announced rule.
Who this is for: General information about Australia’s national workplace relations system.
1. Is this genuinely part of my course?
A lawful unpaid vocational placement must meet all the Fair Work Act criteria: there must be a placement, no entitlement to payment, a course requirement and an appropriately authorised education or training provider.
A placement can be required by an elective subject, not just a compulsory subject. It can also be arranged by the student. Ask your course coordinator to confirm which subject or requirement it fulfils before you start.
Already graduated? An opportunity you take independently after finishing your degree doesn’t become a course placement simply because the advertisement calls it an internship. Fair Work’s student-placement guidance
2. Am I mainly learning, or doing the business’s regular work?
An internship outside a qualifying placement can still be unpaid if there is no employment relationship. Fair Work looks at the whole arrangement, including its purpose, duration, tasks, expectations and who receives the main benefit.
Observation and genuine skills development point towards learning. Required attendance, ordinary operational duties and work a paid employee would usually perform point more towards employment. Some productive tasks can be part of learning, so no single task settles the question.
Calling it “unpaid experience”, or agreeing to work without pay, doesn’t by itself remove employee entitlements. Fair Work’s internship guidance
3. What exactly am I agreeing to?
Before committing, ask for these details in writing:
- The tasks, hours, start date and end date.
- Who will supervise you and what you should learn.
- Whether it is paid and, if not, why the organisation considers that lawful.
- How any course-placement requirement will be confirmed.
Save the advertisement and messages. Keep your own record of hours and duties, and revisit the arrangement if it changes.
4. Is a “trial” turning into ongoing unpaid work?
A brief unpaid trial may be lawful when it is necessary to demonstrate skills relevant to a vacant job and you are directly supervised. It must last no longer than reasonably needed. There is no blanket rule that every employer gets a free shift.
Time beyond the necessary demonstration must be paid at the appropriate minimum rate. Fair Work’s trial guidance
International students: you can ask for help
Visa holders have the same workplace rights and protections as other employees. Fair Work says your visa won’t be cancelled because you contact it for help. That is separate from complying with your visa conditions.
If an arrangement seems unclear, take your records to your university’s placement team or contact Fair Work on 13 13 94 before assuming you have no options. Fair Work’s visa-holder guidance
Original draft check: 23 October 2026. General information about the national workplace relations system, not individual legal or migration advice. State-system arrangements may need separate advice.
Photo: freddie marriage / Unsplash, via Wikimedia Commons. Source, CC0 reuse licence. Illustrative workspace, not a reported workplace or endorsement.
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