Part-time job resume for international students in Australia

Start with VEVO, not with the resume

A café owner hiring for Saturday shifts wants to know whether you may work, how many hours, and from when. You can only answer that honestly once you have looked at your own conditions. Home Affairs says your specific work entitlements are in your visa grant letter and in VEVO, its online visa check, which employers can also use.

1. Log in to VEVO and read the conditions on your Student visa. Condition 8105 is the work limit; note whether it is there and what it says.
2. Check the date your course starts. Home Affairs says Student visa holders cannot work before it, so a job offer for the week you land may have to wait.
3. Download your provider's academic calendar and mark each semester, exam period and break. Your availability line comes from these dates.
4. Apply for a tax file number (TFN). Study Australia lists supplying it to your employer before you start as one of your responsibilities.
5. Decide how many hours you can give each fortnight across all jobs together, then write the resume.

How the 48-hour fortnight works

The limit is a legal condition, not a guideline. It sits in Schedule 8 of the Migration Regulations 1994 as condition 8105; we read Compilation No. 288 (in force from 1 July 2026) on 20 October 2026. The Home Affairs page for the Student visa (subclass 500), last updated on 12 October 2026, says the same in plain words.

The basic numbers

Condition 8105 sets 40 hours a fortnight, and a later subclause replaces that with 48 hours for subclass 500 holders and for bridging visas granted on a subclass 500 application. When your course is not in session, Home Affairs says Student visa holders can work unlimited hours.

What a fortnight is

The Regulations define a fortnight as ‘the period of 14 days commencing on a Monday’, and the limit applies during any fortnight when your course is in session. Read that strictly: every pair of back-to-back Monday-to-Sunday weeks must stay at 48 hours or less, not only the fortnight your employer uses for pay. Thirty hours in one week is lawful only if the weeks on either side hold 18 or less.

When a course is in session

Home Affairs does not define the phrase on its visa page. The University of Western Australia tells its students that a course is in session for the whole trimester or semester, exam weeks included even if you have no exams, and also during a break if you take another unit that counts towards your main course. Ask your own provider for its dates in writing.

Before the course starts

Condition 8105 forbids any work before your course of study begins. The one exception in the text is a person who, when applying for the Student visa, already held another substantive or bridging visa that allowed work.

Placements, research degrees and family members

Work that was registered as a requirement of the course on CRICOS, the national register of courses for overseas students, does not count. UNSW adds that elective or optional work-integrated learning does count. A student who has started a master's by research or a doctorate has no limit; a master's by coursework student keeps the 48 hours, though Home Affairs says their family members may work more.

Unpaid and volunteer work

UNSW tells its students that voluntary work stays outside the 48 hours only if it benefits the community, is for a non-profit, is a role an Australian resident would not otherwise be paid for, and brings no pay in cash or kind (board and lodging are acceptable). We could not open a Home Affairs page that states this today, so treat it as your university's reading.

Sample one-page resume: a master’s student applying for café, retail and tutoring shifts

Ece Yıldırım is invented. She is from Eskişehir, in the first year of a Master of Information Technology by coursework in Melbourne, and is applying for weekend café shifts, a casual retail role and paid tutoring. The section order follows the Australian resume guide; what changes here is the work rights line near the top and a page length of one.

Why the work rights line sits second

A shift manager filling a roster reads availability before experience. Putting the visa limit and the free days together answers both questions at once, and naming VEVO tells the employer how to check it without you handing over documents with the application.

Words to avoid in that line

• ‘Full work rights’ or ‘no restrictions’: untrue for a coursework student in semester.
• ‘Available 24/7’ or ‘any hours’: an employer who rosters you to that promise can put you over the limit.
• ‘Can work 24 hours a week’: the rule is per fortnight, so a weekly figure is wrong in both directions.
• Your passport number, visa grant number or TFN: the employer who hires you gets those through onboarding, not every shop you apply to.

Tutoring and research students

If Ece were a PhD student who had started her doctorate, the line would read ‘Student visa (subclass 500), doctoral candidate: no limit on work hours’. Write only what VEVO and your grant letter show; if they differ from this page, they win.

Your rights once you are hired

Study Australia, the government's site for international students, says Australia's workplace laws protect all workers, including international students working part time on a student visa. A few of the rules it lists show up in casual café and retail jobs often enough to know before your first shift.

• You must receive a payslip, paper or electronic, within one working day of being paid.
• Food or housing cannot replace your wages; free food is fine only on top of your pay.
• A ‘cashback’ arrangement, where you hand part of your pay back, is not allowed, and neither are deductions for breakages, walk-outs or a short till.
• If a boss asks you to get an ABN for a job where you report to a manager, check first: Study Australia says such jobs need a TFN instead.
• Home Affairs says your employer cannot cancel your visa, and that it is against the law for anyone to ask you to pay for a job or a visa.

The minimum wage figure, with its date

The Fair Work Commission's National Minimum Wage Order 2026 sets $26.44 an hour ($1,004.90 for a 38-hour week) for adults, from the first full pay period starting on or after 1 July 2026, with a 25% casual loading for award and agreement free employees. Study Australia says the minimum depends on the type of work you do and points to the Fair Work Ombudsman for the current figure for your job.

Sources and the date we read them

All read on 20 October 2026. Work conditions for students have changed several times in recent years; open VEVO and the Home Affairs page again before you accept extra shifts.

Who this page is not for

• Work and Holiday (subclass 462) visa holders, whose work conditions are different; see the Work and Holiday guide.
• Graduates who have finished their course and moved to another visa; the student limit no longer describes your rights.
• Anyone writing a full career resume for a graduate role: start from the Australian resume format guide, which runs to about two pages.
• Visitors and ETA holders: Home Affairs says those visas do not allow work at all.

Where to look next

• Your provider's careers or employability service and its job noticeboards, which Study Australia names first for students looking for part-time or casual work.
• The Australian resume format guide, for the section order, referees and licences this page does not repeat.
• The reference list guide, if your referees are in Türkiye and need to be set out for an Australian reader.
• CitedCV, which writes the English resume from facts you confirm. It has no Australian setting, so choose the UK convention and add the work rights line from your own VEVO record.

Questions people ask

Sources

1. Department of Home Affairs, Student visa (subclass 500), last updated 12 October 2026immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-listing/student-500
2. Migration Regulations 1994, Schedule 8, condition 8105 (Federal Register of Legislation)www.legislation.gov.au/F1996B03551/latest/text
3. Department of Home Affairs, Check visa details and conditions (VEVO)immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/already-have-a-visa/check-visa-details-and-conditions/overview
4. Department of Home Affairs, Work restrictionsimmi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/working-in-australia/work-rights-and-exploitation/work-restrictions
5. Fair Work Commission, National Minimum Wage Order 2026www.fwc.gov.au/hearings-decisions/major-cases/annual-wage-reviews/annual-wage-review-2026/national-minimum-wage
6. Study Australia, Your work rights explainedwww.studyaustralia.gov.au/en/work-in-australia/work-rights-and-responsibilities/your-work-rights-explained
7. Study Australia, Identifying workplace issueswww.studyaustralia.gov.au/en/work-in-australia/work-rights-and-responsibilities/are-your-work-rights-at-risk
8. Study Australia, Tax and superannuationwww.studyaustralia.gov.au/en/work-in-australia/work-rights-and-responsibilities/tax-and-superannuation
9. Study Australia, Finding work while you studywww.studyaustralia.gov.au/en/work-in-australia/finding-work-while-you-study
10. University of Western Australia, Information for student visa holderswww.uwa.edu.au/students/Getting-started/International-students/Visa-holders
11. UNSW Sydney, Visa and work rightsstudent.unsw.edu.au/visa-work