Fee Disclosure and Client Agreements: The Code of Conduct Rules Every Migration Agent Must Follow (2026)

Of all the obligations in the Migration Agents Code of Conduct, the ones that catch agents out most often are not about visa law at all — they are about how you document the engagement and charge for your work. Get the services-and-fees agreement, invoicing, fee changes or refunds wrong and you expose yourself to a complaint to the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (OMARA), regardless of how good your migration advice was. This guide walks through what the current Code (in force since 1 March 2022, made under the Migration (Migration Agents Code of Conduct) Regulations 2021) actually requires, with a worked structure for a compliant agreement.

This article is general information for registered migration agents, not legal advice. The provisions below are summarised from the Code as at 2026. Always confirm the current wording against the source — the Code on the Federal Register of Legislation and the OMARA guidance materials on the Department of Home Affairs website.

You cannot start work without an agreement in force

The headline rule is simple: you must not give immigration assistance to a client unless a compliant service agreement covering that assistance is in force, signed by both the client and a registered migration agent in your business. The agreement has to be in writing. A verbal "yes, go ahead" or an email exchange that never gets formalised does not satisfy the Code.

There is one narrow exception. You may give advice at an initial consultation without a service agreement in place — but only advice, and any fee you charge for that consultation must be reasonable. The moment the engagement moves beyond advice into preparing or lodging anything, you need a signed agreement covering that work.

The agreement must be signed before you start the work it covers — not backdated afterwards once the client has already paid a deposit and you have begun. Sequencing matters, and OMARA looks at it.

There is also a step that sits even earlier in the sequence. Before you provide any immigration assistance — including at the initial consultation — the client must have been given a copy of the OMARA Consumer Guide, and the service agreement itself must contain a statement confirming the client received it. Build that into your onboarding so it is never skipped.

What the agreement must disclose

The Code is specific about the content of the agreement. At a minimum, a compliant services-and-fees agreement needs to capture all of the following.

• The parties. Client details (name, date of birth, contact and address details) and your details, including your name, business contact details and your Migration Agents Registration Number (MARN).
• The scope of work. A clear description of the services to be performed — the specific visa or matter you are engaged to assist with. Vague catch-alls like "all immigration matters" do not meet the requirement to set out the work or services.
• The consumer guide statement. Confirmation that a copy of the Consumer Guide has been given to the client.
• How the file will be handled. An explanation of what will happen to the client's file and documents if the agreement is terminated by any party, or on completion of the work.
• Fees. Fees must be expressed either as an hourly rate or as a fixed total amount. If you charge hourly, you must also give a reasonable estimate of the time the work will take. A fixed fee should be exactly that — fixed.
• Disbursements. Details of the likely disbursements (for example, Department visa application charges, skills-assessment fees, medicals, police checks, translation), and for each one either the amount or a reasonable estimate.
• A refund policy. A refund policy for fees and disbursements that is fair and reasonable.

Notice the recurring word: reasonable. The Code does not set a dollar cap on what you can charge, but estimates have to be genuine and fees have to be reasonable for the work. If your hourly estimate of time is wildly optimistic and you routinely blow past it, that is a problem even if each individual hour is justified.

Telling the client when fees change

Migration matters rarely run exactly to plan, so the Code anticipates that estimates and even the agreement itself may need to change — and it tightly controls how.

Exceeding a time estimate

If you charge hourly and the work is going to take longer than the estimate in the agreement, you must give the client an updated reasonable estimate, in writing, before you continue past the original estimate. You cannot quietly keep clocking hours and present the larger bill at the end.

Varying the agreement or the fee

To vary the agreement, you must give the client written notice setting out the proposed variation and the reasons for it before the variation takes effect. An agreed hourly rate or fixed fee is harder to move: it must not be varied unless exceptional circumstances arise after the agreement is signed, and those circumstances make it impracticable to complete the work within the estimated time at that rate, or at the agreed fixed fee. "I underquoted" is not an exceptional circumstance. A genuine, unforeseen change in the client's situation that materially expands the work might be.

The discipline here is to over-scope at the start and communicate early. A short written note the moment you foresee a cost change protects both you and the client, and it is exactly the kind of record OMARA expects to see on the file.

Invoicing, receipts and the statement of services

The Code separates the agreement (what you will do and what it will cost) from the act of charging (what you actually did and what you are billing for). Two documents do the heavy lifting.

• The itemised invoice. You must not charge a client a fee or disbursement unless the client has been given an itemised invoice containing details of the work or services the fee relates to. "Professional fees — $X" with no breakdown is not itemised.
• The receipt. After the client pays, you must give a receipt identifying the work or services the payment relates to (and the invoice it relates to, if any).

Sitting over the top of this is the statement of services. Under section 313 of the Migration Act 1958, you are not entitled to be paid a fee or reward for giving immigration assistance unless you give the assisted person a statement of services setting out the particulars of each service performed and the charge made for each service. In practice a properly itemised invoice or final statement on completion does this job — but the obligation is statutory, so treat it as non-negotiable rather than a formality.

Client money and refunds

If you take money in advance — a deposit against fees, or funds to cover a Department charge you will pay later — that money has to be handled correctly. The Code requires client money to be kept in an account with a financial institution into which only client money is paid, and used only for the purposes the client paid it for (paying your fees as they fall due, paying the Department or a review body, settling disbursements, refunding the client, or transferring on the client's instruction). You cannot dip into it for unrelated business costs, and OMARA can ask you to demonstrate compliance.

Refunds follow the same logic. Where you charged for a disbursement and the actual cost came in lower, the excess must be refunded. More broadly, your refund policy must be fair and reasonable, and refunds must be paid in accordance with the agreement and promptly — and, in any case, no later than 14 days after they become payable (section 52). Do not let unspent client funds sit on your ledger after a matter closes.

A worked structure for a compliant agreement

You can format the document however you like, but a compliant services-and-fees agreement should move through these blocks in roughly this order:

1. Parties and identifiers — client details; your name, business, contact details and MARN.
2. Consumer Guide acknowledgement — a statement that the client has received a copy.
3. Scope of services — the specific visa/matter, what is included, and what is expressly excluded (for example, appeals or a second application).
4. Professional fees — fixed total or hourly rate; if hourly, a reasonable time estimate.
5. Disbursements — an itemised list with amounts or reasonable estimates (DHA charges, third-party fees, etc.).
6. Payment terms and client money handling — when fees fall due, how deposits/advance funds are held.
7. Fee-change and variation clause — how you will notify the client in writing of any material change before continuing.
8. Refund policy — fair, reasonable, and tied to a clear trigger and timeframe.
9. File handling — how documents and the file will be managed.
10. Signatures and date — client and a registered agent in your business, dated before work begins.

Keep the signed agreement, the invoices, the receipts, any fee-change notices and the final statement of services on the matter file. Each of these is a record you may be asked to produce, and they tie directly into your broader record-keeping obligations — see our guide to file note requirements for migration agents and the full OMARA Code of Conduct compliance checklist for 2026.

Where the right software helps

Most fee-disclosure breaches are not deliberate — they happen because an agreement was never sent, an invoice was not itemised, a fee change was discussed by phone but never confirmed in writing, or an old template quietly fell out of step with the current Code. The fix is process. A case-management system that generates a compliant agreement from your matter data, itemises invoices automatically, timestamps fee-change notices, and keeps every document on the file removes most of the human error from the equation.

That is exactly what LodgeHQ is built for. Its service-agreement generator produces a Code-aligned services-and-fees agreement populated from the client record, with fees, disbursements, scope and refund terms in place, ready to send and sign — and it lives in the same system as your invoicing and file notes, so the paper trail assembles itself. You remain responsible for confirming each agreement meets the current Code before you rely on it. If you are weighing up your options, our LodgeHQ vs Migration Manager comparison and the comparison against EzyMigrate show how the agreement and billing workflow stacks up.

Compliance is far easier to maintain than to repair after a complaint. If you would like to see how a Code-aligned agreement and billing trail come together, start a free trial of LodgeHQ and generate one from your own matter data. Always confirm the current Code provisions against the official OMARA and legislation.gov.au sources before you rely on any specific figure or timeframe.