Migration agent or immigration lawyer: the difference, and when each is the right call

MARN 1576536

Who may give immigration assistance

The Migration Act makes it an offence to give immigration assistance for a fee unless you are a registered migration agent or an Australian legal practitioner. A registered migration agent holds a prescribed migration law qualification, has passed the Capstone examination, is registered with the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority, carries professional indemnity insurance, completes continuing professional development, and is bound by the Code of Conduct, which governs fees, written agreements, competence and honesty. An Australian lawyer holds a law degree, has completed practical legal training, holds a practising certificate from a state or territory authority, and is bound by the legal profession's conduct rules; since 2021 lawyers are no longer required to also register as agents. Education agents, consultants and anyone else are not permitted to give the advice, whatever they call it.

What both can do

• Advise on which visa fits and whether an application has prospects.
• Prepare and lodge applications, nominations, sponsorships and citizenship applications, and act as the Department's point of contact.
• Respond to requests for information, natural justice letters and cancellation notices.
• Prepare and conduct merits review at the Administrative Review Tribunal, including appearing at the hearing.
• Prepare ministerial intervention requests after review.
• Advise employers on sponsorship, obligations and monitoring.

The Tribunal is the place most people expect a lawyer and do not need one. It is a merits review: the member re-decides the application on the evidence, and the work is evidence and preparation, which an experienced agent does as well as a lawyer and often with more familiarity with the particular visa.

What only a lawyer can do

Court. Judicial review of a Tribunal decision, a ministerial decision or a departmental decision that has no merits review, in the Federal Circuit and Family Court, the Federal Court or the High Court, is litigation about legal error, and only a lawyer may conduct it and appear. A lawyer's advice also carries legal professional privilege, so that communications about the matter cannot be compelled, which matters where a client faces criminal charges, a regulator's investigation or a civil dispute at the same time as the visa. A lawyer can also act in the related proceedings themselves: the criminal defence, the employment claim, the family law matter, which an agent cannot.

When a lawyer is the right call

• Judicial review. An adverse Tribunal decision where the question is whether the Tribunal made a legal error, with a short deadline to file.
• Character cancellations and refusals under section 501, where the law is dense, the consequences are detention and removal, and the matter often reaches a court. The character guide explains why.
• A visa matter entangled with criminal charges, where the visa consequences of a plea or a sentence need to be weighed with the defence, under privilege.
• Disputes with an employer or sponsor that may be litigated: underpayment, coercion, a sponsorship bar.
• A hard point of law on which the application turns and on which there is little guidance, where a lawyer's opinion is the evidence.

When an agent is the better value

For the great majority of applications and reviews, the work is choosing the right visa, mapping the facts to the criteria, assembling evidence that answers each one, and running the process without error, and an agent who does that visa every week is usually faster, cheaper and more current than a generalist lawyer who does it occasionally. Employer sponsorship, skilled and partner applications, student and graduate visas, and Tribunal reviews of refusals on evidence are agent work. Many immigration lawyers refer that work to agents, and many agents refer court work to lawyers; the referral in each direction is the sign of a practitioner who knows their limits.

Fees

Both set their own fees and both must put them in writing before work starts. Lawyers' hourly rates and matter fees are generally higher, reflecting their training and the litigation they can conduct, and that premium is worth paying for the matters above. For an application or a Tribunal review, the fee should be compared for the same scope: what is included, what is not, and what happens if a request for information arrives. How much does a migration agent cost sets out agent fees, including WIDEN's.

How WIDEN handles the line

WIDEN is a registered migration agent practice. We advise, prepare and lodge applications, respond to the Department, and run Tribunal reviews. We do not conduct court proceedings, and where a matter needs one, usually after a Tribunal decision when judicial review is the question, or from the start of a section 501 cancellation, we say so in the consultation and refer to an immigration lawyer. We take no fee for work we cannot do, and we do not keep a client in a merits process that has become a legal one.

How to check either

• A migration agent: search the OMARA Register of Migration Agents for the name or the MARN, and confirm the registration is current. WIDEN's is MARN 1576536.
• A lawyer: search the register of the law society or bar in their state or territory for a current practising certificate, and ask whether they practise in migration.
• Either: ask how many matters of your kind they have run in the last year, and ask for the written fee agreement before any money changes hands. How to choose a migration agent lists the warning signs.

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General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case. Part 3 of the Migration Act 1958 on immigration assistance and the Migration Agents Regulations 1998 and Code of Conduct, as in force at the date above. Outcomes depend on the Department’s assessment of each application; no registered migration agent can guarantee a result (Code of Conduct, Migration Agents Regulations). Keshab Chapagain, MARN 1576536.