Farm hand is the general term for agricultural work that is not fruit picking: livestock, fencing, machinery, cropping and property maintenance. Most of it counts towards the 88 days for a second year visa.
What does the work actually involve?
Whatever the property needs, which is why the role is described so vaguely in advertisements. Livestock care, mustering, drenching and calving on a station; planting, weeding and harvesting broadacre crops; fencing, water troughs and general maintenance; tractor and machinery work; shearing shed support; hay and dairy work.
The property changes the job more than the title does. A cattle station in the Northern Territory, a wheat farm in Western Australia and a dairy in Victoria all advertise for farm hands and mean something different by it. Ask what the daily tasks and hours are before accepting.
Which award covers you?
The one matching the principal activity of the business, not the task you happen to be doing that day. A mixed enterprise running livestock and crops sits under whichever activity is dominant, and that sets your classification, your rate and your penalty entitlements.
- Pastoral Award MA000035: livestock, broadacre cropping such as wheat, barley and oats, shearing
- Horticulture Award MA000028: fruit, vegetables, vines and tree crops
- Dairy Award MA000026: dairy operations
Classification within the award sets your rate, and the levels rise with responsibility. Someone operating machinery and handling stock unsupervised is not on the entry classification, and being paid as though they were is the most common farm underpayment after the piece rate problem. Our guide to award classifications covers how to identify the right level.
What should you be paid?
At least the national floor, and in practice more, because award rates for farm classifications sit above it. From 1 July 2026 the casual minimum across all work is $33.05 an hour, being the national minimum wage of $26.44 plus the 25% casual loading, and rates are reset every 1 July by the Fair Work Commission's Annual Wage Review.
Two things move it from there: your classification level, which rises with skill and responsibility, and penalty rates for weekend, public holiday and overtime work, which apply on farms as anywhere else. The Fair Work Pay Calculator gives the current figure for any award and classification.
Does farm hand work count towards the 88 days?
Most of it does, provided four conditions are met at once. The work has to be in a designated regional postcode, fall inside the specified work categories which include plant and animal cultivation, be paid, and be documented in a way that ties you to the dates and the location.
What does not count catches people out. Office work for an agricultural business, retail work selling farm produce at a gate or a market, and most roles that are not physically agricultural fall outside the definition even though the employer is unmistakably a farm. Payslips settle any dispute about this, which is why remote work with informal pay arrangements is where 88 day evidence problems concentrate. Our guide to farm work rights covers what evidence stands up.
What should you check in a live-in arrangement?
The net figure, before you accept. Accommodation and meals are commonly bundled into station and remote farm jobs, and deductions for them are lawful only if agreed in writing, reasonable and properly documented on the payslip.
Work out the wage less the stated deductions, divided by the hours you will genuinely work including early starts, and compare that with town work minus hostel costs. The difference is usually in the hours rather than the rate. Undocumented deductions at the farm's discretion are the warning sign: one that cannot be pointed to on a payslip can grow.
Are you covered if you are injured out there?
Yes, as an employee, and remoteness makes no difference. Every state and territory runs a compulsory workers compensation scheme covering medical treatment, weekly payments while you cannot work and lump sums for permanent impairment, and it applies from the first shift regardless of visa.
If you are engaged as a contractor on an ABN, automatic cover generally does not apply, which on a property hours from the nearest hospital is a substantial thing to be without. Whether the classification is correct depends on how the work actually runs, and our guide to employee versus contractor sets out the test. Our guide to workplace injury rights covers what to do if it happens.
What can farm hands claim at tax time?
The gear the job made you buy, which on a farm is a longer list than in most roles. Protective and waterproof boots, work clothing including high visibility gear, sun protection, gloves, small hand tools and knives you supplied, a work share of your phone, and vehicle running costs for movement between separate work locations.
Whether to itemise depends on the total. For 2026-27 onwards the flat $1,000 without receipts is available as an alternative to substantiating everything, and for many farm hands the real total lands close enough to $1,000 that the flat amount is the sensible choice. Our guide to deductions for working holiday makers covers what qualifies either way.