Whether you can be made to pay for your own background check depends on one thing: are you being hired, or are you already employed and just being audited?
Statutory Protections Under Section 325
Employers frequently require candidates or employees to hold background clearances — a National Police Check, or a Working with Children Check (WWCC). Whether you can be forced to pay for these, or have the cost deducted from your wages, is strictly regulated by Section 325 of the Fair Work Act 2009.
The core statutory rule (Section 325(1)): an employer must not directly or indirectly require you to pay or forfeit money if the requirement is unreasonable in the circumstances, and the payment is directly or indirectly for the employer's benefit.
Pre-Employment vs. Ongoing Employment Clearances
This distinction is the key to the whole issue:
- Pre-employment requirements: an employer may require a prospective candidate to hold a valid clearance (e.g., a WWCC) as an inherent prerequisite before hire. Requiring this as a condition of the job offer is generally lawful.
- Mandatory in-service checks: if an employer orders an existing employee to undergo a new police check purely for internal auditing purposes, requiring that employee to personally pay for it typically constitutes an unlawful unreasonable requirement under Section 325 — the benefit here runs to the employer's compliance needs, not to you.
What Makes a Wage Deduction Lawful (Section 324)
Separately, for any deduction from your wages to be lawful under Section 324, it must:
- Be authorized by you in writing;
- Specify the exact amount of the deduction; and
- Be principally for your own benefit (e.g., salary sacrifice arrangements, professional registration fees that benefit your career, not just the employer's compliance record).
Deductions or fee requirements that push your effective pay rate below the applicable Award rate, or that exist purely to cover the employer's own operational expenses, are void and recoverable as unpaid wages — regardless of whether you initially agreed to them.
What This Means for You
If you're already employed and asked to personally pay for a new background check that exists solely for the employer's internal audit purposes, that's worth challenging — it's a materially different situation from being asked to hold a valid clearance before you were hired in the first place. Check whether any deduction from your pay for this purpose was properly authorized in writing and specifies an exact amount, as required under Section 324.
Use our Background Check Preparation Checklist to work through whether a specific request is reasonable, and generate a formal dispute letter if an unlawful deduction has already been taken.
Related Kibbo Tools
- Background Check Preparation Checklist →
- Wrongful/Unlawful Wage Deduction Letter →
- Background Checks (Directory) →
Sources
- Fair Work Ombudsman — Deductions and related payments, official compliance policies. fairwork.gov.au
- Federal Register of Legislation — Fair Work Act 2009, Section 325. legislation.gov.au