Right to Work (Visa / VEVO)
A Right to Work check confirms that a person is legally entitled to work in Australia. It checks visa status, work rights and conditions, and visa expiry against the Department of Home Affairs VEVO — Visa Entitlement Verification Online system.
Who needs it
Any worker whose entitlement to work in Australia depends on a visa, where you need to confirm both that they may work and on what conditions.
Australian and New Zealand citizens don't need a VEVO check — an Australian citizen has no visa record, and a New Zealander is granted their visa on arrival, so VEVO has nothing useful to say about either. Oho recognises both and clears them without querying VEVO. They still need their right to work evidenced, which is what the second route below is for.
What Oho needs
It depends which route the worker takes, and there are two.
A passport (the usual route). The passport or travel document number, the country that issued it, and the holder's date of birth.
PA1234567 — letters and digits, no spaces or punctuation. Formats vary by country, so enter it exactly as printed in the passport's machine-readable line.
An Australian citizen without a passport. Citizens who hold no passport at all can evidence their right to work with either an Australian birth certificate or an Australian citizenship certificate: the certificate or registration number, the state of birth, their date of birth, and the date the certificate was attained. No VEVO check runs on this route — there's nothing to query — so it's captured and recorded rather than verified.
VEVO identifies the record by passport number and date of birth together, so a worker without one can't be checked.
The exception is the routes that don't reach VEVO — an Australian or New Zealand passport, or a certificate — which clear without one. See Spreadsheet columns if you're importing.
Before you start
VEVO is an authenticated Home Affairs service rather than a public register, so access is arranged for your organisation when the source is set up. Contact support if Right to Work checks aren't yet enabled.
How Oho verifies it
Oho submits the passport details and date of birth to VEVO and brings back the person's work entitlement, any conditions on that entitlement, and the visa expiry. Where the visa is time-limited, the expiry is tracked so an approaching end date surfaces ahead of time.
The conditions are the part worth reading. A visa may permit work with a cap on hours, or restrict the kind of work, or tie the entitlement to a named employer — all of which are "yes they may work" answers with a qualification attached.
Reading the result
Every check resolves to one of these outcomes:
| Status (as shown in the app) | Colour | What it means | API value |
|---|---|---|---|
| May engage | Green | Valid and current — the person is cleared for the work. | MAY_ENGAGE |
| May not engage | Red | Not valid — expired, suspended, not found, or a match on a ban register. | MAY_NOT_ENGAGE |
| Under review | Yellow | Cleared, but worth a closer look — for example a condition on the clearance, a possible match, or an expiry coming up. | REVIEW_REQUIRED |
| In progress | Grey | Still being checked. | IN_PROGRESS |
| Error | Grey | The source couldn't be reached; Oho will try again. | ERROR |
| What VEVO returns | What Oho shows | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Unrestricted work rights | May engage | Entitled to work with no conditions bearing on it |
| Work rights with conditions | Under review | Entitled, but restricted — read the conditions |
| No work rights | May not engage | The visa doesn't permit work |
| Visa expired | May not engage | The entitlement has ended |
| No matching record | May not engage | Passport number and date of birth didn't match a VEVO record |
When it doesn't verify
| What you see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| May not engage — no matching record | Passport number, issuing country or date of birth doesn't match VEVO | Check all three. The passport number is the most common culprit — read it from the passport itself |
| Under review | The visa carries conditions on work | Read them. Capped hours or employer-tied entitlements are common and may or may not suit the role |
| May not engage on a renewed visa | The worker holds a new visa, but the passport on file is the old document | Update the passport details; a new passport means a new number |
| Check won't run at all | No date of birth on the worker's record | Add it. VEVO can't identify anyone without one |
| An Australian citizen shows unverified | Expected on the birth- or citizenship-certificate route | Nothing to verify — the certificate is captured for the record, not checked |
| Error | VEVO was unreachable, or access isn't configured | If it's every worker at once, raise it with support |
Renewals & monitoring
Visas change more often than most credentials, which makes this one of the checks where monitoring earns its keep: a visa cancelled or varied mid-employment shows up on the next daily check rather than at the worker's next review.
Two things to keep on top of:
- A new passport means a new number. The visa may carry across, but the document Oho checks against doesn't. Update the passport details when a worker renews their passport, or the check starts coming back as no matching record.
- Watch the expiry, not just the status. A time-limited visa's expiry is tracked from what VEVO returns, so an approaching end date is flagged automatically — but it's the one credential where the worker may need months of notice to sort out.