Payments, fees and refunds

Version 1.0 · last updated 10 Sep 2026. We tell registered users before a material change takes effect.

1. Applicants pay nothing to VisaBid

Posting a case, receiving quotes, comparing them and messaging providers are free, and will remain free. We are paid by providers.

2. Who you actually pay

You pay your provider, not us. Card payments are processed by Stripe with the provider as merchant of record: their name appears on your statement, the funds settle into their account in Australia, and they issue the tax invoice under their own ABN with their own GST.

This is deliberate and it is better for you than the alternative. Section 50 of the Migration Agents Code of Conduct already requires a registered agent to hold unearned client money in a client account, and that obligation comes with a regulator attached to it. A foreign platform holding your money in an unlicensed "escrow" would be a weaker promise wearing a stronger word.

Government charges - the visa application charge, tribunal fees, health examinations, police checks - are paid by you to those bodies directly. They never pass through VisaBid, and we never take a percentage of them.

3. When you can be charged at all

Not until you have been given the consumer guide, a written service agreement has been issued, and both you and the provider have signed it. That is section 51 of the Code, and the platform enforces it: there is no path through this software that produces an invoice before that point.

Each payment stage is invoiced itemised before it is charged, and receipted after it is paid, as section 49 requires.

4. What VisaBid charges the provider

• Registered migration agents: 0% of each professional fee payment made through the platform.
• Australian legal practitioners: $0 flat per payment. A percentage of a solicitor's professional fees raises a fee-sharing question under the Legal Profession Uniform Law that does not arise for a registered migration agent, so we do not create one.
• Never on disbursements. The visa application charge is the Department's money and the provider never earned it. Taking a cut of it would be indefensible.
• No listing fees, no lead fees, no pay-to-appear-higher. We do not sell placement, and search order is not for sale.

Our fee is charged as a Stripe application fee at the moment of payment. Where a payment is refunded, our fee is refunded with it - keeping a commission on work that was refunded would be indefensible and, in a standard form contract, a live candidate for being declared unfair.

5. Refunds

Your right to a refund comes from three places, and they stack:

1. Your service agreement. It states the provider's refund policy. Money paid and not yet earned is refundable, and on termination the provider must give you a written statement of client money - which the platform generates automatically from the payment record.
2. The Code of Conduct. A registered agent must not charge for services not delivered, and must account for client money.
3. The Australian Consumer Law. Services must be provided with due care and skill and within a reasonable time. Where a failure is major you may cancel and seek a refund. These guarantees cannot be excluded by any contract, including this one.

If a dispute is decided in your favour, VisaBid can issue a refund directly from the provider's account for payments made through the platform. We use that power on evidence and we tell both sides why.

6. Chargebacks

You may dispute a card payment with your bank. Because the provider is the merchant of record, a chargeback is decided between you, your bank and them. Please raise a dispute with us first - it is usually faster, and it produces a record that helps you either way.

7. Currency and tax

Amounts on the platform are in Australian dollars and, where they are a provider's professional fee, include GST as section 46 of the Code requires. VisaBid's service fee is charged to the provider, who is a business, and is exclusive of any tax that may apply to it; the provider remains responsible for their own GST and tax obligations, and we do not give tax advice.

8. Failed onboarding

A provider cannot be paid until they have completed Stripe's verification. If a provider has not, you will be told rather than left at a broken payment page, and they will be prompted to finish.