FIFO Tickets

What FIFO tickets do you need for a first job?

What the ads ask for

Camp job ads from Sodexo, Civeo and Compass Group in October 2026 asked for much the same short list:

• A police check. Ads often want one issued in the last six months, so don't get it a year early.
• A current driver's licence. Sodexo's WA ads said a WA licence is preferred.
• A White Card, on some ads. It's the one-day construction safety course, and a card from one state is accepted in the others.

After the offer you do a pre-employment medical and a drug and alcohol test. The employer books both.

A few more tickets get you particular shifts on a camp:

• An RSA puts you in the wet mess, the camp bar. Civeo's WA ads asked for one.
• A food safety certificate (food handler) helps for kitchen work.
• A first aid certificate doesn't appear in many camp ads, but it's cheap, it's on many mining jobs' wish lists later, and it looks good on a resume.

The police check

The police check is the first thing to sort, and it's quicker than people expect. The AFP and WA Police both do it online, with 100 points of ID, and a clear result usually comes back within a couple of days.

The WA Police certificate is a national check, not just a WA one, and people in other states can use it. SA Police's own certificate is slower: you print the form, pay at a police station and wait 10 to 15 working days. Private online checkers like Fit2work and National Crime Check are accredited and cost about the same. Before you pay anyone, ask the employer whether they'll run the check themselves, because some do.

The paperwork nobody mentions

The paperwork side matters as much as the tickets. Get a tax file number if you don't have one, because it can take up to four weeks to arrive and you'll be taxed heavily without it.

Make a free Unique Student Identifier too. Every accredited course in Australia asks for it, and it takes five minutes.

Prices are from each provider's own page. Book direct and check the date before you pay.

One RSA course for WA and Queensland

WA and Queensland both accept the nationally recognised RSA course from a registered training provider, so one online course covers a camp in either state. Galaxy Training's course is on WA's own list of providers ↗ (opens in a new tab). In South Australia, the course has to come from a provider the Liquor and Gambling Commissioner has approved, and Consumer and Business Services lists them ↗ (opens in a new tab).

Which FIFO tickets are worth getting next?

Safety tickets and machine licences

Two kinds of ticket get lumped together, and the difference changes how long you wait. A safety ticket like working at heights is a certificate from the training school, and you walk out with it the same day.

A high risk work licence is different. Forklift, dogging, rigging, scaffolding and the bigger elevating work platforms (EWPs) all need one. You train, an assessor signs you off, then you apply to the state regulator and wait. WorkSafe WA says to allow four to six weeks.

Licence fees go on top: $92 for a new licence in WA, $113.41 a class in Queensland and $101 for a new one in South Australia, from the regulators' fee pages, October 2026.

The EWP yellow card

The yellow card for scissor lifts and small booms is an industry card, not a government licence. It's useful on shutdowns, but a boom of 11 metres or more needs the WP licence instead.

Standard 11 for Queensland coal

Standard 11 is the general induction for Queensland coal mines, made up of six short units in safety, risk, communication and emergency response. Most people do it as online theory and then a practical day. It doesn't count in WA, so skip it if WA is where you're headed.

WA has no single induction like it. MARCSTA, the old WA mining induction card, has wound up, and each WA site now inducts its own people.

Tickets for tradies

A trade licence gets you the interview, and one or two extra tickets decide which FIFO jobs you can apply for. Most electrician ads want low voltage rescue (LVR) and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) done in the last year, so book the refresher before you apply. Poly welding and an excavator ticket are nice to have, not essential: they open the jobs on a mine's water lines, and the crews that dig their own trenches.

In WA, gas fitting is a separate permit from Building and Energy, the state's regulator. WA's full permit takes at least 250 hours of logged work on the job, not in a classroom, so no course can sell it to you (the permit rules ↗ (opens in a new tab)). A licence for heavy rigid trucks helps on some plumbing jobs too, and WA residents can do the free course in Perth.

If you work in WA building and construction now, the Construction Training Fund ↗ (opens in a new tab) pays back up to 70% of an approved course, to $1,300 in Perth or $1,700 in the regions. Polyweld Tech Academy says its courses are approved, so check any other course with the fund before you book.

Where should you do your FIFO tickets in Perth?

Saferight is the easy one to start with, because you can see the price and the next date before you ring anyone. Civil Safety in Welshpool runs the same kind of tickets and also trains in Bunbury, which suits anyone in the South West. Its prices aren't online, so call for a quote and compare.

ERGT doesn't do the machine licences, but it's where Perth people go for offshore safety training. Its BOSIET course (Basic Offshore Safety Induction and Emergency Training), the offshore survival ticket, costs about $2,400. That's a lot of money to spend before an offshore employer has shown any interest, so wait for the interest.

TAFE in Perth

TAFE in Perth costs less but runs fewer of these courses, and many mining skill sets run at regional campuses. South Metropolitan TAFE in Fremantle runs forklift. North Metropolitan TAFE at Hazelmere runs a fee-free heavy rigid truck licence course for WA residents, though you still pay the licence fees.

The MC truck licence in Perth

In WA, an MC (multi-combination) licence, the one road trains need, takes three years on a car licence and one on a heavy rigid or heavy combination licence. Only an approved training organisation can run the MC driving test, so the course and the test come as a package, and Transport WA ↗ (opens in a new tab) adds $63.50 for the licence class.

Both courses use automatic trucks. A test passed in an automatic, or in a synchromesh manual like most cars have, puts a condition on your licence that limits you to those gearboxes, Transport WA says. Several road train ads in October 2026 wanted Road Ranger manual experience, so if those are the jobs you want, ask which test truck keeps your licence open to them, and check with Transport WA before you book.

Civil machine tickets in Perth

Civil crews, the ones that build the roads and pads around a mine, sometimes take people with a roller ticket and no mine experience. In October 2026, a Queensland civil contractor wanted labourers with one, and its water cart jobs asked for a heavy rigid licence and construction experience. A course on the moxy, the articulated dump truck, doesn't count with the mines, so it's among the things not to pay for before an offer.

Where should you do your FIFO tickets in Brisbane?

Civil Safety's Standard 11 goes online first and finishes with a practical day, so you lose one day at the venue rather than three. Coal Train, with centres in Yeppoon and Emerald in Central Queensland, is a coal specialist. It suits you if you're already living up that way.

Sheer, in Hemmant, also runs the EWP yellow card course. TAFE Queensland runs forklift at Ipswich, though several of its other mining tickets run only in North Queensland.

Where should you do your FIFO tickets in Adelaide?

Access Training Centre runs forklift, EWP, dogging, rigging, heights and confined spaces, and its website shows what each costs and when it next runs. CITC already lists its 2027 prices, and most go up on 1 January, so book before then if you can. Link Resources at Kilburn charges less for working at heights and for confined space entry, with classes most weeks.

A high risk licence in South Australia is only for people who live there, and you apply in the state where you trained. The trainer gives you a notice and an invoice: pay it at a Service SA centre or an Australia Post Photopoint within 60 days. SafeWork SA ↗ (opens in a new tab) says to allow six to eight weeks for the card, and once you've paid, the notice lets you do the work for 60 days from its date.

TAFE in Adelaide

TAFE SA's only machine licence course in Adelaide in October 2026 was the boom EWP at Urrbrae, and its forklift and safety courses ran at regional campuses. If you hold a CITB number from building work, most Adelaide providers charge less, because the Construction Industry Training Board pays part of the fee.

Where should you do your FIFO tickets in Melbourne, Sydney, Darwin or Hobart?

The state's licence fee is extra: $77.70 a class in Victoria, $95 a class in New South Wales, $92 in the Northern Territory and $86.24 for up to three classes in Tasmania, as each regulator listed it in October 2026.

Each state runs the White Card its own way, and the White Card page has the rules and a price for each of these cities.

Can you do FIFO tickets online?

Queensland is stricter about the White Card. WorkSafe Queensland requires a live class, either in a room or in real time on video with a trainer, so you can't get a Queensland card from a self-paced course. Blue Dog and White Card Webinars run the live video version for Queensland. What every state allows is on White Card online.

Blended is the useful middle ground. You do the reading online at your own pace, then turn up for a short practical day. Standard 11, the heights and confined space bundles and first aid are often sold this way.

Be wary of any course promising a forklift or rigging licence without you touching a machine. Queensland's regulator now refers fake licences and fake White Cards to the police.

Can you get FIFO tickets for free?

In WA, start at Jobs and Skills WA ↗ (opens in a new tab), which lists the fee-free courses and the capped fees for everything else. A skill set is a handful of units from a full qualification, and some of them include a ticket. In Queensland, Fee-Free TAFE runs to the end of 2026, and Skilling Queenslanders for Work runs free local programs for jobseekers. In South Australia, TAFE SA's Introduction to Construction Skill Set ↗ (opens in a new tab) is free for people who qualify, and its six weeks at Tonsley include the White Card and working at heights.

The bigger saving is waiting. Many employers pay for the tickets a job needs once you're hired, and the coal board medical is the employer's cost.

Which FIFO tickets should you never pay for?

The dump truck course

The dump truck course is the one that catches people. Saferight's one-day articulated dump truck course was $650 in October 2026, and a mine still sees a greenie at the end of it. The trainee truck jobs worth having pay you while they train you, and Mineral Resources has run paid programs like that.

The job that needs a deposit

A job that asks for a deposit is the other one. In 2025, people chasing FIFO work paid for "training" through fake recruiters and then heard nothing. WA ScamNet ↗ (opens in a new tab) says an employment agent in WA can't charge a job seeker a fee at all. If someone asks you for money to get you onto a site, it's a scam, and you can report it to Scamwatch ↗ (opens in a new tab).

The same goes for the MSIC (Maritime Security Identification Card), the card for working in ports and offshore. You can't get one without an employer's letter, so nobody can sell you one in advance.

Which FIFO tickets are right for you?

Three honest questions

1. Do you know which job you're applying for? If you don't, buy nothing but the police check. Tickets bought for a job you never chase are money gone.
2. Has an ad you'd apply for asked for it? Read ten real ads for the job you want, and get what turns up in most of them. That beats any list.
3. Would the employer pay for it after the offer? If the answer is yes, the ticket is worth more to your bank account as something you'll get later than as something on your resume today.