The Guide
The FIFO Guide Australia
A practical, chronological eBook that takes you from deciding to go through to your first roster on site. It fills in the detail this website only outlines.
Get the FIFO Guide
Who it's for
People planning to work FIFO in Western Australia who want one ordered source instead of piecing it together from forums and scattered pages. It assumes you're starting from outside the industry, and it's aimed at English speakers coming from any country.
It's just as useful if you already hold a trade. There's a specific path for having overseas qualifications recognised.
The problem it solves
The information exists, but it's spread out, inconsistent and easy to do in the wrong order. That costs time and money: the wrong visa step, tickets bought in the wrong sequence, a resume that gets filtered out, or arriving underfunded.
The guide puts the steps in the order you'll actually need them, so you can see the whole path before you commit to it.
What's inside
The guide works through, in sequence:
- The decision, and a realistic starting budget
- Visa options for international applicants
- Booking the flight and the first weeks after arrival
- Arrival admin: SIM, bank account, Tax File Number, health cover, superannuation
- A month-by-month plan for the first year
- The mandatory and optional site tickets, and a sensible order to do them in
- Finding work: job boards, company portals and recruitment agencies
- Role profiles, and recognition of overseas trade qualifications
- The Australian mining resume
- The interview and pre-employment process
- First roster, camp life and a packing list
- Tax, saving and transferring money home
- Driver's licence conversion, the mental-health side, community and networks, and the longer-term career path
- Checklists and a contact directory
A chronological approach
Every chapter follows the timeline of someone planning the move, so each step builds on the one before it. You can read it straight through while planning, then use it as a checklist once you're on the ground.
The author
Louis Storath wrote it from doing the work. He's a scaffolder on FIFO rosters out of Perth and went through the same process. Readers get direct support from him rather than a help desk.
What to realistically expect
It's a digital book, the 2026 edition, sold through Payhip, who handle the checkout. It's a detailed head start, not a shortcut: it can't apply for your visa, sit your tickets or do your applications, and it makes no promises about specific outcomes. Visa, tax and licensing details can change, so the guide points you to official sources to confirm anything time-sensitive.
Free pages vs. the guide
The pages on this site genuinely explain how FIFO works and what the path looks like. That's deliberate. The guide is the deep version: every step in order, with the budgets, checklists, resume detail and contacts that turn an overview into a plan you can follow.