Where your MARN has to appear, and why a website footer is not enough
Code of Conduct s25(2) names three places your registration number has to appear: your website, your social media and your advertisements. Here is what that means for an account that posts three times a week.
Where your MARN has to appear, and why a website footer is not enough
Most registered migration agents put their MARN in the footer of their website, and stop there. It is the visible, formal place, it looks right, and nobody has ever complained about it.
The problem is that the footer is one of three places the Code names, and it is the one that is easiest to remember. The other two are the ones that move.
This is general information, not legal advice.
What the Code actually says
The instrument is the Migration (Migration Agents Code of Conduct) Regulations 2021, which commenced on 1 March 2022. There is no separate "Code of Conduct 2026". A 2026 compilation exists, but it is the same instrument.
Section 25(2) requires the registration number of at least one registered migration agent to appear on the business's website, its social media, and its advertisements.
Read that list again slowly, because the conjunction is doing the work. It is not "your website or your advertising". It is website and social media and advertisements. Three separate obligations, not one obligation with three examples.
Why the footer is the easy one
A website footer is written once and then it sits there. It is static, it is reviewed when the site is built, and it survives a redesign because somebody notices when it is gone.
Social media is the opposite. It is written by whoever is closest to the phone, at the pace of the news cycle, and nobody proofreads it against a regulation. If you post three times a week, that is around thirteen advertisements a month that each need the number, and none of them go through the process that got the number onto your website.
The three places, in practice
Your website. The footer is fine. The About page is better. If a client has to hunt for it, put it in both.
Your social media. This is where the ambiguity lives. The safe reading is that the number belongs both in the account bio, where it identifies the business, and in the caption of anything that is advertising your services. A bio is easy to change and easy to forget you changed. A caption travels with the post when it is shared, screenshotted or reposted.
Your advertisements. A boosted post is an advertisement. A Google or Meta ad is an advertisement. So is a flyer, a seminar slide and a sponsorship tile. The format is not the test.
The four places agents most often miss
1. The caption, when the bio already has it. Relying on the bio alone means the number is one tap away rather than on the thing itself. If the post gets reshared into a group chat, the bio does not travel with it.
2. Emailed updates. A monthly client newsletter announcing what has changed and what you can help with is advertising your services. If your posts carry the number, your sends should too. Put it in the email footer once and it is handled for every edition.
3. Video and reels. A caption under a reel is still a caption. Spoken word on its own is thin: put it in the text, not only in the voiceover.
4. The second account. The business page has the number. The agent's personal profile, the suburb-specific page, the language-specific page and the account somebody opened for a campaign and never closed usually do not.
Why this is worth ten minutes of your week
Migration advertising is being looked at more closely than it was three years ago. The Australian National Audit Office found in May 2024 that the Department's regulation of migration agents was not effective, and OMARA staffing has roughly doubled since. Fourteen registered agents were sanctioned in the nine months of 2025-26 to March, on the Minister's own count, from a register of more than 5,400.
A missing number is not the worst thing on the list of things an agent can get wrong. It is, however, the most visible and the easiest for anybody to check, including a complainant who is unhappy about something else entirely and is looking for the thing that is provable.
The practical fix
Treat the number as part of the caption, not part of the brand kit. If it lives in the same place as the words, it goes out with the words.
That is how SwayBlu handles it for migration practices. The MARN is added at the caption layer, so it carries through posts, content plans and newsletters without you remembering. If there is no number on file, it says so before you publish rather than quietly shipping the post without it.
Related reading
SwayBlu is a content tool, not a legal or migration advice service. Its checks flag likely issues against the Migration (Migration Agents Code of Conduct) Regulations 2021 and are not legal advice. You are the publisher of record, and final compliance of anything you publish is your responsibility. SwayBlu is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting for the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority or the Department of Home Affairs.
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