Australia and New Zealand have enacted legislation to protect international students' rights and the long-term sustainability of their export education sectors. A pivotal, but under-researched, sub-domain of these legislative frameworks is education agent-based international student recruitment. The principal-agent relationships between governments, education providers and education agents involve complex agency problems that regulators need to consider to safeguard the interests of government and international students. This article evaluates the longitudinal development of Australian and New Zealand education agent standards and other government regulation through the analysis of legislation, policy and other documentary sources. The findings demonstrate how, over time, Australia and New Zealand governments have adopted a more active principal role, seeking to steer and control education providers' engagement with education agents, predominantly through legislation. The agent standards now contain a wide array of requirements for education providers to fulfil. However, there are a number of limitations that diminish a government's ability to mitigate providers' opportunistic behaviour and protect international students. This article concludes by discussing potential future avenues for government regulation in this policy domain.