05.1The routing slip
One table for the whole departure: which body, what it wants to know, and when. The sections below explain each line.
| Body | What it asks | When |
|---|---|---|
| Centrelink | If you get a payment or concession card, you may need to say you are leaving and for how long. | Before you travel |
| Medicare | Medicare doesn’t cover you overseas, and Services Australia asks you to have a plan for health care. | Before you travel |
| Child Support | A call to the Child Support enquiry line, because leaving may change how a case is managed. | Before you leave |
| Australian Electoral Commission | Registration as an overseas elector, or an overseas notification form. | From three months before you leave |
| Australian Taxation Office | An overseas travel notification, if you have a study or training loan and will live overseas for 183 days or more in any 12 months. | Within 7 days of leaving |
05.2Centrelink: which payments travel
Services Australia says some payments and concession cards stop while you are travelling or once you move, and that to keep getting one outside Australia you have to go on meeting its qualification rules the whole time. Each payment has its own page on what happens when you leave.
Australia has social security agreements with some countries, and moving to one of them may let you claim a payment from that country.
Get myGov ready before you go
- Link Centrelink to myGov nowServices Australia says you may not be able to set up a Centrelink online account after you have left.
- Check how you sign inYou’ll need SMS on your phone while away, or a different sign-in option; without access to myGov you can’t update your details online from overseas.
- Keep reporting changesThe same rules about changes in your circumstances apply while you live overseas and receive a payment.
05.3Medicare, away and back
Medicare won’t cover medical care in another country. Australia has reciprocal health care agreements with 11 countries that may give you medically necessary care in their public hospitals, but Services Australia still says to get travel insurance, and to carry your Medicare card and passport if you go to a hospital there.
PBS medicines have strict rules for overseas travel. You may take your own medicine for your personal use, or medicine for a person travelling with you, and a pharmacist or doctor can check the medicine is legal where you are going.
Coming back
Most people don’t need to tell Services Australia they are home. The exceptions for a Centrelink payment or concession card: it stopped while you were away and didn’t restore automatically when you came back, you are paid under an international social security agreement, or you have been asked for evidence of your reason for travel. Anyone with a Child Support Agreement is asked to call the Child Support enquiry line on getting home.
After more than 12 months living overseas you may need to re-enrol in Medicare, and the rules differ for citizens and others.
An Australian citizen returning after more than 5 years overseas can re-enrol without visiting a service centre, with a current passport for each person and 2 documents, dated in the last 6 months, showing the family now lives in Australia. One of the two can come from the country you lived in, and the list of those includes proof you sold your property, ended your lease or job, or moved household goods or furniture. Keep the removal paperwork.
05.4Child support
Anyone with a Child Support case is asked to call the Child Support enquiry line before leaving Australia. Where there is a child support debt, Services Australia may issue a Departure Prohibition Order, which stops the person leaving until the debt is paid in full or an acceptable payment arrangement is made. It doesn’t need a court order to do this.
05.5The electoral roll
To enrol from overseas you must be an Australian citizen aged 18 or over who intends to return to Australia within six years. What you do depends on the kind of move:
| Your move | What the AEC sets out |
|---|---|
| Living or working overseas, coming back within six years | Register as an overseas elector. If you are already enrolled, you can do it from three months before you leave until three years after. |
| A short time away, back to the same address | Stay enrolled. Lodge an overseas notification form, which keeps your details on the roll so you can vote in federal elections while away. |
| Leaving indefinitely, not planning to return | Lodge an overseas notification form, no more than three months before you go. You stay entitled to enrol and vote until a month after leaving, and then your name is removed from the roll. |
You can’t enrol with an overseas address: overseas electors stay in the division they could enrol in before leaving. Someone who moved overseas indefinitely and comes home to live re-enrols once they have been at their new address for at least a month.
During a federal election, by-election or referendum, Australians overseas may be able to vote by post, or in person at a voting centre outside Australia.
05.6The Tax Office
The ATO’s notice is the one with the shortest clock: 7 days from leaving, for anyone with a study or training loan who will be overseas for 183 days or more in any 12 months. Line 04 covers it, along with residency and capital gains.