Residence assessment for customers claiming Youth Allowance (YA) and/or Tertiary Access Payment (TAP) 106-06020130

To satisfy residence criteria for YA and/or TAP, the customer must meet all of the following:

• be an Australian resident
• generally be in Australia at the time the claim is lodged, and
• remain an Australian resident throughout the period of payment, and
• satisfy a 2 year (104 week) or 4 year (208 week) Newly Arrived Resident's Waiting Period (NARWP)

The length of the NARWP changed from 1 January 2019 and is determined by the visa subclass and grant date of the customer's first permanent residence visa.

The customer will have a 2 year (104 week) NARWP if:

• their first permanent residence visa was granted before 1 January 2019, or
• they hold or have held a visa subclass 115, 117, 835 or 837

Otherwise, the customer is required to serve a 4 year (208 week) NARWP.

Note: there are exceptions to these requirements.

Customers who have recently arrived to live in Australia and are claiming:

• YA are required to have been in Australia as an Australian resident for the duration of the NARWP before YA is payable
• TAP are required to have been in Australia as an Australian resident for the duration of the NARWP, and the NARWP has to have ended by the first TAP assessment date, to be eligible for TAP

Alternatively, they may have an exemption from the NARWP in certain circumstances.

If a claim is rejecting due to the NARWP and the customer lived on Norfolk Island before 1 July 2016, see Requesting and coding additional residence data for Norfolk Island claims.

A non-protected SCV holder who has lived continuously in Australia for a single period of at least 10 years immediately before claiming may qualify for:

• YA for a single continuous period of up to 6 months (182 days), and/or
• TAP

For more information, see New Zealand 10 year residence exemption.

Note: students holding a non-protected Special Category visa (SCV), who meet the New Zealand 10 year residence exemption, may qualify for TAP regardless of whether they have received JobSeeker Payment (JSP), Newstart Allowance (NSA), Youth Allowance (YA) or Sickness Allowance under this residence exemption previously.

Customers who have recently arrived to live in Australia and are claiming Youth Allowance (YA) are required to have been an Australian resident and physically in Australia for the required duration of the NARWP, either in 1 period, or in a number of periods before Youth Allowance is payable.

TAP customers must have fully served the NARWP by the first TAP assessment date to be eligible.

Temporary absences from Australia in the waiting period do not restart the NARWP but the days that a customer is overseas do not count towards meeting the NARWP requirements. For example, a customer claiming Youth Allowance may have a 2 or 4 year NARWP. If they leave Australia temporarily for 3 weeks the NARWP period does not restart, but the absence extends the NARWP end date by 3 weeks.

The requirement to have been in Australia for a period or periods totalling the required duration of the NARWP, allows for broken periods of residence in Australia to count if the person continued to be an Australian resident. For example, a customer who has returned to live in Australia after several years living overseas may have previously lived in Australia as an Australian resident. The period of former Australian residence would count towards any current NARWP requirements.

Generally, it is not a requirement that the period of residence required for the NARWP occurred immediately before claiming. However if a person is claiming an exemption from the NARWP for the reason that they became a Lone Principal Carer (applies to Parenting Payment Single (PPS), JobSeeker Payment (JSP), YA and Farm Household Allowance (FHA) only), they need to have become a lone parent since the start of the current period of Australian residence. The Lone Principal Carer NARWP exemption does not apply to TAP.

Note: the NARWP only needs to be served once for the applicable payment.

The new claim process will attempt a datalink with the Department of Home Affairs. If successful, the datalink will automatically record a customer's visa and movement information from 1 September 1994, and grants of Australian citizenship if available.

If the datalink is unsuccessful, the residence information will need to be manually recorded. If the Department of Home Affairs has provided the information, it will take precedence over any conflicting information provided by the customer. Once the Department of Home Affairs record is matched with a customer's record, ongoing updates to movement information and visa changes will be automatically recorded.

The decision about whether a customer is or was residing in Australia needs to be manually assessed and recorded by the Service Officer. This information is not provided by the datalink.

Immediately before leaving Australia, the customer must be:

• receiving YA and undertaking full-time or approved concessional load study in an approved course, or
• a continuing/intending student

Continuing students who lodge a claim for YA before leaving Australia may start receiving payment after they have left Australia if they are undertaking approved overseas study.

If a non-continuing student (for example, returning to study following a gap year) has recently claimed and will not become qualified and payable until after they leave Australia (for example, due to waiting periods), YA cannot be paid until the customer returns to Australia. Reject the claim and tell affected customers as soon as possible so they can change their travel plans if necessary.

See Youth Allowance customer going overseas for more details.