Residence assessment for customers claiming JobSeeker Payment (JSP) 001-19051536

To satisfy residence criteria for JSP, the customer must meet all of the following requirements:

• be an Australian resident
• generally must be in Australia at the time the claim is lodged
• remain an Australian resident throughout the period of payment, and
• satisfy a 2 year (104 week) or 4 year (208 week) 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

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 JSP for a single continuous period of up to 6 months (182 days). For more information, see New Zealand 10 year residence exemption.

To be eligible for JSP, customers who have recently arrived to live in Australia must:

• have been an Australian resident, and
• physically be in Australia for the required duration of the NARWP, either in 1 period, or in a number of periods

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

Broken periods of residence in Australia can count towards NARWP 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, they need to have become a lone parent after the start of the current period of Australian residence. The Lone Parent exemption only applies to Parenting Payment Single (PPS), JobSeeker Payment (JSP), Youth Allowance (YA) and Farm Household Allowance (FHA).

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 where available.

Where the datalink is unsuccessful, the residence information must be manually recorded. If Department of Home Affairs has provided the information, it will take precedence over any conflicting information provided by the customer. When 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.