Residence assessment for customers claiming Age Pension 065-03040010

To satisfy the residence criteria for Age Pension, a customer must generally be an Australian resident and be in Australia at the time the claim is lodged.

In addition, customers claiming Age Pension are generally required to have 10 years qualifying Australian residence. An exemption or alternate qualification to this requirement applies where the customer:

• is a refugee or former refugee
• is a female who was widowed while both customer and partner were Australian residents and has at least 104 weeks Australian residence prior to claim
• was in receipt of Widow B Pension (WidB), Widow Allowance (WA), Mature Age Allowance (MAA) or Partner Allowance (PA) immediately before turning Age Pension age
• was receiving WidB, WA or PA on 19 March 1997 and had already turned Age Pension age at that date
• was receiving Wife Pension (WP) on 19 March 2020 and was not receiving Carer Allowance (CA) at that time
• was receiving WA on 31 December 2021 and had already turned Age Pension age at that date
• qualifies using an international social security agreement

Note: WA payments ceased on 1 January 2022. WA customers who did not have 10 years qualifying Australian residence for Age Pension on 1 January 2022, had alternative qualification coded on the Additional Residence Details (ARD) screen as part of their transfer to Age Pension on that date.

The qualifying residence period does not have to be served in Australia as long as the customer remains an Australian resident throughout the period. For example, a short holiday outside Australia will normally count towards the 10 years. Alternatively, a person may be exempt from this requirement in some circumstances. Note: the customer must also satisfy the other qualification requirements for Age Pension.

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

If a customer lived on Norfolk Island immediately before arriving in Australia for residence and never lived in Australia previously, it may be necessary to code a former resident override to prevent the system applying former resident rules.

Australia also has a number of international social security agreements that cover Age Pension. Agreements may help a customer receive the Age Pension even if they are not an Australian resident and in Australia when they claim and/or do not meet the minimum Australian residence period to qualify but have lived or worked in an agreement country.