Residence assessment for customers claiming Commonwealth Seniors Health Card (CSHC) 065-06040010

To satisfy the residence criteria for CSHC, the customer must meet all the following:

• be an Australian resident or a holder of a Special Category visa (SCV) who is residing in Australia
• generally, must be in Australia at the time the claim is lodged
• remain an Australian resident or the holder of an SCV who is residing in Australia 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 customer’s 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, an SCV 444 or visa subclass 115, 117, 835 or 837
• Otherwise, the customer is required to serve a 4 year (208 week) NARWP

Customers claiming a CSHC must serve a NARWP or have an exemption from the NARWP to be eligible.

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.

Before being entitled to a CSHC, customers who have recently arrived in Australia and claim a CSHC are required to have been in Australia for the duration of the NARWP:

• as an Australian resident, or
• the holder of an SCV who is residing in Australia

The NARWP can be served in one continuous period or a total of a number of periods.

Temporary absences from Australia while serving 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 CSHC may have a 2 or 4 year NARWP. If they leave Australia temporarily for 3 weeks the NARWP period does not recommence, 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 was an Australian resident or the holder of an SCV who is residing in Australia for each period. 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 past period spent in Australia as an Australian resident would count towards any current NARWP requirements.

It is not a requirement that the period of residence and presence to serve the NARWP occurred immediately before claiming. Note: the NARWP only needs to be served once for the applicable payment.

The claim process will attempt a link with the Department of Home Affairs. If successful, the datalink will automatically retrieve and 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 customer’s residence information will need to be manually recorded. Data from the Immigration Datalink will take precedence over any conflicting information provided by the customer. Once the immigration record is matched with a customer's Centrelink 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 is a discretionary decision and is not provided by the datalink.