Residence assessment for customers claiming Farm Household Allowance (FHA) 002-17050800

To meet residence criteria for FHA, 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) Newly Arrived Resident's Waiting Period

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.

New Australian residents claiming FHA need to have been in Australia as an Australian resident for the duration of the NARWP before FHA is payable. Alternatively, they may have an exemption from the NARWP in certain circumstances.

In addition, if the FHA claimant is the partner of a farmer, they must be residing in Australia.

Non-protected Special Category Visa (SCV) holders cannot qualify for FHA unless they apply for and are granted Australian citizenship or a permanent residence visa.

Customers who have recently arrived to live in Australia and are claiming Farm Household Allowance 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 Farm Household Allowance is payable.

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 Farm Household Allowance 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 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), Youth Allowance (YA) and FHA only), they need to have become a lone parent since the start of the current period of Australian residence.

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 will need to be manually recorded. If 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.