Medicare eligibility for customers with permanent resident status 011-44040000

A customer can enrol in Medicare as a migrant when they:

• have been granted permanent residency, and
• are living in Australia

The customer can enrol in Medicare if they are onshore and meet all of the criteria. When they enrol they will get a green Medicare card.

The customer must supply documents to enrol in Medicare.

• Identification documents must be verified in the Medicare Document Verification Service (DVS) Portal before processing an application
• If an application is received and processed in a service centre, DVS is only needed if the Service Officer is not satisfied with the validity of the documents

See Identity verification for Medicare enrolments and re-enrolments in the Medicare Document Verification Service (DVS) portal.

Note: if a customer submits a DME application, DVS is completed in the MEE Portal. See

A person living in Australia who has applied for a parent visa (subclass 103 or 804) is not eligible to enrol in Medicare until the parent visa has been granted.

The only exception is where a person who has applied for a parent visa (subclass 103 or 804) is from a Reciprocal Health Care Agreement (RHCA) country. They must meet the conditions for that RHCA country to be eligible for Medicare.

See Reciprocal Health Care Agreement (RHCA) eligibility for Medicare and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

Service Officers must take care when assessing an application for enrolment where a person has a parent visa.

Where a person is a conditional migrant and their entitlement is updated to migrant through the Department of Home Affairs immigration link, this will automatically update the person’s entitlement type in CDMS and should reissue a new Medicare card.

Where a person has not been linked to the Department of Home Affairs immigration link an update will need to be done manually.

Holders of permanent resident visas who permanently reside in Australia may lose their Medicare eligibility when they are absent from Australia for 12 months or more.

Services Australia accepts advice confirming that a person is residing overseas from the following sources:

• over the phone
• in person, or
• in writing (letter or email)

Where advice is received that a permanent resident visa holder intends to or is residing overseas, enter the departure date (if known), in the Comments field in Personal.

Where it has been confirmed that a permanent resident visa holder has been absent from Australia for 12 months or more but the exact date they left the country is unknown, eligibility can be consumer end dated with the date advised or date the written advice was received.

Note: a consumer end date should not be applied to a customer's record until they have been residing outside Australia for 12 months or more.

The Process page provides information on:

• how to consumer end date a person
• permanent residents returning to reside in Australia

Where an enrolled customer provides Australian citizenship papers, their Medicare entitlement type can be updated to reflect Australian (A).

The customer can provide one of the following documents:

• Australian Citizenship certificate
• Australian Citizen by Descent certificate
• Australian passport

See Amend customer entitlement details in the Consumer Directory Maintenance System (CDMS) for Medicare.