Leaving Australia Checklist: Money Steps Before You Go

The whole checklist splits on this one question. A temporary visa holder who has permanently left Australia can claim a Departing Australia Superannuation Payment. An Australian citizen or permanent resident moving overseas cannot touch their super early, no matter how long they stay away. Get it wrong and you either miss money you were owed or wait years for it.

Multiple funds mean multiple sets of fees and a messier claim later. Find and consolidate your accounts while you are still an Australian resident, because dealing with one fund from overseas is far simpler than chasing five. This is the practical answer to what to do with super when leaving Australia, and the right move depends on your visa.

Tax when leaving Australia permanently can trigger a deemed disposal of certain assets for capital gains tax, with an option to elect to defer the gain. Australian real property, including your main residence, is treated differently from shares, ETFs and other investments. It is not a do-it-yourself calculation, and the date you stop being a resident changes the number.

HECS-HELP and other study or training loans do not stop when you leave. You have to tell the ATO that you are moving, and repayments can continue based on your worldwide income. Check the balance now so your overseas budget includes a real number, not the one you half remember from your last payslip.

The ATO needs to know your intention to move, and it needs that notice around your departure rather than months later from another time zone. Once you are set up as overseas, you report worldwide income instead of just Australian income. Ignore it and the first contact you get can be a repayment notice with interest attached.

Filing from overseas is possible but slower, and you lose the easy access to your accountant, your records and your myGov prompts. Lodging while you are still a resident keeps the return simple, and if you have a study loan it also sets your reporting up correctly. Leave it and you are decoding residency rules from a different time zone.

The DASP application runs through ATO online services, and so does your tax return. Plenty of people find their myGov access needs a phone number or an identity check that only works inside Australia, and a locked account from another country is a slow fix. Test the login before you fly.

Most income support payments are portable for a limited window outside Australia, and some stop the day you leave to live somewhere else. JobSeeker is the clearest example of a payment that ends on departure, while a few others can continue for longer. Reporting the move in advance avoids a debt you have to repay later.

Australian banks will often keep an account open for a non-resident, but interest withholding, fees and product rules can change once you give a foreign address. Sort your direct debits and automatic transfers before your Australian mobile stops working, because two-factor codes are the usual reason people get locked out of their own money.

Your departure date drives the DASP timing, the six month unclaimed super rule and the tax year your residency ends. Boarding passes, passport stamps and your visa record all help to prove it. Reconstructing that date from memory months later is exactly where claims stall, so keep the documents rather than tidying them away.

A temporary visa holder who has permanently left can claim a Departing Australia Superannuation Payment, but only after departure and visa cessation. Withholding depends on whether the money sits in the tax-free component, the taxed element of the taxable component or the untaxed element, and the rate is higher again for former working holiday makers. Check the current rates on the ATO DASP page.

If a departing temporary resident does not claim, the super fund transfers the balance to the ATO six months after departure. It is not lost, but from that point you claim from the ATO rather than the fund, and the steps are different. Diarise the date so you know where your money actually sits.

An ABN that stays active can keep lodgment and registration obligations alive even when you are not trading. If you ran a business or contracted on the side, cancel what has finished and keep the records. An active ABN on the register is one of the reasons the ATO and other agencies keep expecting activity from you.

Funds and insurers need a reliable way to reach you about fees, insurance and your balance, and insurance held inside super can change once you are overseas. Some cover continues, some stops, and the difference matters if something happens while you are away. Update the address before your Australian mobile is cancelled.

Once you are overseas, your compulsory repayment is based on worldwide income, not just what you earn in Australia. You report through the ATO rather than waiting for an employer to withhold anything. Understating it or skipping the notification builds a debt that follows you, with interest, wherever you live.

Residency decides how your Australian interest, dividends, rent and pensions are taxed, and at what rates. It also confirms when the departure CGT rules applied to you. Keep the tests and dates in writing, because the ATO can ask years later and your old lease, travel records and bank statements are the evidence.

The ATO expects you to keep records for years, and the departure year is usually the one that gets questions. Download statements before old accounts close, because banks and funds can charge for historical copies or stop providing them to former customers. One folder in the cloud now saves an argument later.

If you are an Australian citizen or permanent resident, your super stays preserved until a condition of release is met, and moving overseas does not count as one. That holds even if you never come back. Knowing this now stops you paying someone to chase money you cannot legally access yet.