No. A Tax File Number is issued once and kept for life. It does not expire with a visa, does not change on a second or third working holiday visa, and does not need reactivating after years away. The same nine digits apply.
Why does the TFN survive the visa?
Because it identifies you, not your visa. It is attached to a person in the ATO's records, and every employer, super fund, bank and tax return you have had in Australia links back through it. A second one would fracture that history rather than refresh it.
A second application is actively harmful, not merely unnecessary. It creates a duplicate record that has to be resolved manually before anything can proceed, turning a five minute retrieval into a six week problem.
Where do you find a TFN you have lost?
It is on more documents than people expect, and finding it is faster than any process involving the ATO. Start with anything from your first stint.
- The original letter the ATO posted when it was issued
- Any payslip or income statement from an Australian employer
- Any Australian tax return you have lodged
- Superannuation fund correspondence, which carries it if you supplied it
- Any earlier ATO correspondence at all
If none of those survive, a tax agent can retrieve it for you, and so can the ATO on 13 28 61 once you have verified your identity. What you must not do is apply again.
What actually needs updating when you come back?
Three records, and none of them is the TFN itself. Getting these right before your first pay is what makes the second year uneventful.
Your address. The ATO still holds whatever you gave it on your first visit, usually a hostel you left years ago. Everything posted follows it until it is changed.
Your bank account. A refund directed to an Australian account you closed on the way to the airport does not disappear; it bounces and sits as a credit until the ATO is told where to send it. Returning backpackers frequently have money waiting from a first year they never lodged for.
A declaration form for each new employer. Your TFN being permanent does not mean it travels between employers. Every new employer needs its own Tax File Number Declaration, answering the working holiday questions for the visa you are on now.
What about super from your first visit?
A large amount of money gets abandoned here. If you claimed a departing Australia superannuation payment when you left, that account is closed and your second visit will accumulate into a new one, probably with a different fund chosen by your new employer.
If you did not claim it, it is still yours, either sitting with the original fund or, if the fund lost contact with you, reported as unclaimed and transferred to the ATO. Either way it is recoverable and tied to the same TFN you are about to start using again. If you are planning to leave again at the end of this visa, both stints can be dealt with together when you claim your superannuation after leaving Australia.
Do the tax rules work the same the second time?
Broadly yes. The financial year runs 1 July to 30 June, a return is due for any year you earned Australian income, the standard lodgement deadline is 31 October, and the working holiday maker rate of 15% applies up to $45,000 provided your employers hold your TFN and are registered as working holiday maker employers.
What is different is that you now have history. A prior year you never lodged for is still outstanding, and it usually contains a refund rather than a debt, because most first year backpackers are over-withheld rather than under.
What did your first visit leave behind?
The TFN never changes, so the work on a return visit is entirely about the records attached to it.
- Whether you lodged a return for your first visit. An unlodged year is money sitting still, not a problem going away.
- Whether super from the first visit was claimed, left with a fund, or transferred to the ATO as unclaimed.
- Whether the bank account your last refund was aimed at still exists.
- Whether your two stints fall in the same financial year or different ones, which changes how the income and any residency position is assessed.
Prior year returns can still be lodged, and a working holiday tax return covering an earlier year is routine rather than exceptional. You can estimate your tax refund for either year.