If you lodge it yourself, your 2025-26 Australian tax return is due on 31 October 2026. That date falls on a Saturday this year, and under the ATO's next business day rule a return lodged on Monday 2 November 2026 is still on time.
Which tax year is due right now?
The 2025-26 year, which is every dollar paid to you between 1 July 2025 and 30 June 2026. The Australian financial year does not follow the calendar, so the month you arrived decides how your working holiday splits.
- Worked November 2025 to May 2026: one return, the 2025-26 one, due now.
- Worked March to September 2026: two returns. March to June is 2025-26 and due now; July to September is 2026-27 and not due until 31 October 2027.
- Left Australia before 1 July 2025: that year was due in October 2025, and it can still be lodged.
The Australian tax year guide walks through the split in more detail, including the early return for people leaving before 30 June.
Is the deadline later if a registered tax agent lodges it?
Usually, yes. Most registered tax agents run a lodgement program that lets them lodge for their clients after 31 October, typically into the following May, provided the client was on the agent's list before 31 October.
The ATO is explicit that the exact date depends on your own situation and on when you engaged the agent, so the condition that matters is timing. Joining an agent's client list after the October deadline has passed does not reach back and extend it. The guide to tax agents explains what else changes when an agent is involved.
What actually happens if you miss 31 October?
Nothing happens on 3 November, and for most working holiday makers who are owed money, the larger cost of a late return is usually time rather than a fine. The ATO can apply a Failure to Lodge penalty of one penalty unit for each 28 days a return is overdue, capped at five units. From 1 July 2026 a penalty unit is $364, so the maximum is $1,820.
The ATO applies that penalty selectively. A first late return that produces a refund is treated very differently from several unlodged years or a return that produces a debt. The late lodgement guide covers when the penalty is applied, when interest is added, and how remission works.
Does a refund expire if you lodge after the deadline?
No. There is no cut off date for lodging a past year, and a refund owed on a 2025-26 return is still payable after 31 October. A return from a working holiday two or three years ago can still be lodged today.
What a late return does cost is access to your own money. Any tax over-withheld during the year stays with the ATO until the return is lodged and processed, and the longer the return waits, the longer the money does.
You have already left Australia. Does any of this change?
The deadline does not move because you have gone home, and neither does the return. What changes is practical, and one point catches people out every year.
The ATO pays a tax refund only into an Australian bank account. Superannuation through DASP can be paid overseas, but a tax refund cannot. If your Australian account is still open, keep it open until the refund has landed. If it is already closed, deal with that before the return is lodged, not after.
What should you check before lodging this week?
Three things, because a return lodged in a hurry with one of them wrong has to be amended later, and an amendment takes longer than getting it right the first time.
- Every employer has finalised your income statement. An employer that has not finalised can be missing from the return entirely.
- Your residency position for the year. It decides the rate the whole year is assessed at, and it is the question most often answered wrongly.
- Whether the Medicare levy was ever yours to pay. Many passports are exempt, but only with the right certificate. The Medicare page explains who qualifies.
Do you even need to lodge?
In most cases, yes. If you worked in Australia during the year and tax was withheld from your pay, lodging is the only way to have that year assessed, and it is the only way any over-withheld tax comes back. The short stay guide covers the exceptions.
Would you rather not do it yourself?
Message us on WhatsApp with roughly where and when you worked. Working holiday tax is the only thing we do: we read your ATO record, prepare the tax return, and nothing is lodged until you have read it and signed. Reviewed and signed off by a registered tax agent before it is lodged with the ATO.