A 2% levy you never owed
Your passport decides it, not your visa. Removable with a certificate almost nobody applies for.
Replies in about an hour.
Doing it yourself
Nobody asks whether the levy was ever yours. myGov applies it and moves on.
It is 2% of taxable income, about $500 on a $25,000 year. It never appears on a payslip.
On myGov
The levy is added when the return is assessed, so the first sign of it is a refund that came back smaller.
With us
We settle that question before the return goes in, not after the assessment lands.
Nothing on the screen mentions that your passport country, not your visa, is what decides it.
Whether Australia has a reciprocal health care agreement with your country is the whole question, and the first one we ask.
Taking the levy off needs an exemption certificate, applied for separately and not through the return at all.
We help you apply for the certificate, wait for it, and ensure the exemption is claimed for the correct year.
The exemption box is there whether you hold the certificate or not.
We only claim it with the evidence behind it, which is what the claim rests on if it is queried.
You will never log into myGov, link an ID, or work out which form is which. We deal with the ATO directly.
Why is the levy on your assessment at all?
Because it is the default. It comes off unless an exemption is claimed, and nothing asks whether you were entitled to Medicare, so the common outcome is 2% of a year's income paid towards a system you could never use.
The quieter mistake is the opposite: the exemption ticked without the statement that backs it. That evidence is a Medicare Entitlement Statement from Services Australia, a separate agency to the ATO, and a claim made without it cannot be supported if it is queried.
Who is exempt from the Medicare levy?
You are generally exempt if you were not entitled to Medicare, and on a working holiday visa that comes down to your passport. Australia has reciprocal health care agreements with eleven countries.
A national of one of those is generally entitled to Medicare while here, which removes the exemption even if you never enrolled: the test is entitlement, not use. Everybody else, Germany and Japan included, is normally not entitled and can claim the exemption for the days that applies.
From an agreement country
Generally entitled to Medicare, so generally not exempt. We make sure the levy is applied correctly, and check whether any part of the year was different.
United Kingdom · Ireland · New Zealand · Italy · Sweden · Netherlands · Belgium · Finland · Norway · Malta · Slovenia
From anywhere else
Normally not entitled to Medicare, so normally exempt. Germany and Japan are both in this group.
The exemption is counted in days, not as a single yes or no for the year.
What do we do about it?
We work out whether you were entitled to Medicare and for which part of the year.
If your refund is less than our fee, we refund the difference, so you are never out of pocket.
Reviewed and signed off by a registered tax agent before it is lodged with the ATO.
Replies in about an hour.
The exemption in two minutes
Common questions about the levy and the exemption
The levy is 2% of taxable income, so about $500 on $25,000 earned and about $1,000 on $50,000. It is settled when your return is assessed, not taken out of your wages week by week, so the exemption claimed in the return is what puts the money back.
Most do, but not all. The deciding factor is your passport, not your visa: a national of one of the eleven reciprocal health care agreement countries, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Italy among them, is generally entitled to Medicare here, and entitlement removes the exemption.
Germany and Japan hold no agreement, so the exemption is normally available to working holiday makers from either.
A Medicare Entitlement Statement is a document from Services Australia confirming you were not entitled to Medicare for a stated period. It is the evidence behind the exemption and the ATO can ask to see it, so we deal with it as part of your return.
Yes, and for a lot of working holiday makers that is the right answer. It is worked out in days, so if you arrived in November, only the days you were not entitled to Medicare are exempt.
Claiming a full year when part of it applies is the kind of error that gets a return amended later.
No. The levy is a question about entitlement to the public system, not about whether you are insured, so travel insurance and private hospital cover have no bearing on it.
Private cover matters for a different charge, the Medicare levy surcharge, which applies at high incomes and is rarely relevant on a working holiday.
Nothing is lost. The levy is calculated when your return is assessed, not when you are paid, so what came out of your wages was tax withheld generally, not the levy specifically. A valid exemption takes it out of the assessment.
If an earlier year was lodged without the exemption and you were entitled to it, that return can usually be amended.
Go deeper on Medicare and health cover
The exemption is one line of a return, not the whole of it
Your residency position and your deductions are worth more. All three are worked out together.
How the return is prepared