How to claim your superannuation after leaving Australia
Your employer paid it on top of your wages, never out of them. It is still sitting in Australia.
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Doing it yourself
The claim form has one box for a super fund. Four casual jobs can mean four.
Two of those accounts were opened without you choosing anything.
On the ATO portal
The claim handles one fund at a time, and only the ones you already know about.
With us
We search every account linked to your tax file number, including ones an employer opened without asking.
Nothing tells you a balance has already left the fund and gone to the ATO as unclaimed super.
About six months after your visa expires that is where it goes, so we look there as well.
The claim is checked against your visa record, and a visa that has not ceased stops it dead.
We check all three conditions first, so you do not spend a fortnight on a claim that cannot be paid yet.
Super is one claim and your tax return is a separate one. Nothing connects them for you.
The return side is usually where most of the money is, so we do both.
You will never log into myGov or work out which form is which. We deal with the ATO directly.
Who can claim a DASP super refund?
A Departing Australia Superannuation Payment is claimable once your temporary visa has expired or been cancelled and you have permanently left Australia. Both have to be true at once. Australian and New Zealand citizens and permanent residents cannot claim.
Your visa status is checked against Department of Home Affairs records, so there is nothing separate to prove. A bridging visa, or still being onshore on any valid visa, blocks the claim.
How much super will you actually get back?
Working holiday makers pay 65% withholding tax on the taxable component of a DASP, so roughly 35 cents in the dollar reaches you. The rate is fixed in law for anyone who has held a 417 or 462 visa, and no agent or waiting can reduce it.
Super balance
$3,000
$1,050
paid to you · a few months of casual work
Super balance
$6,000
$2,100
paid to you · around six months full time
Super balance
$10,000
$3,500
paid to you · a full working holiday year
Figures are after the 65% DASP withholding, on a balance made up entirely of taxed contributions. An untaxed element, which some funds hold, is withheld at a higher rate, so treat these as illustrations rather than a quote.
What documents do you need for a DASP claim?
You need your passport, tax file number, visa details, each fund's name and ideally its member number, plus bank details, Australian or overseas. A missing member number is rarely fatal: a fund can match you from your TFN and date of birth.
The step that stalls claims is certification. Where a single fund holds $5,000 or more it will usually want certified copies of your passport and visa, which takes longer from overseas than people expect.
How long does a DASP payment take?
Payment typically arrives within 28 days of approval. The clock starts when the fund or the ATO has everything it needs, not when you apply, so a claim missing a certified document can sit for weeks before those 28 days begin.
If your money is spread across several funds, the claim is only as fast as the slowest of them. Balances already transferred to the ATO are claimed from the ATO, to the same standard.
What if you do not know which super fund you were in?
This is the normal situation. Every fund an employer paid into is linked to your tax file number, so the accounts can be traced from it without you remembering a single fund name. Balances a fund has already handed to the ATO appear in the same search.
The claim is not automatic: finding an account lodges nothing, and each fund still needs its own application. The account people miss is almost always the first job.
Can you claim your super from the UK, Germany or Japan?
Yes, and you have to. A DASP can only be made once you have left Australia, so every claim is made from overseas. Where you are living now has no bearing on it.
One thing to settle before you close your Australian bank account: not every fund transfers to an overseas account, and some issue a cheque, which is slow to bank. Whether your own country taxes the payment is a question for an adviser there.
Is it better to claim your super or leave it in Australia?
For almost every working holiday maker, claiming is better. A balance left behind receives no contributions but keeps paying admin fees and often insurance premiums you cannot use from overseas. Whatever survives eventually lands with the ATO, uninvested.
The argument for leaving it only holds if you intend to return to Australia to live and work permanently. Waiting does not reduce the 65%. The full comparison is here.
Can you claim your super while you are still in Australia?
No. Super is preserved while you hold a valid visa and are in the country, with no early release on a working holiday visa for leaving a job or for hardship.
If you are flying home well before your visa runs out, the Department of Home Affairs can cancel the remaining visa once you have left, which usually brings the claim forward.
What happens to your super if you never claim it?
It is not lost. About six months after your visa expires and you have left, a fund must transfer an unclaimed balance to the ATO, where it sits in your name, fee free. A claim years later is still a claim, at the same 65% rate.
What is lost is whatever fees and insurance premiums took out of the balance before it transferred. On a small balance that can be a meaningful share.
Claim it yourself, or have us do it
You can do it yourself. What you would be handing over is the search across every account linked to your tax file number, ATO held super included, certified copies arranged from overseas, a separate application to each fund, and the chasing when one goes quiet.
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.
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Other questions people ask about DASP
You can, it is free, and with one fund and clean documents we will say so. It gets harder with super spread across several funds, a fund that wants certified copies from overseas, or a visa that has not ceased.
Generally no. Super guarantee contributions attach to PAYG employment, so gig, rideshare and freelance work invoiced under an ABN usually does not generate super. The exception is a contractor who really worked like an employee, where super may still be owed.
No, they are two separate payments. A tax refund is tax over-withheld from your wages, paid by the ATO after you lodge a return. A DASP is the super your employer paid on top of your wages, released by your fund. Most working holiday makers are owed both.
A fund can usually identify you from your name, date of birth and passport, so a lost tax file number does not stop a claim. The TFN is still the only reliable way to find every account, and recovering it is faster than searching fund by fund.
The 65% rate is set in law for anyone who has ever held a subclass 417 or 462 visa, even if you later moved to a different visa. Temporary residents who never held one, such as students, pay 35% on the taxed element.
Where an employer should have paid super and never did, that is an unpaid super guarantee matter the ATO can investigate and recover for you. Raise it before you claim, because money recovered after your accounts close means claiming again.
Neither. The withholding tax is final, so a DASP does not go on your Australian tax return, and it is not something a later visa application turns on. The one consequence is that your accounts close, so if you come back to work you start with a new fund.
The 2% Medicare levy is the other one nobody claims
Most 417 and 462 holders never owed it. It comes off with a certificate almost nobody applies for.
Read about the exemption