New Zealand and Australia
Do my years in Australia count towards NZ Superannuation?
Yes, they can. New Zealand Superannuation normally asks you to have lived here for a set number of years, which depends on when you were born and now runs as high as twenty. The Social Security Agreement between New Zealand and Australia lets your Australian working age years be treated as New Zealand years for the purpose of qualifying. You need at least one year of working age residence in Australia, six months of it unbroken.
How many years do I actually need?
More than most people think, and the number depends on the year you were born.
Section 8 of the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001 sets two tests. Since turning 20 you must have been resident and present for a total time requirement, at least ten years of which has to be in New Zealand itself. Separately, since turning 50 you must have been resident and present for at least five years in New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Niue or Tokelau.
The total time requirement used to be ten years for everybody. It is being raised, and the Act sets it out by date of birth:
| Born | Years required |
|---|---|
| On or before 30 June 1959 | 10 |
| 1 July 1959 to 30 June 1961 | 11 |
| 1 July 1961 to 30 June 1963 | 12 |
| 1 July 1963 to 30 June 1965 | 13 |
| 1 July 1965 to 30 June 1967 | 14 |
| 1 July 1967 to 30 June 1969 | 15 |
| 1 July 1969 to 30 June 1971 | 16 |
| 1 July 1971 to 30 June 1973 | 17 |
| 1 July 1973 to 30 June 1975 | 18 |
| 1 July 1975 to 30 June 1977 | 19 |
| On or after 1 July 1977 | 20 |
You also have to be ordinarily resident in New Zealand on the day you apply, and be 65, which is the age section 7(1) sets.
The Act carries its own worked example of how tight this can get. Someone born on 30 June 1967 who arrives in New Zealand at 55 needs fourteen years, so the earliest they can qualify is at 69, four years after reaching the qualifying age.
So where does Australia come in?
The Social Security Agreement between the two countries lets each side count time spent in the other.
Article 8 covers the New Zealand direction. The Australian Department of Social Services describes its effect: "New Zealand will count periods of working age residence in Australia as periods when a person was resident and present in New Zealand for the purposes of qualifying for NZS or Veteran's Pension."
That is the whole trick. Your Australian years are not merely acknowledged. For the purpose of qualifying, they are treated as though they had been New Zealand years.
What is the minimum before I can use it?
One year of working age residence in Australia, of which six months has to be continuous.
Below that, the Agreement does not open. Above it, your Australian time can be added to your New Zealand time to reach the total your birth year demands.
One limit is worth holding on to. Where Australian and New Zealand residence overlap, the overlap is counted once rather than twice.
Does this work in the other direction too?
It does, and it is worth knowing if you are the other way around.
Article 12 does the same job for Australia. New Zealand working age residence can be added to Australian residence to meet the minimum for an Australian payment. There is a companion guide on getting the Australian Age Pension as a New Zealander, which goes through that side properly.
What this guide does not tell you
It does not tell you what you would be paid. Qualifying and being paid are separate questions, and a pension worked out under an agreement can be calculated differently from a purely domestic one, often in proportion to how much of your working life was spent in each country. That calculation deserves its own guide rather than a sentence here.
It also leaves alone what happens to New Zealand Superannuation once you move abroad, whether an Australian payment you already receive is deducted from a New Zealand one, and the position for the Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau, which have their own rules inside section 8.
If you want your own years checked rather than an explanation of the rule, Work and Income's International Services team is who does that. Bring dates, not estimates. This is a test measured in months.