What changes when you move from New Zealand to Australia?

Can you just go?

Yes, and that is what sets this move apart from the other five.

A New Zealand citizen does not apply for anything in advance. The Special Category visa, subclass 444, is granted when you arrive: "If you apply on arrival in Australia, your application will be processed at the airport or seaport." It costs nothing, and it lets you "visit, study, stay, and work in Australia" for "as long as you are a New Zealand citizen".

Two things about it shape everything else in this guide.

It is temporary. Home Affairs says so plainly: "The SCV is a temporary visa. You will not have the same rights and benefits as an Australian citizen or permanent visa holders." Most of what follows is the difference between those two.

And it ends each time you leave. "When you leave Australia your visa will cease. You must apply for a new SCV if you want to enter Australia again." In practice that happens at the airport, every trip.

1Before you leave New ZealandStudent loan starts charging interest once you're overseas-basedKiwiSaver stays put, and stays locked until 65

2The day you landSpecial Category visa: live and work, no application in advanceYour employer pays 12% super, every paydayMedicare and family payments, once you live there

3After four yearsApply for Australian citizenship

4After ten yearsUp to 6 months of JobSeeker, onceTen years towards the Age Pension

Before you leave New Zealand

You may stay a New Zealand tax resident longer than you think. Inland Revenue only lets you go when two things are both true: you "do not have a permanent place of abode in New Zealand" and you "are away from New Zealand for more than 325 days in any 12-month period". A place you still usually live in can keep you resident however long you are away.

Income you leave behind is still taxed in New Zealand. Tell your bank you are no longer resident. Interest paid to someone living in Australia has non-resident withholding tax taken at 10% under the tax treaty, and that is usually the end of it. Rent from a New Zealand property is different: it goes on a New Zealand tax return every year you own it.

A student loan stops being interest-free. Inland Revenue's own summary: "If you're outside of New Zealand for around 5 out of 6 months, you might become overseas-based and your student loan will stop being interest free." Once that happens, interest runs "from the day after you left New Zealand", at 5.6% a year for 2026-27. What you repay is set by the size of the loan rather than your pay: from $1,000 a year on a balance up to $15,000, to $5,000 a year on one over $60,000. You can ask for a repayment holiday of up to 12 months.

KiwiSaver stays where it is. Moving to Australia is the one move that does not let you take KiwiSaver out, because the two countries have a transfer scheme instead. Your balance stays locked until 65, and if you move it into an Australian super fund the New Zealand part is still locked until 65. The government's yearly top-up stops too, because it needs you to "live mainly in New Zealand".

Your first months in Australia

Super starts with your first pay. Your employer pays the super guarantee, 12% for 2026-27, and from 1 July 2026 they pay it every payday rather than every quarter. The ATO's Payday Super rules have it reach your fund within 7 business days.

Tax: you are probably a resident, and possibly a temporary one. Australia decides residency on its own tests, the first of which is whether you reside there, and the ATO is clear that "We don't use the same rules as the Department of Home Affairs." Someone who has moved to live and work will usually pass it.

What surprises people is the next step. A temporary resident, for tax, is someone with a temporary visa who, with their partner, is not an Australian resident under the social security law, "that is, not an Australian citizen or permanent resident or a protected Special Category visa holder from New Zealand". A New Zealander on an ordinary Special Category visa, whose partner is not Australian, fits that. For a temporary resident, foreign income and capital gains on property outside Australia "don't have to be declared". New Zealand interest or rent is still taxed in New Zealand, as above, but Australia leaves it alone.

Medicare comes once you can show you live in Australia. You enrol by proving you will be "living here for 6 months or more", or that you have lived in Australia for 6 of the last 12 months. Until then, the reciprocal agreement covers "essential treatment in a public hospital".

Your licence. The states set their own rules. New South Wales, as one example, gives a New Zealander three months to convert, and a current New Zealand photo licence converts without a knowledge or driving test.

The payments line drawn in 2001

This is the part of the move that most New Zealanders only meet when something goes wrong.

Australia's social security law treats most New Zealanders as residents only if they are "protected" Special Category visa holders. Home Affairs gives the main tests: you "were in Australia on 26 February 2001 as the holder of an SCV", or you were "in Australia for 365 days (or more) between 26 February 1999 and 25 February 2001" and came back after that. If you were, Services Australia is simple: "you can claim any Centrelink payment or concession card."

If you were not, which is almost everyone moving now, the list is short. Services Australia names Family Tax Benefit, the Newborn Upfront Payment and Supplement, the Single Income Family Supplement, Child Care Subsidy, the Double Orphan Pension and a Health Care Card. Payments for job loss and study are not on it. The one exception comes after ten years: "You may be able to get JobSeeker Payment or Youth Allowance for a single period of up to 6 months", and the ten years have to run unbroken until you claim.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme draws the same line. It needs you to be a citizen, a permanent resident or "a Protected Special Category visa holder".

Retirement is the exception to all of this, because a separate agreement between the two countries covers it. New Zealanders can get the Age Pension on it, and your years in each country count towards both pensions.

Buying a home

For this purpose you are treated like a local. The ATO lists who is not a foreign person: a "citizen of Australia", a "permanent resident of Australia, or" a "New Zealand citizen with a special category visa." So the ban on foreign persons buying established homes, which runs to 30 June 2029, does not apply to you once you live in Australia.

The timing matters. The same page counts a "New Zealand citizen who is non-resident in Australia" as a foreign person, so buying before you have moved is a different question.

Children, and staying for good

Children born in Australia to a New Zealander are New Zealand citizens by descent if you were a New Zealand citizen by birth or grant. That passes down one generation only. A child who is a citizen by descent cannot automatically pass New Zealand citizenship on to their own children born outside New Zealand.

Citizenship is four years away. From 1 July 2023 "New Zealand citizens who hold a non-protected Special Category Visa can apply for citizenship by conferral". You need to have been "lawfully present in Australia for four years, including 12 months as a permanent resident", and "Time on your SCV will be considered permanent residence for citizenship purposes with effect from 1 July 2023." Citizenship is what closes the gap in the section above.

If you go home. A temporary resident leaving Australia is spared a rule that catches everyone else: "If you are a temporary resident when you stop being an Australian resident, you are not taken to have disposed of any of your assets." Once you are a citizen, that no longer applies, and the move in the other direction explains what does. Your super can come with you into KiwiSaver, on its own conditions.

What gets easier, and what gets harder

Easier

• Living and working there: the visa is given when you land, free.
• Buying a home: a New Zealander on the Special Category visa is not a foreign buyer.
• Health: Medicare once you live there, and the reciprocal agreement before that.
• Moving your savings: KiwiSaver can go into Australian super, untaxed.
• Becoming a citizen: four years, with the visa counting towards it.

Harder

• Most Centrelink payments stay closed, unless you were there in February 2001.
• No NDIS, for the same reason, until you are a citizen or permanent resident.
• A New Zealand student loan charges interest while you are away.
• KiwiSaver moved into super still waits for 65.
• The government's KiwiSaver top-up stops while you live in Australia.

What this guide does not tell you

It does not tell you which visa or pathway suits you, which is a question for the Department of Home Affairs or a registered migration agent. It does not cover the rules that differ from state to state, such as stamp duty and licences outside New South Wales.

It does not work out your tax in either country, or whether a temporary resident's exemption is worth more to you than the alternatives. And the payments above change often: the waiting periods for newly arrived residents were rewritten in 2019, and Services Australia's pages carry the current rules.