What changes when you move from the United States to Australia?

Can you just go?

No. A US citizen needs an Australian visa to live and work there, and the Department of Home Affairs' visa finder is where that starts. This guide does not choose one for you.

What it does assume, because it is how most Americans arrive, is a temporary visa first and permanent residence later, if at all. Almost everything below turns on which of the two you hold.

1Before you leave the United StatesYour US tax return keeps coming, wherever you liveOn a US employer's posting, you may stay in US Social Security

2Arriving on a temporary visaNo Medicare: private health cover is usually a visa conditionYour employer pays 12% super, every paydayNew homes only: existing ones are closed to you until 2029

3Once you are a permanent residentMedicare, and Child Care SubsidyUp to 4 years' wait for payments like JobSeeker

4After ten yearsTen years towards the Age Pension, with help from the agreement

Before you leave the United States

The US tax return comes with you. The IRS taxes citizens on worldwide income wherever they live: "You are subject to tax on worldwide income from all sources and must report all taxable income and pay taxes according to the Internal Revenue Code." Your Australian accounts go on the FBAR once they pass $10,000 together, and Australian super raises questions of its own, some of which the IRS has never ruled on.

On a posting, you may stay in US Social Security. The agreement between the two countries stops you paying into both. A worker "temporarily transferred to work for the same employer in another country remains covered only by the country from which he or she has been sent", which "generally applies to employees whose assignments in the host country are expected to last 5 years or less." For Australia the agreement covers the Superannuation Guarantee.

On a temporary visa

No Medicare. Australia has reciprocal health agreements with 11 countries, and the United States is not one of them. Home Affairs: "In most cases, visitors to Australia are not eligible for Medicare, and are responsible for all costs incurred during their stay." Many temporary visas carry condition 8501, which "requires that the holder must maintain adequate arrangements for health insurance while the holder is in Australia."

Not being covered has one upside at tax time. With a Medicare Entitlement Statement you can be exempt from the Medicare levy, but "All your dependants, including your spouse, must also be exempt from Medicare benefits to receive a Medicare levy exemption."

Tax: probably a temporary resident. That is someone who has "a temporary visa" and whose household is not Australian resident under the social security law. For a temporary resident, foreign income and capital gains on property outside Australia "don't have to be declared". In practice Australia taxes what you earn in Australia, and leaves out most income from elsewhere, though some overseas work income still has to be declared.

Super, from your first pay. "Generally, all employees are eligible for super guarantee. It doesn't matter if the employee is" a temporary resident. It is 12% for 2026-27, paid every payday.

New homes only. A temporary resident is a foreign person for property, and "From 1 April 2025 to 30 June 2029, foreign persons are banned from purchasing established dwellings". You "can still apply for approval to purchase vacant land or new dwellings."

Family payments mostly need a permanent visa. Child Care Subsidy, as one example, needs citizenship, a permanent visa, a New Zealand Special Category visa or one of a few specific visas, such as a partner provisional visa, on the day you claim. An ordinary temporary work visa is not among them.

Your licence. In New South Wales, as one example, a temporary overseas visitor "can drive in NSW using your overseas licence for up to six months". States differ.

Once you are a permanent resident

Medicare opens: permanent residents are on Services Australia's list of who can enrol. So do most payments, on a timetable. For visas granted from 1 January 2019, "New residents may have to wait up to 4 years before they can get most of our payments or concession cards." JobSeeker is in that group; Parental Leave Pay waits 2 years; Family Tax Benefit Part A waits one; Child Care Subsidy and Family Tax Benefit Part B do not wait at all.

Children born in Australia

A child born abroad to an American can be a US citizen from birth, recorded by a Consular Report of Birth Abroad, "a formal document certifying the acquisition of U.S. citizenship at birth". Where the other parent is not a US citizen, the US parent needs to have lived in the United States for "not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years".

Retiring, and leaving

The agreement works for your retirement too. Your US and Australian records can be added together to qualify, and Social Security is paid to you in Australia. The Age Pension needs ten years as an Australian resident, and it treats US Social Security as income.

Leaving on a temporary visa. Australia's rule that treats leavers as selling their assets does not reach you: "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." Your super can be paid out once your visa has ended and you have gone, as a departing Australia superannuation payment, taxed at 35% on the usual taxed part, 45% on any untaxed part, and 65% for working holiday makers. Leave it unclaimed and the fund sends it to the ATO once "it has been 6 months or more since you left Australia".

What gets easier, and what gets harder

Easier

• A social security agreement: no double contributions on a posting, and your two records can be added together.
• Social Security is paid to you in Australia.
• Tax: as a temporary resident, most income from abroad isn't taxed in Australia.
• Super: 12% from your employer, on top of pay.

Harder

• No Medicare on a temporary visa, so private cover instead.
• Existing homes are closed to foreign buyers until 30 June 2029.
• The US tax return keeps coming, and how the US taxes super is unsettled.
• Most family payments need a permanent visa.
• Super paid out when you leave is taxed at 35%, or 65% for working holiday makers.

What this guide does not tell you

It does not tell you which visa to apply for, or how to get from a temporary visa to permanent residence: that is for Home Affairs or a registered migration agent. It does not work out your tax in either country, or what the tax treaty between them changes for your income.

It does not cover state taxes on either side, or giving up US citizenship. And how the US taxes super as it grows is a question the IRS has not settled, covered in its own guide.