How does the Social Security Agreement between New Zealand and Australia work?

What problem does it solve?

Both countries' pensions ask how long you have lived there, and a working life split between them can leave you short of both.

New Zealand Superannuation requires a total number of years of residence since age 20, which the Act now sets at between ten and twenty depending on your date of birth. The Australian Age Pension generally requires ten years of Australian residence, at least five of them unbroken. Take someone born in 1976 who has spent twelve years in each country. They meet Australia's ten year test, but New Zealand asks nineteen years of anyone born between July 1975 and June 1977, so on New Zealand's own rules they fall seven short.

Which payments does it cover?

Work and Income lists them.

On the New Zealand side: New Zealand Superannuation, the Veteran's Pension, and Supported Living Payment where you have a health condition, injury or disability.

On the Australian side: the Age Pension, the Disability Support Pension, and Carer Payment.

Anything outside those lists is not touched by the Agreement.

Who does it cover?

Article 3 applies it to anyone who is or has been an Australian resident, or is or has been a New Zealand resident. Article 4 requires both countries to treat the people it covers equally under their social security laws.

How does it count my years in the other country?

This is called totalisation, and it works in both directions.

Towards NZ Super. Article 8 means New Zealand will, in the Australian Department of Social Services' words, "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". You need at least one year of working age residence in Australia, six months of it unbroken.

Towards the Age Pension. Article 12 lets "periods of working age residence in New Zealand" be added to Australian residence to meet Australia's minimum. If you live in Australia long term, there is no minimum Australian period first. If you live in New Zealand long term, you need at least a year of working age residence in Australia, six months of it unbroken.

Where the two countries' years overlap, the overlap counts once.

What does it do for New Zealanders in Australia?

It changes who counts as an Australian resident, and that matters more than anything else in it.

Under Australia's own rules, only a "protected" Special Category visa holder is an Australian resident for social security, and protection depends on where you were living around 26 February 2001. Article 5(1) of the Agreement extends the definition to every New Zealand citizen lawfully living in Australia on a Special Category visa. The Department of Social Services describes the effect: "irrespective of whether they are protected or non-protected", these visa holders can use the Agreement to meet the definition of Australian resident, and so claim the Age Pension under it.

There is a separate guide on this, because Australia's ordinary rules, read on their own, suggest the opposite.

What happens if I get a payment from each country?

You are paid by both, and New Zealand then takes the Australian one into account.

Work and Income explain that your total is made up of a New Zealand payment and an Australian payment, with Centrelink working out and paying the Australian part. They then add: "The Australian payment from Centrelink is classed as an overseas pension." Section 189 of the Social Security Act 2018 then requires your New Zealand payment to be "reduced by the amount of the overseas pension", dollar for dollar.

So the Agreement helps you qualify. It does not usually mean two full pensions.

What this guide does not tell you

It does not tell you what you will be paid. Both countries can work out a rate differently when a claim relies on the Agreement, and that calculation is its own subject.

It also leaves alone the rules for moving between the two countries once you are already receiving a payment, the tax treatment of a payment from one country while you live in the other, and how the Agreement interacts with means tests.

Each of the related questions has its own guide: whether Australian years count towards NZ Super, whether New Zealanders can get the Age Pension, and whether an Australian Age Pension is deducted from NZ Super.