Departing Australia Superannuation Payment: Application, Deadline, Tax

To claim a Departing Australia Superannuation Payment, confirm you meet the three eligibility conditions, identify every super fund holding money for you, then lodge a DASP application either through the ATO’s online system or on paper to each fund. Do it within six months of leaving Australia and your visa ending, because after that your balance is transferred to the ATO and your options narrow.

Who Can Claim

You qualify only if all three of these are true: you entered Australia on a temporary visa issued under the Migration Act 1958, you have physically left the country, and your visa has expired or been cancelled.¹ Australian citizens, New Zealand citizens, and permanent residents cannot claim a DASP and must wait until they meet a standard condition of release, such as reaching preservation age (60 for anyone born after 1 July 1964).

The condition people miss is the visa one. If your visa is still technically active, the application will fail. The ATO’s system checks your visa status directly with the Department of Home Affairs, so there is no workaround.¹

Find Every Super Account First

A DASP claim goes to one fund at a time. If you worked several jobs in Australia, you may have balances in funds you have forgotten about, and each one needs its own application. Track them all down before you start.

The ATO gives you three ways to search:

ATO online services through myGov. Log in, choose Super, then Fund details, and you will see every active and lost account linked to your Tax File Number. Money already transferred to the ATO shows as “ATO-held super.”
The automated Super Search line on 13 28 65. Have your TFN, name, date of birth, and any fund details ready.
The paper form “Searching for lost and unclaimed super” (NAT 2476), mailed to the ATO at PO Box 3578, Albury NSW 2640.²

Before applying, check that your last employer has finished making contributions. If money arrives after your claim is paid, you have to lodge again for the remainder.

Lodging the Application

You will need your passport number, the personal details you gave on your visa application, and each fund’s name and your member account number. Your TFN is optional but worth providing, because supplying it lets the system surface accounts you may not know about.³

Online

The ATO’s online DASP system is the fastest route. It verifies your visa status with Home Affairs automatically, so you do not need a separate Certification of Immigration Status.¹ Some fields prefill, but you still enter each fund’s identifying numbers by hand. Check your bank details carefully; wrong account information is a common reason payments are returned.

Paper

If you cannot use the online system, use form NAT 7204, “Application for a departing Australia superannuation payment.” Send it directly to your super fund, not to the ATO and not to the Department of Home Affairs.⁴ A separate form goes to each fund. If your super has already been transferred to the ATO as unclaimed money, use form NAT 74880 instead and send it to the ATO.¹

Certified Documents for Balances of $5,000 or More

When your balance is $5,000 or more, the fund will usually require certified copies of your identity documents.¹ If you are already overseas, certification can be done by a notary public in your country of residence, or by staff at the nearest Australian embassy, high commission, or consulate, including offices headed by Austrade honorary consuls. The certifier must sight the original alongside the copy at the same time, then sign the copy with wording confirming it is a true and correct copy of the original, together with their full name, phone number, qualification, and the date. If your country is party to the Hague Apostille Convention, an apostille works as an alternative.⁵

The Six-Month Deadline

If you do not apply within six months of leaving Australia and your visa ending, your super fund must transfer your balance to the ATO as unclaimed super money.⁶ Your money is not lost, but the process shifts. You claim ATO-held super through the same online system or by sending form NAT 74880 to the ATO. Payment options shrink to EFT into an Australian bank account or a cheque; international money transfers are no longer available. You also stop earning any investment returns the fund was generating. Applying before the six months are up is the simpler path by a wide margin.

Processing and How You Get Paid

A complete DASP application generally takes 28 days to process. Missing information or requests for further documents will stretch that out.¹

For claims paid by a super fund, you can choose:

Electronic funds transfer to an Australian bank account
An Australian dollar cheque mailed overseas
An international money transfer to an overseas bank account, where the fund offers it; currency conversion fees apply

For ATO-held super, only EFT to an Australian bank account or a cheque is available.¹ If you have closed your Australian bank account and your fund does not offer IMT, you will be waiting on a posted cheque. Worth thinking about before you leave.

How the Payment Is Taxed

Tax is withheld from your DASP as a final tax. The fund or the ATO deducts it before paying you, and you do not report the payment on a later Australian tax return.

For most temporary visa holders, the rates are:

Tax-free component: no tax
Taxable component, taxed element: 35 percent
Taxable component, untaxed element: 45 percent

The taxed element is the portion your fund has already paid tax on. The untaxed element, typically from government or public sector funds, has not yet been taxed and is withheld at the higher rate.¹

Working Holiday Maker Rate

If you held a Working Holiday Maker visa (subclass 417 or 462), the rate on both the taxed and untaxed elements is 65 percent.⁷ On a $10,000 taxable balance, you would receive $3,500. The rate applies to contributions made while you held the WHM visa, even if you later moved to a different subclass. Your fund sets the rate based on the visa you held during the relevant work.

If Your Fund Withheld the Wrong Amount

Withholding errors happen, particularly for workers who held a WHM visa and a standard temporary visa at different times. If the DASP was paid in the current financial year, contact the fund directly and ask for a refund. If the financial year has ended, or the ATO paid you from ATO-held super, send a written refund request with evidence of the incorrect withholding to:

Australian Taxation Office
PO Box 1032
Albury NSW 2640

If the ATO declines the refund, that is a formal taxation decision and you can object to it.¹

A Note for U.S. Citizens

If you are American, the DASP does not sit cleanly within the U.S.-Australia tax treaty or the IRS rules on foreign retirement trusts, and getting it wrong can be expensive. Whether a lump-sum DASP qualifies as a “pension” under Article 18 of the treaty is unsettled, because the treaty describes pensions as periodic payments.⁸ Australian super has been treated as a foreign grantor trust in past IRS private letter rulings, which can pull the distribution into Form 3520 reporting; whether super meets the exemption in Revenue Procedure 2020-17 is debatable.⁹ The penalty for missing a Form 3520 distribution is 35 percent of the gross amount. Talk to a tax professional experienced in U.S.-Australia matters before you file in the U.S.

1
Australian Taxation Office. Departing Australia Superannuation Payment (DASP)
2
Australian Taxation Office. Searching for Lost Super
3
PALM Scheme. DASP Online Application Factsheet
4
Australian Taxation Office. Application for Departing Australia Superannuation Payment (DASP) – NAT 7204
5
Australian Taxation Office. Copies of Identity Documents for Applicants Outside Australia
6
Australian Taxation Office. ATO-Held Super
7
Australian Taxation Office. Working Holiday Makers
8
Internal Revenue Service. Convention Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Australia for the Avoidance of Double Taxation
9
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 3520