Yes, in most cases. If you worked in Australia on a temporary visa, the super your employer paid, along with any earnings and other contributions, may be paid out to you less tax as a departing Australia superannuation payment (DASP) once you have left. Whether you get it depends on the visa you held, whether that visa has ended, and whether you hold any other active Australian visa. The rules below apply in Australia and come from the Australian Taxation Office, which runs the scheme.
Who is eligible for a DASP
Eligibility turns on four things, and they all have to be true at the same time. Under ATO guidance on the departing Australia superannuation payment, you generally can claim if you built up super while working in Australia on a temporary resident visa issued under the Migration Act 1958, your visa has ceased to be in effect because it expired or was cancelled, you have left Australia and hold no other active Australian visa, and you are not an Australian or New Zealand citizen or an Australian permanent resident.
Two temporary visas are carved out: subclasses 405 and 410. Time spent in Australia on either of those does not count toward a DASP claim. Anything else on the temporary resident side is covered by the general rule, and the claim is not limited to a particular kind of job or a particular minimum amount of super.
If you are unsure whether the visa you held was a temporary resident visa for this purpose, the ATO's DASP page does not list visa subclasses one by one. The Department of Home Affairs is the authority to ask about what your visa was and when it ceased, and your super fund can tell you what it holds on your behalf.
When can you apply, and what should you do before you go
You cannot claim until you have left, but the preparation is meant to happen before you do. The ATO strongly recommends gathering what you need and starting the application before you leave, and the online system lets you start and save an application while you are still in the country. Submission only becomes possible once you have departed and no longer hold an active visa, so a saved application is there waiting for you rather than something you start from scratch at the airport.
Two practical reasons make the pre-departure step worth doing. The first is identification: where your super is worth $5,000 or more, your fund may require certified copies of your proof of identity documents, and certifying documents is much easier to arrange while you are still in Australia than from overseas. The second is the money itself — before you submit, check with your employer that they have paid all the super they were required to pay, because a claim can only return what actually reached your fund.
You do not need to chase immigration paperwork. The DASP online system confirms your immigration status directly with the Department of Home Affairs, so there is no need to apply for a Certification of Immigration Status unless your super fund specifically directs you to. The online system is free to use.
How is a DASP taxed
A final DASP tax is withheld at the time the payment is made, so the amount that reaches you is already net of tax. Your payment can be made up of two components, taxable and tax free, and each is treated differently. The tax-free component is not taxed. The taxable component splits further into a taxed element and an untaxed element, and rates also differ depending on whether you held a working holiday maker (WHM) visa.
The DASP tax rate depends on both of those things:
| Payment component | Rate if you were not a working holiday maker | Working holiday maker rate |
|---|---|---|
| Tax-free component | Nil | Nil |
| Taxable component – taxed element | 35% | 65% |
| Taxable component – untaxed element | 45% | 65% |
Because the withholding happens at payment, there is nothing further to calculate when the money arrives, but you should expect paperwork. The payer must issue you a DASP payment summary within 14 days of making the payment, and that summary tells you how much DASP tax was withheld and how much was paid to you. Keep it: it is the record of what was deducted.
The ATO's DASP page explains the rates but does not work out which component your own balance falls into, because that depends on how your fund recorded the contributions. Your super fund is the place to ask for the split, and a registered tax agent or the ATO can advise on how the withheld amount interacts with your own tax position.
What happens to super you never claimed
If you leave without applying, the money does not disappear. Once it has been 6 months or more since you left Australia and your visa has ceased to be in effect, your super fund will transfer the balance to the ATO as unclaimed super money. Being unclaimed does not mean being forfeited: you may be able to claim ATO-held super as a DASP.
That fallback is slower and less predictable than claiming directly, since the balance has moved out of your fund and you are then recovering it from the ATO rather than asking your fund to pay you. If you have already been away for a while and suspect this is where your money sits, the ATO is the authority to contact about ATO-held super, and a claim may still be possible.
How long does payment take, and does it affect a future visa
A DASP is generally paid within 28 days of a completed application being received. "Completed" matters here: an application missing certified identification or held up because contributions were never paid will not start that clock.
Claiming a DASP will not affect any future visa applications. If you plan to return to Australia on another temporary visa or later apply for permanent residence, the claim itself is not held against you by the Department of Home Affairs. Note, though, that a DASP ends your ability to keep that money in the Australian super system; if you return and work again, you start building a new balance.
What to check next
Before you submit, confirm three things: that your employer paid everything it owed into your fund, that your visa has ceased and you hold no other active Australian visa, and that you have certified identity documents if your balance is $5,000 or more. After you submit, expect the payment summary within 14 days of payment and keep it for your records.
This is general information about how the DASP rules work in Australia, not personal legal, migration, tax or financial advice. Where your own circumstances sit at the edges — a visa you are unsure about, a fund that wants extra documents, a balance whose components you cannot read — ask the ATO, your super fund, or the Department of Home Affairs, depending on which of them holds the answer.