- About this service
- Commencing a claim
- Information that Centrelink currently holds
- Collecting information from you
- How long does it take?
- Navigation through the claim
- Reviewing your answers
- Submitting the claim
- Changes to your circumstances
- Providing additional information
About this service
This service allows you to submit a claim online for:
- Youth Allowance (student) payments,
- Youth Allowance (Australian Apprentice) payments
- Austudy payments,
- Age Pension payments,
- Family Assistance payments, or
- Emergency Recovery payments (including the Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment and/or ex gratia payments).
Youth Allowance (student) is generally paid to people who are:
- studying in an approved full-time course, or enrolled as a full-time student but temporarily unable to study due to illness OR undertaking a fulltime Australian Apprenticeship
- aged between 16-24 at the time their course began
- an Australian resident
- meet an Income and Asset test
Youth Allowance (Australian Apprentice) is generally paid to people who are:
- Undertaking a full time Australian Apprenticeship
- Aged between 16 and 24
- Australian Residents
- Able to meet an income and Asset test.
Austudy is generally paid to people who are:
- studying full-time in an approved course or be a concessional workload student OR undertaking a fulltime Australian Apprenticeship
- aged 25 years of age or older
- an Australian resident
- meet an Income and Asset test
Family Assistance payments are generally paid to people who:
- have an eligible child in their care, and
- meet Australian residence requirements.
Age Pension payments are generally paid to people who:
- have reached age pension age, and
- are resident in Australia at the date of claim and fulfill residence requirements, and
- have income and assets below a certain amount.
The Emergency Recovery payments such as the Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment are generally paid to people who:
- were adversely affected by a major or widespread disaster
- are over 16 years of age
- are an Australian citizen, or an Australian resident, not living in Australia but a holder of an eligible visa at the time of the disaster.
Commencing a claim
In order to get paid from the date on which you commenced your claim, you will need to submit the claim within 14 days. If you do not complete your claim within 14 days it may result in you being paid from a later date. If an extreme circumstance prevents you from submitting your claim, you may have up to 13 weeks to submit your claim. You may need to provide evidence of extreme circumstances. These rules do not apply to payments not covered by social security law.
Qualification criteria
All payments that Centrelink administer are subject to qualification criteria.
These criteria may include but are not limited to:
- your age
- your citizenship
- whether you are in Australia
- your circumstances - whether you are looking for work, studying or retired.
- your family situation - your marital status and the children you care for.
If you commence your claim before your 16th birthday, you must either complete and submit your claim before turning 16 or contact us on that date. If you fail to do so, payment can only be granted from the date you lodge your claim.
Payments not covered by Social Security Law
Payments not covered by social security law include but are not restricted to:
- ABSTUDY,
- payments made under Centrelink and
- payments made under the Farm Household Support Act.
Medical Condition
Extensions to the 14 day period allowed to submit your claim due to a medical condition are subject to the following:
- the medical condition affects you, your partner or someone you are caring for
- the medical condition must have a significant adverse affect on your ability to submit your claim
- you must submit your claim immediately once the medical condition improves
- you must supply proof of the medical condition and the period of incapacity on a Centrelink Medical Certificate
Centrelink Medical Certificates are available from your doctor.
Extensions may be granted to a maximum of 13 weeks from the date you contact Centrelink.
Other extreme circumstances
Extensions to the 14 day period allowed to submit your claim due to extreme circumstances are subject to the following conditions:
- extreme circumstance extensions are considered for the short term, unforseen emergencies. These may include medical emergencies, family emergencies or recognised natural disasters
- the extreme circumstance must have a significant adverse affect on your ability to submit your claim
- you must submit your claim immediateley once the extreme circumstance improves
- you must supply proof of the extreme circumstance for an extension to be approved
Extensions may be granted to a maximum of 13 weeks from the date you contact Centrelink.
Information that Centrelink currently holds
Some questions in your claim will be filled in for you from information that Centrelink already holds. Please check this information carefully - you can update the answers to these questions if the details are incorrect.
Collecting information from you
You will only be asked questions that apply to you. For example, if you have indicated that you do not have any children, you will not be asked any questions relating to your children in your care. Information that Centrelink currently holds
Questions may be asked about the following:
- Commencing a claim
- Customer Details
- Contact requirements
- Age Specific
- Personal details
- Australian residence
- Telephone, fax and email
- Additional addresses
- Accommodation
- Study details
- Australian Apprenticeship details
- Disaster details
- Cremation/burial assistance
- Assurance of identity
- Payment specific questions
- Payment destination
- Income and assets
- Tax details
- Pension Bonus
- Income
- Child details
- Child care details
- Work, training, study test
- Immunisation
- Payment choices
- Return to work
- Previous partner details
- Health care card
- Additional Income and Assets
- Superannuation
- Home Property
Selecting one of these links will take you to the further information specifically relating to that particular section. Once you have completed the claim you will be given an opportunity to review your answers before submitting your claim.
Mandatory fields
Many of the questions will have a mandatory field indicator (
). You must answer these questions in order to proceed to the next page in the claim.
Additional help
Many of the questions asked will contain extra information to help you answer them. This information is available by selecting the part of the question that is underlined.
Populating of answers
Where possible, information that you have previously provided Centrelink will be used to populate answers to questions. If this information is no longer correct, you will need to update it with the correct information. For privacy reasons some questions will have a defaulted answer.
Many of the questions asked will contain extra information to help you answer it. This information is available by selecting the part of the question that is underlined.
How long does it take?
The length of time required to complete the application will depend on what your personal circumstances are, what you are applying for, and how much of the required information you currently have with you.
Before you start the application you will need to have some of the information at hand. It is best to have this information ready before you begin because you will not be able to go past the relevant page until all mandatory information has been entered.
Saving your claim
If you start your application online, but cannot finish it, you can save your application and come back at a later time to complete it.
You can save your application at any point once you have completed a page by selecting the 'Save' button. Your application will automatically save once you press the 'Save and continue' button to go to the next page.
Timing out
If you leave the application idle for more than 14 minutes, your session will time out, and any unsaved information will be lost.
When you have completed the claim you will be taken to a summary page to allows you to check all the answers you have provided, and modify any information if you need to.
When does the claim expire?
When you begin your claim, it will have a status of 'In progress'.
If you have not updated your claim for 26 weeks, its status will become 'Expired'. Once your claim has expired, you will no longer be able to continue with it, and if you still wish to submit a claim, you will need to start a new claim.
When you submit the claim the status will change to 'Submitted', and you will no longer be able to modify it. Centrelink will then follow up the claim and contact you after you have provided any follow up information that may be required.
Navigation through the Claim
Claim progress menu
You can navigate through the different sections of the claim by using the 'Claim progress menu' that appears on the left hand side of the screen. This menu will highlight the section you are currently on in bold with a red arrow next to it.
You may access any of the previous sections you have started by selecting it from the claim progress menu. Sections that have been completed will have a green tick next to them.
The "Back" button
If you wish to go back to the previous page within the section you are currently working on, you can select the 'Back' button located at the bottom of the page. If you wish to save the information on the current page you will need to press the 'Save' button before going back, otherwise the information on the current page will be lost.
In order for your answers to be saved, all mandatory fields must be filled in. If you select the 'Save' button, and have not answered all of the mandatory fields, error messages will appear at the top of the page prompting you to complete these fields.
If you are on the first page of a section, clicking on the 'Back' button will take you to the first page of the previous section, and not the last page you were on.
Logging off
You can logoff the application by selecting the 'logoff' link in the top right hand corner of the page. Any unsaved information will be lost. If you wish to save the information on the current page you will need to press the 'Save' button.
Returning to a saved claim
When accessing the service after saving a claim, you will be presented with the 'Your online claims' page.
This page will show you a summary of any claims you have previously started. When you select your existing claim from this page, it will record the new contact date. From here you will be taken to the question set you exited from last time.
Reviewing your answers
You can change the answers you have provided in your claim at any time before it has been submitted.
While you are answering questions you can modify the answer to a previous questions by either selecting the 'Back' button (for a question relating to the same topic you are currently on), or by selecting the relevant topic from the side menu, and then navigating to the particular question.
A summary of all the information you have provided will be displayed once you have completed answering all the claim questions. This will allow you to ensure that all the information you have provided is correct, and allow you to go back to a particular section if you need to change one of your answers.
Submitting the claim
Before submitting your claim you will need to accept a declaration stating that, amongst other things, all the information you have provided is correct and that you will notify Centrelink of any changes to the information within 14 days of the changes occurring.
Your payment cannot start until this declaration has been accepted and all additional documentation has been provided to Centrelink.
Once your claim is submitted you will not be able to change any of the information. We will then provide you with detail regarding the additional information you will need to provide to Centrelink.
Changes to your circumstances
If you need to change details of your claim after you have submitted it, please Contact Us. You do not need to complete another claim.
Providing additional information
Once you have completed and submitted your claim, you may be required to return some additional forms, as well as provide extra documentation to Centrelink.
There are three ways in which you can acquire the forms that you need to fill in and return to Centrelink.
- you can elect to have them mailed to you.
- you can complete and submit some forms online. The forms you complete online will only ask the questions relevant to your circumstances.
- you can also download the forms you need to fill in directly from the Services Australia website.
Completing and returning forms
These forms and documents can either be mailed to Centrelink, or brought into your nearest service centre. The addresses for both options will be provided once you have completed and submitted the claim form. All forms and documents should be returned within 14 days of you completing the claim form.
All forms must be completed in full, and all verification documents must be originals. Verification documents will be returned to you via mail.
If you fail to return the forms by the date provided, your claim may be rejected.
Centrelink will notify you of the outcome of your claim by mail.
Last Updated 22 August 2006.