Residency is the master switch — your tax rates, Medicare levy, property withholding and super refund all hang off this one answer. It is decided by four statutory tests, and passing any one of them makes you a resident. All four run below at once, and the page tells you which single change would flip the result.
Each input is perturbed one at a time to find which single change is enough to change the verdict. An article cannot do this.
Residency is the master switch — everything below follows from that one answer.
Only the ones that actually apply to what you entered.
The most common mistake in residency explainers is presenting the decision as a sequence: first check whether you hit 183 days, then move on if you did not. That is wrong. The four tests in section 6(1) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 are alternatives. Pass any one of them and you are a resident; the other three do not matter.
So someone in Australia for only 100 days can absolutely be a resident under the resides test, and someone here for 200 days can absolutely fail to be one if the escape clause applies. Reading it as a flowchart produces errors in both directions.
This asks an ordinary question: are you living in Australia? The ATO looks at the whole picture of your behaviour — how long and how regularly you are here, whether you have a settled home, where your family is, your social and employment ties, where your assets are, and the intention your conduct shows.
The ATO's own words are that "no single factor is likely to be decisive, and many will be interrelated". This page weights those factors into a score so you can see the relative weight of each tie — not because the ATO runs a scoresheet. When the score sits near the threshold, the honest answer is "this needs judgement", not "you missed it by one point".
Two steps: is your domicile in Australia, and if so, is the ATO satisfied your permanent place of abode is outside Australia? You only fall out of residency if both steps go your way.
One point that is routinely missed: an Australian citizen's domicile of origin is Australian, and leaving the country does not change it by itself — you need to acquire a domicile of choice elsewhere. So long-term expatriates usually escape residency through the permanent-place-of-abode limb, not through domicile itself.
More than half the income year (1 July to 30 June) physically in Australia, continuously or intermittently, counting both arrival and departure days. The escape clause requires both limbs: your usual place of abode is outside Australia and you have no intention to take up residence here.
Note that "abode" here is not the same concept as in the domicile test. The 183-day test uses usual place of abode; the domicile test uses permanent place of abode, which is a higher bar. Tools that collapse these into one question get both lanes wrong — which is why this page asks them separately.
Current contributing members of the PSS or CSS (and their spouses and children under 16) are residents regardless of everything else. It is a narrow test, but an absolute one where it applies. Note that PSSAP does not count — similar name, different scheme, not in this test.
No. The 2021 Federal Budget announced a new framework — a 183-day primary test plus a factor test — but it has never been legislated. The four tests above remain the law. If an article or a tool applies the proposed rules to your facts, it is wrong. Everything on this page is based on the law as it currently stands.
Not automatically. The escape clause needs both limbs — usual place of abode outside Australia and no intention to take up residence. And fewer than 183 days does not make you a foreign resident either: the resides and domicile tests run in parallel, and passing any one is enough.
No. Tax residency comes from tax law; visa class comes from migration law. A temporary visa holder can be a tax resident, and a permanent resident living abroad can be a foreign resident for tax.
Mostly not. 417 and 462 holders are taxed under the same schedule (15% on the first $45,000) either way. What costs money is DASP: having ever held one of those visas makes the whole payment taxable at 65% rather than 35%.
Not by default. The exemption requires a Medicare Entitlement Statement, and nationals of Reciprocal Health Care Agreement countries are entitled to Medicare — so they cannot get one, and the 2% stays payable.
No. This is a tool for understanding the structure of the decision and where your own facts sit. The resides and domicile tests turn on findings of fact that vary case by case, and the ATO makes the determination. For anything material, speak to a registered tax agent.