Australia's individual tax year ended on 30 June 2026, and for people who lodge their own return the deadline is normally 31 October. This year that date falls on a Saturday. The Australian Taxation Office's own rule is that a weekend deadline moves to the next business day, so the effective date for self-lodged 2025-26 returns is Monday, 2 November 2026.
That date matters to many Australians who now live in Singapore, London, Dubai, Bali or Lisbon. Leaving Australia does not end a relationship with the ATO. It changes it. A foreign resident pays tax in Australia on Australian income, at different rates, under different capital gains rules, and in some cases with extra reporting duties that apply only because they left. What follows rests on the ATO's own pages, linked inline.
The deadline, and who it applies to
The ATO's guidance on preparing your tax return sets out three rules that matter here:
- If you lodge your own return, it is due by 31 October, or the next business day if 31 October falls on a weekend.
- If you use a registered tax agent, they generally have special lodgment schedules and can lodge later, but you need to be on their books before the October date.
- If you lodge yourself between 1 July and 31 October and the assessment shows tax to pay, payment is due by 21 November.
So for anyone who is going to do it themselves this year, the working date is 2 November. For anyone who intends to use an agent, the urgent step is engaging one before then.
First question: are you a foreign resident at all?
The rules below apply to foreign residents for tax purposes. That status is not decided by your passport, your visa or your intention. It is decided by the ATO's residency tests, which its page on tax residency lists as the resides test, the domicile test, the 183-day test and the Commonwealth superannuation test.
The resides test comes first and looks at physical presence, intention, family, business and employment ties, assets and living arrangements. If it does not make you resident, you can still be resident under one of the statutory tests. The domicile test is the one that catches people who leave: you remain resident if your domicile, your permanent home in law, is in Australia, unless the ATO is satisfied that your permanent place of abode is outside Australia. The ATO's own example is a teacher who takes a one-year contract in Japan, rents out her Australian home and plans to come back. She stays an Australian resident.
The practical point is that leaving for a year or two with a clear plan to return often does not make someone a foreign resident. Leaving with a new permanent home abroad usually does. If you are unsure which side you are on, that question has to be answered before anything else, because it decides whether your worldwide income or only your Australian income is taxed in Australia. The Brief's piece on proving tax residency covers the evidence that settles such questions.
What a foreign resident declares
According to the ATO's page on foreign and temporary resident income, a foreign resident declares Australian-sourced income, which may include:
- employment income earned in Australia;
- rental income from Australian property;
- Australian pensions and annuities, unless an exemption applies under Australian law or a tax treaty;
- capital gains on Australian assets.
Foreign income generally does not need to be declared. And there is an important exception for passive income: you do not declare Australian interest, dividends or royalties received while a foreign resident, provided the payer has withheld tax. Banks and companies do this automatically once you tell them you are a foreign resident and give them your address abroad.
That gives a simple rule of thumb. A foreign resident whose only Australian income is bank interest and dividends with the correct withholding usually has nothing to lodge. A foreign resident with a rented-out flat in Brisbane has a return to file, and the rent belongs on it.
The rates: no threshold, no Medicare levy
Foreign residents do not get the tax-free threshold. The same ATO page says so plainly, and the foreign resident rate table for 2025-26 shows what that means in practice:
- $0 to $135,000: 30 cents for each dollar.
- $135,001 to $190,000: $40,500 plus 37 cents for each dollar over $135,000.
- $190,001 and over: $60,850 plus 45 cents for each dollar over $190,000.
Foreign residents are not required to pay the Medicare levy. The table also shows that the rates for 2024-25 were the same, so nobody who left recently should expect a surprise on the rate side. The surprise, for people used to resident rates, is that the very first dollar of net rent is taxed at 30%.
The HELP debt that follows you abroad
One group of foreign residents has a duty that has nothing to do with Australian income. If you have a study or training support loan, which includes HELP (formerly HECS), VET Student Loans and Australian Apprenticeship Support Loans, the ATO's page on overseas obligations requires you to:
- update your contact details and submit an overseas travel notification within 7 days of leaving Australia, if you intend to live overseas for 183 days or more in any 12 months; and
- lodge your worldwide income or a non-lodgment advice each year.
The reporting deadline for the income year is 31 October, unless you use a registered tax agent, who can lodge later. Worldwide income here means your repayment income plus income earned outside Australia while you were a non-resident. This is the one place where a foreign resident's foreign salary does matter to the ATO, and it is easy to overlook because it sits outside the ordinary return.
The home you still own
The largest numbers in an Australian expat's tax life usually come from property, and here the rules for foreign residents are notably harder.
Capital gains tax applies to Australian real estate. The ATO's page on residency status and CGT explains that foreign residents are generally subject to CGT only on taxable Australian property, which includes real estate in Australia.
The 50% discount is mostly gone. The full 50% CGT discount is generally not available to foreign residents for assets acquired after 8 May 2012. An apportioned discount may be available for the period in which you were an Australian resident.
The main residence exemption is usually gone too. According to the ATO's page on the main residence exemption for foreign residents, foreign residents cannot claim the exemption for property sold after 30 June 2020, unless they meet the life events test. If you are a foreign resident when you sell, you lose not only the full exemption but also any partial or apportioned exemption, even for the years you lived there as an Australian resident.
The life events test is narrow. You must have been a foreign resident for a continuous period of 6 years or less, and during that period one of these must have happened: you, your spouse or your child under 18 had a terminal medical condition; your spouse or child under 18 died; or the sale happened because of a formal agreement after the breakdown of a marriage or relationship.
The consequence is easy to state and painful to discover late. Whether you are resident on the day of the sale can decide whether the gain on a family home is tax-free or fully taxable. For someone who owns a former home in Australia and is weighing a sale, the sequence of moving and selling is a planning question in its own right.
Withholding when you sell
There is one more property rule that bites at settlement rather than at tax time. The ATO's foreign resident capital gains withholding applies to property contracts signed from 1 January 2025 at a rate of 15% of the value of all property. The earlier threshold, under which properties below $750,000 escaped, no longer exists.
Australian residents avoid the withholding by giving the buyer a clearance certificate. Foreign residents cannot get one, so the buyer withholds 15% of the price and pays it to the ATO. A foreign resident can hold a variation notice that specifies a reduced rate; without one, the buyer withholds the full rate. In the ATO's words, the amount goes "toward payment of this liability", meaning the seller's tax on the sale, which is then settled through the return for that year. On a $1.2 million sale, the ATO's own example puts the withholding at $180,000.
A short checklist before 2 November
- Settle your residency status for 2025-26 under the ATO's tests. Everything else follows from it.
- Lodge if you had Australian income other than interest, dividends or royalties with withholding: rent, Australian employment, pensions without a treaty exemption, capital gains.
- Use the foreign resident rates and do not claim the tax-free threshold.
- Report worldwide income or lodge a non-lodgment advice if you have a HELP or similar loan.
- If you sold Australian property in 2025-26, check the 8 May 2012 discount rule, the main residence position and how much was withheld.
- If you want an agent to lodge later, engage them before the deadline.
- Pay by 21 November if you self-lodge on time and there is tax to pay.
Australia is one of the countries where leaving changes the tax rules on the assets you leave behind more than on the income you earn abroad. The Brief's list of countries that don't tax foreign income looks at the destination side of that equation, its Q4 relocation checklist looks at timing, and the Australia country page covers the rules for people moving the other way.
Work with Sebastian
If you have left Australia, or are planning to, and still hold property, investments or a study loan there, Sebastian works with internationally mobile clients on making residence, assets and filings line up across both countries. Book a consultation.
