If you worked in Australia on a 417 or 462 working holiday visa, you can claim your superannuation back once you leave the country for good. Here's how the Departing Australia Superannuation Payment, or DASP, works: what you'll actually receive after tax, and the exact steps to claim it.
What is Australian superannuation?
Why you get it back on a working holiday visa
Every Australian employer is legally required to pay a percentage of your wage into a superannuation (retirement savings) account on top of your salary: currently 12%, even if you're only there on a 417 or 462 visa. You're not staying in Australia to retire, so you're allowed to claim this money back once you've left the country for good and your visa has expired or been cancelled. It's called a Departing Australia Superannuation Payment, or DASP.
One detail worth knowing before you start estimating: the 12% is calculated on your ordinary time earnings, not on everything you were paid. Overtime sits outside that definition. If you picked up a lot of extra hours at penalty rates, your super will look smaller than a flat 12% of your total pay would suggest.
Estimate your reclaim
A rough guide based on how long you worked and what you earned.
Step-by-step: claiming your super back
Leave Australia for good and let your visa expire or lapse. You can only claim your DASP once you've genuinely left. You can't claim while still in the country on a valid visa.
Find out which super fund(s) your employers used. Check your payslips or ask your employer directly. You may have multiple funds if you worked several jobs.
Apply via the ATO's DASP online system, or use a claim service. The ATO system is free, it covers both fund-held and ATO-held super, and it confirms your immigration status with Home Affairs for you. It can still be fiddly if you've changed funds or lost paperwork. That's where services like Taxback.com or Sidekick Super come in.
Work out whether you also need to lodge a tax return. Super and income tax are separate claims with separate rules. Whether you're owed anything on the tax side depends on how your employer withheld, which is explained further down.
Wait for processing. The ATO's stated timeframe is 28 days from receiving a completed application. An incomplete one takes longer, and so does any application that triggers a request for extra documents.
Four things to do before you fly home
This claim is much easier to set up in Australia than to finish from a sofa on the other side of the world.
Start the online application while you're still here. The ATO lets you begin the DASP form and save it, then come back and submit once you've gone. Submitting is the part that has to wait. Collecting fund names, member numbers and passport details is not, and it is the part that gets painful once you're home.
Get your ID certified before you go. A fund holding $5,000 or more can ask for certified copies of your identity documents. There are specific rules about who is allowed to certify them. Finding someone qualified is straightforward in Australia and a genuine chore abroad.
Save your income statement. Your employer reports pay and super through Single Touch Payroll, and the statement shows up in ATO online through myGov. You can see it from inside Australia. Download it rather than assuming you'll pull it up whenever you need it.
Keep your Australian bank account open. Transfer to an Australian account is the quickest way to be paid, and for ATO-held super it's one of only two options you get. Check with the bank first that you'll be able to move the money on to an account at home.
Left more than six months ago?
Your money has probably moved
Super funds don't hold a temporary resident's money indefinitely. Once both things are true, that six months or more have passed since you left Australia and that your visa has ceased, the fund transfers your balance to the ATO as unclaimed super. Nothing is lost. It simply isn't where you left it any more.
You still claim it as a DASP, and the online application covers ATO-held money alongside fund-held money. On paper it's a different form: NAT 74880 goes to the ATO for ATO-held super, where NAT 7204 goes to a fund. Paper applications sent to the ATO are free, while a fund may charge you a fee for processing one.
How the money actually reaches you
Three payment routes exist, and you don't get all three on every claim.
Your three options
Claims to a super fund can be paid by transfer to an Australian bank account, by Australian dollar cheque, or by international money transfer. Not every fund offers that last one, and where it exists there can be fees and a currency conversion to swallow. Claims against ATO-held super are narrower: an Australian account in your own name, or a cheque.
Timing and paperwork
The ATO pays a completed application within 28 days as a rule. Whoever pays you has to issue a DASP payment summary within 14 days of doing so, and that document tells you what was withheld and what actually landed. Keep it. It's the proof of what happened to your money.
Super and your tax return are two different things
Don't put your DASP in your tax return
The 65% is a final withholding tax. Your DASP is not assessable income in Australia, so it doesn't belong anywhere on a tax return, and no amount of lodging will claw any of it back. The two claims travel separately from beginning to end.
Whether you're owed an income tax refund depends on your employer
A lot of guides tell working holidaymakers they're all owed a tax refund. That isn't true, and it's worth knowing which case you're in.
If your employer registered with the ATO as an employer of working holiday makers, the first $45,000 you earn is withheld at 15%. That is the correct rate. If your total taxable income for the year came in under $45,001 and all of it was wages, you're taxed properly, you have nothing to reclaim, and you aren't required to lodge at all.
The picture changes if your employer wasn't registered. In that case they must withhold at foreign resident rates, which start at 30%, and you've very likely overpaid. The same goes if you never handed over a TFN, because working without one means more tax comes out. Those are the situations where lodging is worth your time. You also have to lodge if you want to claim deductions.
What trips people up
One 417 day taxes the whole payment at 65%
This catches people who moved on to a student or sponsored visa and worked for years afterwards. If any part of your super came from a period on a 417 or 462, the working holiday rate applies to the entire payment, not just the backpacking portion. It doesn't matter how long ago that was.
Applying too early
You can't submit until you've left Australia and your visa has ceased, either by expiring or by being cancelled. Holding any other active Australian visa also blocks the claim. Preparing early is smart, submitting early just gets you rejected.
Assuming the super was ever paid
Underpayment is a real problem in the industries most backpackers work in. Check your contributions actually arrived before you apply, because a claim only recovers money that is genuinely sitting there.
Being taxed at the wrong rate
Each fund decides the rate for its own payment, so mistakes happen. If you think a fund withheld too much, ask that fund for a refund in the same financial year the payment was made. After that window closes, or where the ATO paid you, the request goes to the ATO in writing instead.
Who to use
You can do this yourself for free, but a service can save you the hassle of chasing lost super funds.
Our honest position: if you had one job, one fund and your paperwork is intact, the free ATO online system is the whole answer and a percentage fee buys you nothing. Services earn their cut when there were four employers, three funds and a shoebox of lost payslips. One thing to check either way, if you let someone claim on your behalf: a tax agent doing this has to be registered with the Tax Practitioners Board.
Taxback.com
A long-running tax refund service used widely by working holidaymakers. They handle both your income tax return and your DASP claim, and take a percentage fee from what they recover. Useful if your paperwork is messy or you've lost track of a fund.
Sidekick Super
A newer, Australia-focused service specifically built around finding and consolidating lost or forgotten super, which is common if you moved jobs a lot during your working holiday. Worth checking if you suspect you have more than one fund.
FAQs
The questions we get asked most about claiming super back.
How much of my super do I actually keep?
On a 417 or 462 visa you keep 35% of the taxable component, because 65% is withheld as DASP tax. Other temporary residents are taxed at 35% or 45% depending on the component, so backpackers are treated worse than almost everyone else. Any tax-free component comes to you whole.
Can I claim my super before I leave Australia?
No. You have to have left the country, your visa has to have ceased by expiring or being cancelled, and you can't be holding another active Australian visa. You can prepare and save the application from inside Australia, which is worth doing, but the submit button only works once you've gone.
I left years ago and never claimed. Is it gone?
No. Six months after you left, assuming your visa had ceased, your fund handed the money to the ATO as unclaimed super. It sits there under your name and you claim it as a DASP the same as anyone else, using the online system or the ATO-held paper form.
Will claiming my super hurt a future visa application?
No. The ATO states plainly that claiming a DASP will not affect any future visa application. You're doing the thing the system expects a departing temporary resident to do.
Do I put the DASP on my Australian tax return?
No. The tax on it is final and the payment isn't assessable income, so it doesn't go on a return at all. Your income tax refund, if you're owed one, is a completely separate claim.
How long does the money take to arrive?
Reckon on 28 days from the point the ATO has a complete application. Incomplete applications take longer, and so do any that need extra documents. Bank transfer to an Australian account is the fastest of the payment options, which is the argument for not closing that account.