About international social security agreements
Australia’s international social security agreements help people to access certain pensions from Australia and/or an agreement country that they may not otherwise be able to access. They do this by allowing people to:
- lodge a claim for a pension from either country regardless of which country they are living in
- combine periods of residence in Australia with periods of contributions in the agreement country. This is to meet any minimum residence or contribution periods required to qualify for a pension.
Some of Australia’s agreements also regulate the payment of superannuation contributions and equivalent contributions in the agreement country. This avoids double coverage for workers seconded between countries.
Visit the Australian Taxation Office’s website for more information on superannuation(Opens external website).
Current agreements
The text of each social security agreement(Opens external website) is set out in Australia’s domestic legislation.
The Social Security Guide(Opens external website) has information for decision makers administering the legislation about how the provisions of each agreement operate.
Australia has agreements with 32 countries:
Asia
- India
- Japan
- Korea
Australasia
- New Zealand
Europe
- Austria
- Belgium
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- Ireland
- Italy
- Latvia
- Malta
- Netherlands
- North Macedonia
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Serbia
- Slovak Republic
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Switzerland
North America
- Canada
- United States of America
South America
- Chile
Agreements under negotiation
We are currently negotiating 6 new agreements on behalf of the Australian Government:
- Bosnia and Herzegovina – announced in the 2021–22 Budget
- Uruguay – announced February 2024
- Lithuania – announced March 2024
- Mongolia – announced October 2024
- Brazil – announced November 2024
- Sweden – announced February 2025.
Negotiations for these agreements are ongoing. The agreements will commence once both Australia and the relevant country have approved the agreement and completed all processes. These processes can take years to complete. We will add updates as the negotiations progress.
Previous agreement with the United Kingdom
Australia’s agreement with the United Kingdom (UK) ended from 1 March 2001.
Australia ended the agreement because the UK declined to change its policy of not indexing UK pensions in Australia.
Successive Australian governments have asked the UK Government to address the indexation issue, without success. In the end, only the UK Government can resolve this.
More information
To understand how agreements help people to access pensions, which pensions are covered and how to make a claim, visit Services Australia – How we can help(Opens external website).
To find out whether an agreement can assist seconded workers, contact the Australian Taxation Office.(Opens external website)