Translations
When you will get your first payment
- العربية / Arabic
- ܐܵܬܘܿܪܵܝܵܐ / Assyrian
- ျမန္မာ / Burmese
- 简体中文 / Chinese
- ကညီကျိၥ် / Karen
- ខ្មែរ / Khmer
- 한국어 / Korean
- नेपाली / Nepali
- فارسی / Persian (Farsi)
- Türkçe / Turkish
- Tiếng Việt / Vietnamese
Call our Multilingual Phone Service to speak with us in your language about your Centrelink payments and services.
You may have to wait before your payments start.
You may need to wait longer depending on:
- how much money you have
- why you don’t have a job
Ordinary waiting period
You may need to wait for 1 week for your payments to start. We call this an ordinary waiting period.
Read more about the ordinary waiting period.
Longer waiting periods
Liquid assets waiting period
Your waiting period may be longer if you and your partner have enough money to live on for a while. This includes money in bank accounts, financial investments and term deposits.
Depending on how much money you have, the waiting period can be from 1 to 13 weeks.
Read more about the liquid assets waiting period.
Income maintenance period
We can’t pay you when you've received some other form of payment from your former employer when that job ended. This includes a payment for sick leave, annual leave, termination of employment or redundancy.
Read more about the income maintenance period.
Seasonal work preclusion period
Your waiting time may be longer if you or your partner finished seasonal, contract or intermittent work 6 months or less before you claimed a payment from us.
Read more about the seasonal work preclusion period.
Unemployment non-payment period
Your waiting time may be longer if:
- you chose to leave your job
- misconduct was the reason why you lost your job
Read more about the unemployment non-payment period.
Moving to an area of lower employment prospects non-payment period
If you move to an area where you’re less likely to find a job, you may need to wait for 26 weeks until we can pay you.
Read more about moving to an area of lower employment prospects.
Waiting time if you’re a new resident
After you start living in Australia as a resident, you normally need to wait for 104 weeks before you can get most kinds of payments from us.
Family assistance payments have different rules.
Read more about the newly arrived residents waiting period.
Appeal a waiting period decision
You have the right to appeal if you think we got your waiting period wrong.
Read about reviews and appeals.