The Australian government offers Centrelink carers allowance to ensure the carers have enough support while caring for someone with severe illness or disability through Carers allowance.
The government understands that carers do not have enough income to fight the rising cost of living, so to provide enough support to eligible carers the Australian government has many carer payments, allowances, and supplementary payments.
Centrelink Carers Allowance
The Centrelink carers allowance is a fortnightly or biweekly payment offered to carers. In the 2024-25 budget, the government has focussed on the carers and measures to support and recognize the carer’s efforts they deserve.
The Australian Social Services Department reviews carer payments every year and announcements on allowance increases next year.
The Social Services department reviews the rate on 01 Jan every year. For now, the carer should know the carer’s payment rates will be effective from 20 March 2025.
What makes you eligible for the Centrelink Carers Allowance?
The carers and the person you are caring for must meet the below eligibility requirements can claim and receive the Centrelink carer allowance:
For carers:
- You must meet the Australian residency rules, such as you are an Australian resident/ living in Australia/ physically in Australia. People who recently arrived in Australia have to wait for a year to receive the benefit.
- You care for someone who needs daily care and support in their home or your home.
- The carer’s allowances do not involve any income test, however, to receive this benefit, the carer and carer partner’s combined income should be less than $250,000 annually.
- For carers who care for someone under age 16, the authority will send a Health Care Card to the carers to cover the medicine and health care costs.
For the person you care for:
- The person you care for must need the care for a minimum of 12 months or he/she is suffering from a critical disease or medical condition,
- The person has gone through a medical assessment by a medical professional and assessed as they need care,
- The person you care for must be an Australian resident, living in Australia.
- You can care for the person at their home or your home.
- You can receive the carer allowance for more than 2 adults and one child
How much will you receive in the Carer’s Allowance?
The carers who meet the carers allowance conditions receive an allowance of up to $153.50 biweekly in a month.
The allowance rate is set, so it won’t be affected by your partner earning less than the income threshold decided for the year for you and your partner’s combined AGI.
However, your allowance might be affected if you share the caring responsibility with another carer while caring for a person.
So, if the other carer also submits the request to receive the carer allowance for the same person, the authority will determine the percentage of carer allowance for the carer based on the care they provide.
Carers who share care for a person can receive partial payments; each or only one person may receive the allowance based on the degree of care they provide and the time they invest in caring for the person.
How can you claim the carer’s allowance?
Carers who wish to claim the carer allowance can start their claim through the following steps:
- First, you must set up your myGov account and link it to Centrelink.
- The way you link Centrelink depends on whether you have previously received payment from the government. If you have received payments before you can use your CRN (Customer Reference Number) or if you haven’t received the payment you must prove your identity online.
- Once you have proven your identity to the authority or your partners, through any of the methods, the department may ask for supporting documents depending on your claim.
- Sometimes the authority may ask for more information to review your carer’s allowances, such as medical reports for under 16 children, care-provided reports, etc.
- Once you file the claim, you must wait for the Social Services department response on the claim.
When you wait for the carer allowance claim response from the authority, you can explore other allowances and benefits applicable to the carer that you might be eligible for and take advantage of the government assistance for the carers.
What to report to continue receiving the carer’s allowance?
The carers who receive the carer allowance or wish to apply for the allowance should know what they should report to the authorities to continue receiving the payment timely and based on their conditions, such as:
- You must report any change of circumstances that could increase or decrease your allowance or allowance via a Health Care card.
- You must report the child under 16 you caring for when they reach adult age,
- You must report the income changes in your and your partner.
- When you travel outside Australia, there are some rules you should follow and report the circumstances to the authorities. For instance, you can receive an allowance for six weeks when you or the person you care for travels outside Australia temporarily.
The Carer allowance is the supplementary payment for carers to support them with their expenses and extra costs when they are caring for someone who has a severe illness or medical condition.
From 2025, the allowance will be reviewed in January, if the government decides to make some changes it may announce later in the year.
