Australia · Tax regime
Temporary Resident Tax Concession (ITAA 1997 Subdivision 768-R)
Open
Last verified July 2026
Long-standing and unchanged. Available only to holders of temporary visas — which structurally excludes every permanent route into Australia, including the National Innovation Visa.
Most foreign income and foreign capital gains of a temporary resident are non-assessable non-exempt — Australia simply ignores them. It is one of the better expatriate regimes in the developed world, and it is unavailable to anyone who actually migrates permanently. The interaction is perverse: the harder the visa is to get, the worse the tax outcome.
Qualifying routes
—
Automatic for qualifying temporary visa holders
no application; status follows the visa held — typically subclass 482, 485, 500 and similar
The facts
- Total landed cost
- No cost; the concession attaches to the visa. The cost is that it is incompatible with permanent residency.
- Physical presence
- Australian tax residency is required for the concession to be worth anything; the visa itself governs presence
- Family
- the taxpayer must be a temporary resident AND their spouse must also not be an Australian resident within the meaning of the Social Security Act 1991 — one Australian-citizen or PR spouse destroys the concession for both
- Permanent residency
- not applicable — and taking permanent residency ends the concession permanently
- Citizenship
- not applicable
- Language test
- not applicable
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- hold a temporary visa under the Migration Act 1958not be an Australian resident within the meaning of the Social Security Act 1991spouse must also not be an Australian resident within that meaningbe an Australian resident for income tax purposes for the concession to matter
What can go wrong
- The spouse condition catches families constantly. If the spouse is an Australian citizen or permanent resident, neither of them is a temporary resident for tax and the concession is gone.
- It cannot be reinstated. Once permanent residence is taken, the concession ends and does not come back if the visa later lapses.
- Foreign employment income earned while an Australian resident is NOT covered, and employee share scheme gains have their own carve-outs.
- This is the direct trade-off against the NIV: the visa Australia now wants you to have is the visa that costs you this concession.
- Australia levies a genuine departure tax. CGT event I1 deems a disposal at market value of everything except taxable Australian property when residency ceases. Electing to defer keeps the asset in the Australian net indefinitely.
- Temporary residents are outside I1 on non-Australian assets — a meaningful reason not to convert to permanent residence before leaving.
- The 50% CGT discount is apportioned away for days of non-residence after 8 May 2012, and the main residence exemption is denied outright to foreign residents on disposal.