Ten years of Australian residence is the hard part of the Age Pension, and anyone who spent a decade of their working life in Australia has already cleared it without knowing. The qualifying test is written in the past tense: the Department of Social Services states it is satisfied by having "been an Australian resident continuously for at least 10 years at any point in the past", or by two or more periods that in total exceed ten years where at least one ran five years or more 1. Grow up in Australia, work there, leave at fifty-five, and it stays met.
What the move can cost you is the ability to lodge the claim. To claim a social security payment you must be an Australian resident and in Australia on the day you lodge 2. "Australian resident" has two limbs: you must reside in Australia, and you must be an Australian citizen, the holder of a permanent visa, or a protected special category visa holder 3. Australian citizenship settles the second limb permanently. Living in Israel is what fails the first. The Social Security Guide names the only escape: "The requirement to be an Australian resident does NOT apply to claimants relying on international agreements" 1. Australia has no agreement with Israel.
> This is general information for olim, not tax, legal, or financial advice. Australian social security law and Israeli benefit and tax law interact in ways that turn on your own dates and figures. Speak to a qualified cross-border professional who understands both Services Australia and the Israel Tax Authority, and confirm your own position with the bodies named at the end of this page, before acting.
Is there really no Australia-Israel social security agreement?
There is none, and each government confirms it separately.
Australia's agreements are documented country by country in Part 10 of the Social Security Guide, which carries a chapter for each of New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Spain, Malta, the Netherlands, Ireland, Portugal, Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, the United States, Chile, Croatia, Slovenia, Belgium, Norway, Switzerland, Korea, Greece, Japan, Finland, Poland, North Macedonia, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Hungary, Latvia, India, Estonia and Serbia 4. That is thirty-three countries. Israel is not one of them.
From the Israeli side, Bituach Leumi lists twenty comprehensive conventions (Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the UK and Uruguay), adds that "Israel has only signed a limited conventions with Canada", and says of the Israel-US Friendship and Shipping Agreement that it "does not constitute an agreement in the field of social security" 6. Australia appears on neither list. The Guide's fallback rule then applies: "People and payments not covered by an agreement have their portability determined under the normal portability provisions in the SSAct" 5.
What does the missing agreement actually take away?
It removes four specific concessions available to olim from agreement countries.
| Coordination rule | What an agreement can provide | What applies to an Australian oleh |
|---|---|---|
| Waiving the claim-residence requirement | The Australian-resident requirement does not apply to claimants relying on an agreement 1 | The full rule applies: Australian resident, and in Australia on the day of lodgement 2 |
| Income-test treatment of a foreign payment | An agreement may modify the treatment so the payment is a direct deduction, exempt from the income test, or only partly assessable 12 | Gross current rate assessed as ordinary income, with nothing deducted for tax, bank charges or foreign country debts 12 |
| Softening the proportional rate | Some agreements allow a covered pension from the agreement country to be proportionalised too before the income test 8 | No such concession 8 |
| Portability rules | Portability follows the agreement, and the former-resident rules do not apply to a pension paid under one 510 | Domestic portability provisions only, former-resident rules included 10 |
When does the claim have to be lodged, and from where?
While you are still residing in Australia. That is the whole of it, and it is the single decision on this page that is still yours to make.
The Guide is unusually direct about the case that matters here. Under the residence factors it says that "a person claiming Age may have plans to retire overseas", that "this does not automatically mean that they are not residing in Australia at the time of their claim", and that "the issue is whether the person can, at the time of the decision, be said to be residing in any other country" 3. Intending to move to Israel is not itself disqualifying. Having already moved is.
Two details set the boundary. The Guide lists the section 7(3) factors used to decide whether someone is residing in Australia, including the frequency and duration of travel outside Australia, the nature of the accommodation used in Australia, family relationships, employment and financial ties, and assets located in Australia 3. Taken in isolation, it treats "a 3-year continuous absence" as an upper limit for still being considered to reside in Australia, "unless there are special circumstances delaying a return", and adds that where a person regularly spends more than six months a year outside Australia, "their residence in Australia is questionable" 3.
The other detail is the one people get wrong. The former-resident rules, which close off the fly-back-and-claim route described further down, apply only where a former Australian resident returns, becomes an Australian resident again, and within two years is granted or transferred to Age Pension 10. Someone who never stopped residing in Australia, claims at pension age, and makes aliyah afterwards is not a former resident and is not caught by them. Pension age has been 67 since 1 July 2023 for anyone born on or after 1 January 1957, the end of a legislated staircase that ran through 65 years 6 months, 66 and 66 years 6 months for earlier birth cohorts 1.
What happens to each component the day you leave to live in Israel?
The Age Pension itself keeps paying. Most of what is attached to it does not.
Age Pension is on the short list of payments with unlimited (also called indefinite) portability, so recipients "are able to travel overseas temporarily or permanently for any length of time and continue to receive their pension (provided they otherwise remain qualified and the pension remains payable)" 7.
The six-week grace period quoted almost everywhere is for a temporary absence. Aliyah is not a temporary absence, and the Guide is explicit that the pension supplement is "reduced to the basic amount after 6 weeks' temporary absence from Australia (or immediately on departure if the absence is not temporary, for example, they are leaving Australia to reside overseas)" 7.
| Component | On a temporary trip | On leaving to live in Israel |
|---|---|---|
| Age Pension basic rate | Continues | Continues, and may be proportionalised after 26 weeks 78 |
| Pension supplement | Reduced to the basic amount after 6 weeks 7 | Reduced to the basic amount immediately on departure 7 |
| Energy Supplement, Remote Area Allowance | Payable for a limited period only 7 | Cease immediately on departure 7 |
| Rent Assistance | Ceases after 26 weeks, or earlier if you stop qualifying 7 | Ceases on departure once you stop paying Australian rent 7 |
| Pensioner Concession Card | Stays current for 6 weeks 7 | Cancelled immediately on departure 7 |
The rate tables show the size of that first cut. For the period from 20 March 2026 to 19 September 2026 inclusive, the published maximum for a single recipient is A$1,200.90 a fortnight residing in Australia against A$1,130.40 a fortnight not residing in Australia, and A$905.20 against A$854.20 for each member of a couple 9. The two columns are defined by what they contain: the first is the maximum basic rate plus the full pension supplement plus the Energy Supplement, the second is the maximum basic rate plus the pension supplement basic amount only 9. So the gap, A$70.50 a fortnight single and A$51.00 each partnered over that same period, is the supplement falling to its basic amount and the Energy Supplement stopping. It arrives on day one of a permanent departure, not in week seven.
How the money then reaches you also changes. Pensioners overseas for more than 26 weeks, or indefinitely, are paid from the Centrelink International Services office in Hobart, and are "generally paid by direct deposit but can also be paid by cheque every 4 weeks", with each four-weekly payment representing two fortnightly entitlement periods 9.
Why does the date your Australian residence began set the size of the pension?
Because after 26 weeks outside Australia the rate may become proportional, and the proportion is built from Australian Working Life Residence 8. For an oleh that clock starts on the flight out, and it never stops, because there is no coming back inside the window.
The calculator is P multiplied by Q divided by 420, where P is the person's annual income and asset tested rate excluding ancillary payments other than the pension supplement basic amount, Q is the person's months of AWLR plus one month but not exceeding 420, and 420 is 35 years expressed in months 8. The Guide's own worked example puts an annual rate of $3,500 with 18 years of AWLR at $1,808.30 a year 8.
AWLR is the number of months a recipient has been an Australian resident between the ages of 16 and pension age, and the Guide is explicit that "the person does not have to be in paid employment" 8. That upper boundary is the point most readers miss. Because the count stops at pension age, someone who stays in Australia until they claim already has their AWLR fixed by the year their Australian residence began, and the date they later fly to Israel changes nothing. Once a recipient has 420 months of AWLR, they receive the full basic rate of means tested pension outside Australia 11.
Two escape hatches exist on paper and neither one is open to an oleh. The Guide allows an extension of the 26-week period, but only for recipients who are temporarily overseas and unable to return within it, which a permanent move to Israel is not 8. And the exemptions from the proportional rate altogether reach certain disability support pensioners and pensioners granted before 2 July 1986 who were already overseas on 20 September 2000, not a person retiring to Israel today 8.
For someone who leaves before pension age the freeze is real, because AWLR keeps accruing during an absence only while the person is still considered an Australian resident throughout it 8. But that person cannot lodge a claim from Israel in the first place, so the frozen figure only ever surfaces if they later resume Australian residence and claim there.
Two boundary cases sit at the ends of the scale. Where a recipient has no AWLR at all, for instance because they first arrived in Australia after pension age, "their proportional rate will be nil, so their pension is no longer payable even though they may still qualify" 8. And the denominator has a history: before 1 July 2014 the maximum AWLR was 300 months, and recipients already receiving a pension overseas on 1 July 2014 generally remain on the old rules, with 300 as the denominator, unless they return to Australia for more than 26 weeks 8.
### A worked example
Take someone who arrived in Australia at 40, was an Australian resident continuously from then on, claimed Age Pension in Australia at pension age 67, and made aliyah at 68 with no other income or assets reducing the rate.
AWLR runs from 40 to pension age, so 27 years, or 324 months, and Q is 325. Using the not-residing-in-Australia single maximum of A$1,130.40 a fortnight published for 20 March 2026 to 19 September 2026 as P 9, the proportional rate from week 27 in Israel is A$1,130.40 multiplied by 325 divided by 420, which is A$874.71 a fortnight 8. Against the A$1,200.90 a fortnight the same person was paid in Australia over that period 9, the total fall is A$326.19 a fortnight, counting both the supplement haircut on departure and the proportional cut at week 27. Left in place, that is roughly A$8,480 across a full year of 26 fortnights.
Someone who arrived in Australia at 30 instead reaches 420 months by pension age, hits the cap, and loses nothing at all to proportionalisation. Same career, same contributions, and the only variable is how early Australian residence began. All rates below use the same P of A$1,130.40 published for 20 March 2026 to 19 September 2026 9, and all assume continuous Australian residence to pension age 67.
| Age Australian residence began | AWLR months | Q (capped at 420) | Proportion | Fortnightly rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 | 444 | 420 | 100.0% | A$1,130.40 |
| 35 | 384 | 385 | 91.7% | A$1,036.20 |
| 40 | 324 | 325 | 77.4% | A$874.71 |
| 45 | 264 | 265 | 63.1% | A$713.23 |
| 50 | 204 | 205 | 48.8% | A$551.74 |
| 55 | 144 | 145 | 34.5% | A$390.26 |
The table stops at 55 because the next five-year step is already over the cliff. Australian residence that begins later than age 57 leaves under ten years by pension age, and the qualifying-residence test then fails outright, so there is no pension to proportionalise 1.
Can you fly back to Australia at 67, claim, and come home?
Australia legislated against precisely that plan.
Former Australian residents who resume residence and are granted Age Pension "cannot be paid during any overseas absence that occurs within 2 years of resuming residence", and that rule "overrides any unlimited portability that may otherwise apply" 710. The Guide states the reason without diplomacy: "The purpose of these rules is to discourage people from travelling to Australia just to claim an Australian pension to take immediately back overseas" 10.
The mechanics are unforgiving. The two-year clock starts the day you become an Australian resident again. Leave inside it and the pension is suspended on departure. It can be restored if you return within 13 weeks, but "if the person remains overseas for 13 weeks, their pension will be cancelled and they will need to re-claim on their return to Australia" 10. There are exactly two exceptions: eligibility for financial assistance under the Medical Treatment Overseas Program in respect of the absence, or needing to accompany someone eligible; and "travelling to an agreement country and is eligible to be paid under the relevant agreement" 10. Israel is not an agreement country 46. The Guide then closes it off: "There is no discretionary power to allow portability of age pension or DSP during the 2-year period outside of the above exceptions" 10.
The plan cannot be executed cynically either, because resuming residence is itself assessed. "There should be a clear intention to remain permanently in Australia. A person who intends to return to Australia for a defined period only (for example, 2 years) would generally not be considered to have resumed residing in Australia" 10.
Note what this does not say. It is a rule about former residents who come back, and it runs for two years, not for ever: someone who genuinely resumes residing in Australia and stays put can leave once the two years are up. It does not reach someone who was residing in Australia all along, claimed there, and then left.
Can two countries means-test the same payment?
One direction is settled in the Guide, the other is a question for Bituach Leumi, and no treaty coordinates either.
On the Australian side the rule is flat. "The gross current rate of payments from overseas is generally treated as income for social security purposes", and "no amount is deducted for any tax deductions, bank charges or for foreign country debts deducted from the overseas payments" 12. Non-comparable overseas payments get the same treatment: "the gross amount of all overseas payments, whether government or privately funded, is assessed as ordinary income" 12. The softer treatments, direct deduction, exemption from the income test, or partial assessability, exist only where an agreement modifies them, and the Guide's worked cases are New Zealand and Italy 12. An Israeli benefit paid to an Australian Age Pension recipient in Israel is therefore assessed gross against the Australian income test.
On the Israeli side, an oleh who arrives too late to build Israeli old-age insurance may qualify for the special old-age benefit, funded by the Ministry of Finance rather than National Insurance, available to "an Israeli resident who first immigrated to Israel after the age set forth by the law (62 for men and retirement age for women) and is not covered with old-age insurance" 14. Its structure is what matters for an Australian pension. Bituach Leumi states that "unlike the regular old-age pension, the special old-age benefit is subject to an income test even after the age of entitlement to an old-age pension", and that test runs two separate limbs 14. One limb caps income from work, at a shekel ceiling set by family composition which triples from age 70. The other limb is a different and much lower bar for everything else: a person qualifies only if their and their spouse's non-work income does not exceed the old-age pension plus the income supplement increment for their family composition and age 14. A claim requires the *teudat oleh* (new-immigrant certificate) 14.
An Australian Age Pension is plainly not income from work, so the work-income ceiling that gets quoted everywhere is the wrong number to measure it against, and the non-work limb is far tighter. Which limb Bituach Leumi in fact applies to a foreign state pension is not stated on its page, and it is the first thing to put to them with your Services Australia payment letter in hand. The benefit itself, its current ceilings, its rates and the income supplement that sits alongside it are covered in elderly-olim-benefits. One duty runs the other way too: a recipient of the special old-age benefit who leaves the country for any reason must notify Bituach Leumi, and an unreported departure can accumulate a debt 14.
Can Services Australia order you to claim from Bituach Leumi?
The legal power exists, though it is narrower than it first looks.
Recipients or claimants likely to be entitled to a comparable foreign payment "may be required to take reasonable action to claim the CFP at the highest rate available to them" 13. From 20 September 2000 that requirement was extended to non-agreement countries, where "the requirement is limited to recipients or claimants of Australian age pension age" and covers "any entitlements to age, invalidity and survivor pensions, together with company pensions and superannuation from a non-agreement country" 13. Read literally, that reaches Israeli entitlements, including an Israeli occupational pension, not only Bituach Leumi benefits.
Three limits sit on it. It applies only once Centrelink issues a legal notice to that effect 13. Exemptions exist in some cases 13. And the enforcement provisions are SS(Admin)Act sections 40, 66 and 82, covering rejection of a claim, the notice itself, and cancellation or suspension for failing to act 13. Whether Services Australia exercises the power for Israeli entitlements in practice is an operational question the Guide does not answer.
What do you still owe Services Australia from Israel?
Three ongoing duties survive the move, and one arrives before you go.
People overseas permanently or on a long-term basis have 28 days to notify a change in circumstances, against 14 days for everyone else 11. Income, asset and medical reviews continue while you are abroad, and review forms that fall due must be returned by the due date to guarantee continuity of payments 11. Recipients of Age Pension who have been out of Australia for at least two years and are over 80 "must complete a proof of life certificate every 2 years to continue to receive their payment overseas" 11.
Before departure, Services Australia collects your departure date, expected return date if any, destination, payment information, AWLR information and correspondence address, and uses it to decide whether the absence is temporary or you will be residing in another country, whether the former-resident rules apply, and whether proportional portability will affect your rate 15.
Which house is the principal home once you own one in each country?
The principal home, including adjacent land, "is an exempt asset no matter what its value" 16, so which property wears that label moves the assets test more than almost anything else in the file.
The Guide defines it as "generally the home in which the single income support recipient or couple lives for the greatest amount of time each year"; where a recipient owns more than one, the principal home is the one they spend the most time in, with the more expensive property winning if the time is equal, and the property that is not the principal home "IS assessed as an asset even when the income support recipient or their partner are living in the property" 17. Buy in Israel and live there, and the Israeli apartment is the principal home while a retained Australian house becomes assessable.
Renting in Israel does not automatically save the Australian house either. The Guide does say that where a person spends considerable time in a home they do not own, the home they own remains the principal home 17. But the temporary-vacation rules cut across that: an absence is generally treated as temporary unless the recipient states a definite intention not to return, and "if an income support recipient does NOT intend to return to the principal home, the home is an assessable asset, and the higher non-homeowner allowable assets threshold applies" 22. Aliyah is normally exactly that statement of intention. Where an absence is treated as temporary for some other reason, the exemption for reasons not otherwise listed runs up to 12 months, or longer in limited circumstances 22.
Selling before departure has a dated window instead. Sale proceeds "set aside for the new purchase can be disregarded as an asset for a period of up to 24 months", while "any proceeds of the sale put in a financial investment (for example, savings account) will be subject to the deeming rules under the income test" 15. For an oleh buying in Israel, those 24 months are a real runway. For one who parks the money in a bank account, there is no runway at all.
Capital gains on that same house are a different statute with a different answer. The departure-time rules are covered in australia-cgt-departure-aliyah, and the main-residence position on an actual sale in selling-australian-home-after-aliyah.
Australian tax treatment
Two things are settled on the Australian revenue side, and one is not.
The Age Pension is a taxable Australian Government payment. The Australian Taxation Office lists it first among the taxable government payments, pensions and allowances that must be included in a tax return, on a page last updated 8 June 2026 23. It is not one of the tax-free government pensions 23.
Foreign residents are taxed on a different scale. For 2025-26 the ATO's foreign resident rates are 30 cents in the dollar on income up to $135,000, then $40,500 plus 37 cents on the slice from $135,001 to $190,000, then $60,850 plus 45 cents above $190,000, and the same page states that foreign residents are not required to pay the Medicare levy 24. The first dollar carries the 30 cent rate, so nothing is sheltered at the bottom. Note that "Australian resident" in every section above is a Social Security Act term applied by Services Australia; tax residence is a separate ATO test on separate criteria, so leaving Australia has to be worked through twice.
What is not settled here is whether Australia in fact taxes an Age Pension paid to an Israeli resident, and at what rate once the 2019 Convention is applied. That turns on the Convention text and on the ATO's application of it, and it is a question to put to the ATO directly rather than to infer from the two facts above. The wider Australian financial picture for olim sits in australia-olim-finance.
Israeli tax treatment
An Australian Age Pension is paid by Services Australia in Australia, which makes it income sourced outside Israel, and Israel's oleh regime is written around exactly that category.
A new oleh or veteran returning resident receives a ten-year exemption on all income sourced abroad. The Israel Tax Authority's guide, published 24 April 2025 and updated 19 August 2026, puts it as an exemption for ten years on all income whose source is abroad, covering passive income such as dividends, rent, royalties and capital gains on foreign assets, and active income from a business or employment carried on outside Israel 18. The same guide treats pension income as belonging to that foreign-source category: it appears by name in the shorter five-year exemption the guide sets out for an ordinary returning resident 18. For the first decade, then, the Israeli tax on an Australian Age Pension is nil.
One thing changed on 1 January 2026, and it is a reporting change rather than a tax change. Olim who arrived up to 31 December 2025 are exempt from reporting foreign income and foreign assets for ten years from arrival. That reporting exemption "does not apply to a person who arrived in Israel from 1 January 2026, but it should be emphasised that this income will continue to be exempt from tax for 10 years" 18. If you arrived in 2026, the Australian payment goes on the return and stays untaxed.
Two adjacent reliefs are easy to mistake for this one, and neither helps an Age Pension. The adjustment year (*shnat hastaglut*) lets a new oleh or veteran returning resident ask to be treated as a foreign resident for their first year, on an application filed within 90 days of arrival, after which they become an Israeli resident with the foreign-income exemption running for a further nine years from the end of the adjustment year 19. And the 2026 temporary order, for olim and veteran returning residents who arrived between 5 November 2025 and 31 December 2026, applies to earned income from personal exertion, realised through online tax coordination or by filing Form 1301, with Form 116ayin and Income Tax Circular 7/2026 behind it 20. An Age Pension is not earned income from personal exertion, so that order does not reach it.
What happens from year eleven, across all origin countries, is covered in retiree-aliyah-pension-tax-guide. Bituach Leumi and health-levy charges on exempt foreign income are covered in bituach-leumi-on-exempt-foreign-income; whether a foreign state pension is charged the same way is worth confirming with Bituach Leumi directly.
Treaty and coordination
Australia and Israel have a double tax agreement. It is a different instrument from a social security agreement, and only one of the two exists.
The Treasury's status table records Israel as a DTA signed 28 March 2019, implemented by the Treasury Laws Amendment (International Tax Agreements) Bill 2019, in force from 6 December 2019 21.
A double tax agreement allocates taxing rights between two revenue authorities. It does nothing about qualifying for a pension, lodging a claim, portability, AWLR proportionalisation or means testing, all of which sit in the social security law described above and fall back to the ordinary provisions of the Social Security Act where no social security agreement exists 5. Which article of the 2019 Convention allocates the taxing right over an Australian social-security Age Pension paid to an Israeli resident is a question to settle against the Convention text itself, because Australian treaties differ on whether social-security payments follow the residence state or are reserved to the paying state, and the answer for a government social-security payment need not match the answer for an occupational or superannuation pension. The general mechanics of how a treaty works are in tax-treaties.
What about Australian-American dual olim?
A third rulebook applies, and none of it is on this page.
For an oleh who is also a US citizen or green-card holder, the US tax character of Australian superannuation and Australian managed funds, and the reporting that goes with them, is covered in australia-superannuation-aliyah. It is deliberately scoped out here, because none of it attaches to the Age Pension itself: the Age Pension is a Services Australia benefit, not an investment holding, and Australian superannuation is not a foreign payment from Australia's point of view, so the comparable foreign payment power described above cannot reach it.
The one crossover worth naming runs the other way. Because that power extends to "company pensions and superannuation from a non-agreement country" 13, a Centrelink notice would push an Australian-American oleh toward Israeli occupational pension entitlements rather than Australian ones, and how the United States then characterises an Israeli pension holding is a separate question this page does not settle. US Social Security is a separate payment with its own rulebook and belongs on the US pages, not here.
How does Australia compare with other origin countries?
Australia and the United States are the two origins with no social security instrument with Israel at all. What separates Australia is that its domestic rules also block the claim from abroad and close the fly-back route.
| Origin country | Instrument with Israel | Consequence for the state pension |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | None 46 | Israeli time never counts, the claim cannot be lodged from Israel, and the former-resident rules close the fly-back route 210 |
| Canada | A limited convention only, covering prevention of double payment of insurance contributions 6 | Covered in cpp-oas-from-israel-totalization-gap |
| United Kingdom | Comprehensive convention in force since 1 November 1957, old age included 6 | Covered in uk-state-pension-ni-top-up-deadline |
| United States | A Friendship and Shipping Agreement that "does not constitute an agreement in the field of social security" 6 | Covered in us-self-employment-tax-no-totalization-olim |
Where each open question gets answered
1. Services Australia holds the claim, portability, AWLR and assets-test questions, including your own AWLR figure and whether the former-resident rules apply to you. 2. Bituach Leumi holds the special old-age benefit, which limb of its income test a foreign state pension falls in, and what the *teudat oleh* claim requires. 3. The Israel Tax Authority holds the ten-year foreign-income exemption, the reporting obligation for anyone who arrived from 1 January 2026, and the adjustment-year election. 4. The Australian Taxation Office holds Australian tax on the payment itself, and the Convention text settles the allocation between the two revenue authorities.
The one thing none of them will do is tell you the order to act in. Claiming while you still reside in Australia is the only sequence the rules leave open, and it stops being available on the day you stop living there. Read this alongside the rest of your move in the Australian olim finance overview.
Frequently asked questions
Ten years of past Australian residence satisfies the Age Pension qualifying-residence test for good, and leaving does not undo it. The claim itself must be lodged while you are an Australian resident and in Australia, and no Australia-Israel social security agreement waives that. So claim before you go; flying back later triggers a two-year former-resident block.
No. Age Pension has unlimited, also called indefinite, portability, so a recipient can move overseas permanently and keep being paid provided they remain qualified and the pension remains payable [[7]]. What changes is the amount and the plumbing: the pension supplement drops to its basic amount immediately on a permanent departure, the Energy Supplement and Remote Area Allowance cease on departure, the Pensioner Concession Card is cancelled [[7]], after 26 weeks the rate may be proportionalised against your Australian Working Life Residence [[8]], and payment moves to Centrelink International Services in Hobart on a four-weekly cycle [[9]].
Before you go, while you are still residing in Australia. The general claim rule is that you must be an Australian resident and in Australia on the day you lodge [[2]]. The Social Security Guide adds that a person claiming Age may have plans to retire overseas and that this does not automatically mean they are not residing in Australia at the time of the claim, the question being whether they can be said to be residing in any other country [[3]]. Someone who claims while still resident and departs afterwards is not a former Australian resident, so the two-year former-resident rules do not apply to them [[10]].
Not under the domestic rules. The general rule is that a claimant must be an Australian resident and in Australia on the day they lodge the claim [[2]], and being an Australian resident requires actually residing in Australia in addition to citizenship or a permanent visa [[3]]. The Social Security Guide says the Australian-resident requirement is disapplied only for claimants relying on an international agreement [[1]], and Australia has no agreement with Israel [[4]][[6]].
AWLR is Australian Working Life Residence: the number of months you were an Australian resident between age 16 and pension age, with no requirement to have been employed [[8]]. After 26 weeks abroad the rate may become P multiplied by Q divided by 420, where Q is AWLR months plus one, capped at 420, and 420 is 35 years in months [[8]]. Because the count stops at pension age, the figure that sets your proportion is the year your Australian residence began, not the year you left. Once a recipient has 420 months of AWLR they receive the full basic rate of means tested pension outside Australia [[11]]. The Guide's discretionary extension of the 26-week period is only for people temporarily overseas and unable to return, so a permanent move cannot use it [[8]].
Not for two years. A former Australian resident who resumes residence and is granted Age Pension cannot be paid during any overseas absence within two years of resuming residence, a rule that overrides unlimited portability [[10]]. The pension is suspended on departure and cancelled if the person stays away 13 weeks [[10]]. There are two exceptions, the Medical Treatment Overseas Program (or accompanying an eligible person) and travel to an agreement country, and the Guide states there is no discretionary power beyond them [[10]]. Resuming residence is itself assessed, and an intention to stay only for a defined period is generally not resuming residence [[10]]. Someone who genuinely resettles and stays the two years can then leave.
Yes, on the Australian income test. The gross current rate of an overseas payment is generally treated as income, with no amount deducted for tax deductions, bank charges or foreign country debts [[12]], and the gross amount of all overseas payments, whether government or privately funded, is assessed as ordinary income [[12]]. The concessional treatments that would soften this, such as direct deduction, exemption from the income test, or partial assessability, apply only where a social security agreement provides them, and Australia has none with Israel [[12]][[4]].
That is a question for Bituach Leumi, and worth asking early. Bituach Leumi states that unlike the regular old-age pension, the special old-age benefit is income-tested even after the age of entitlement, and that the test runs two separate limbs: a ceiling on income from work, set by family composition and tripled from age 70, and a separate non-work limb capped at the old-age pension plus the applicable income supplement increment [[14]]. An Australian Age Pension is not income from work, so the work-income ceiling that gets quoted everywhere is the wrong number to measure it against, and the non-work limb is far tighter. Bituach Leumi's page does not say which limb a foreign state pension lands in.
Not with the social security questions. The Treasury status table records the Australia-Israel DTA as signed 28 March 2019 and in force from 6 December 2019 [[21]], but a double tax agreement allocates taxing rights between revenue authorities. It does nothing about qualifying for a pension, lodging a claim, portability, AWLR proportionalisation or means testing, which sit in social security law administered by Services Australia and fall back to the ordinary Social Security Act provisions where no social security agreement exists [[1]][[2]][[5]][[8]].
Not for the first ten years. A new oleh or veteran returning resident has a ten-year exemption on all income sourced abroad, and the Israel Tax Authority guide updated 19 August 2026 confirms it covers both passive and active foreign income, and treats pension income as sitting in that foreign-source category [[18]]. Anyone who arrived from 1 January 2026 must report foreign income and assets, but the guide states expressly that the income continues to be exempt from tax for ten years [[18]]. Whether Australia taxes the payment at its end is a separate question for the ATO and the Convention [[23]][[24]][[21]].
People overseas permanently or on a long-term basis have 28 days to notify a change in circumstances, rather than the usual 14 [[11]]. Income, asset and medical reviews continue while abroad and the forms must be returned by the due date to guarantee continuity of payments [[11]]. Recipients out of Australia for at least two years who are over 80 must complete a proof of life certificate every two years to keep being paid [[11]]. Before departure, Services Australia also collects your departure date, destination, payment and AWLR information [[15]].