Australia · Tax regime
Temporary Resident Tax Concession (ITAA 1997 Subdivision 768-R)
Open
Last verified July 2026
Long-standing and unchanged. It is available only to holders of temporary visas. That 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 tax 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
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Automatic for qualifying temporary visa holders
There is no separate application. Status follows the visa held, typically subclass 482, 485, 500 and similar.
The facts
- Total landed cost
- There is no cost. The concession attaches to the visa. The real cost is that it is incompatible with permanent residency.
- Route type
- Tax regime, not a visa
- 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 1991the spouse must also not be an Australian resident within that meaningbe an Australian resident for income tax purposes for the concession to matter at all
What can go wrong
- The spouse condition trips up families constantly. If the spouse is an Australian citizen or permanent resident, neither partner counts as a temporary resident for tax purposes, and the concession disappears.
- It cannot be reinstated. Once permanent residence is taken, the concession ends. It does not return if the visa later lapses.
- Foreign employment income earned while an Australian resident is not covered. Employee share scheme gains follow their own separate carve-outs.
- This is the direct trade-off against the NIV. The visa Australia now wants you to hold is the same visa that costs you this concession.
- Australia levies a genuine departure tax. CGT event I1 treats everything except taxable Australian property as sold at market value the moment residency ends. Electing to defer keeps the asset inside the Australian tax net indefinitely.
- Temporary residents fall outside I1 on non-Australian assets. That is a real reason to think twice before converting to permanent residence prior to leaving.
- The 50% CGT discount is reduced for every day of non-residence after 8 May 2012, and the main residence exemption is denied outright to foreign residents on disposal.