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Australian Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs

International Involvement

Current International Social Security Agreements

Australia currently has 19 bilateral international social security agreements.

All these agreements are based on the concept of shared responsibility. Shared responsibility agreements are reciprocal. Partner countries under each agreement make concessions against their social security qualification rules so that people covered by the agreement may access payments for which they might otherwise fail to qualify. In this way, responsibility for social security is shared between the countries where a person has lived during their working years and the person is able to unlock potential entitlements. Generally, a pension from one country can be accessed in the second country, although the paying country maintains some discretion in the currency and delivery mechanisms used.

Under these agreements, Australia equates social insurance periods/residence in those countries with periods of Australian residence in order to meet the minimum qualifying periods for Australian pensions. The other countries generally count periods of Australian working life residence as periods of social insurance in order to meet their minimum qualifying periods for payment. Usually, each country will pay a part pension to a person who has lived in both countries.



Austria



Belgium




Flag - Canada Canada


Flag - Chile Chile


Flag - Croatia Croatia


Flag - Cyprus Cyprus


Flag - Denmark Denmark


Flag - Germany Germany


Flag - Ireland Ireland


Flag - Italy Italy


Flag - Malta Malta


Flag - Netherlands The Netherlands


Flag - New Zealand New Zealand


Norway


Flag - Portugal Portugal

Flag - Slovenia Slovenia


Flag - Spain Spain



Switzerland


Flag - USA United States of America



Acknowledgement: Flag images are from the Flags Of The World website.