Age Pension eligibility
Qualifying for the Age Pension takes two things: reaching pension age, and satisfying the residence condition. Neither scales the payment. The residence period is a threshold you either clear or do not — clearing it puts the whole maximum rate in play subject to the means tests, and longer residence buys nothing extra.
Two conditions, neither of which scales the payment
Section 43 asks for two things: that you have reached pension age, and that one of several residence limbs applies to you. The ordinary limb is 10 years of qualifying Australian residence.
It is worth being precise about what that ten years does, because the equivalent condition in most other countries does something different. It is a gate, not a numerator. Twelve years does not pay you more than ten, and thirty does not pay you three times ten. Clear the threshold and the entire maximum rate is in play, subject to the means tests; fall short and nothing is payable at all. The British scheme scales with a count of qualifying years; the Australian one does not scale with anything.
Ten years of qualifying Australian residence. s 43(1)(a) states the period; s 7(5) states what makes it "qualifying", and it is a DISJUNCTION, not a simple total: either one continuous period of Australian residence of at least ten years, OR several periods of which at least one is five years or more and whose aggregate exceeds ten years. So ten years accumulated in short stints does not qualify unless one stint reaches five. Being an "Australian resident" at all (s 7(2)) needs BOTH residing in Australia AND one of: Australian citizenship, a permanent visa, or protected-SCV-holder status — and s 7(3) sets six factors for whether a person "resides in Australia": accommodation, family relationships, employment/business/financial ties, assets located in Australia, frequency and duration of overseas travel, and any other matter relevant to an intention to remain permanently.
The other ways in
Beyond the ten-year limb, s 43 lists several further routes. Almost all of them are closed cohorts — defined by what somebody was receiving on a date now years past — so they are here because they remain live law for the people inside them, not because they are options a reader can take up today.
A qualifying residence exemption for an age pension satisfies the condition without the ten years.
Social Security Act 1991 (Cth) s 43(1)(b)
Receipt of a widow B pension, widow allowance, mature age allowance or partner allowance immediately before reaching pension age (or, for those who reached it before 20 March 1997, immediately before that date) qualifies instead.
Social Security Act 1991 (Cth) s 43(1)(c), (d)
A woman whose partner has died, where both were Australian residents at the death and she was an Australian resident for a continuous 104 weeks before claiming, qualifies without the ten years.
Social Security Act 1991 (Cth) s 43(1A)
Three closed-cohort routes: a former wife pensioner as at 20 March 2020, a former widow-allowance recipient as at 1 January 2022, and a former special-needs widow B pensioner as at 20 March 2020.
Social Security Act 1991 (Cth) s 43(1B), (1C), (4)
Qualifying is not the same as being paid
Meeting the age and residence conditions makes you qualified. Whether anything is actually payable is decided afterwards, by the two means tests — and if they bring the rate to nil, s 44 makes the pension not payable at all.
Both tests are applied. The lower result is the one that is paid.
Step 11. Compare the income reduced rate and the assets reduced rate: the lower of the 2 rates, or the income reduced rate if the rates are equal, is the provisional annual payment rate.
Social Security Act 1991 s 1064, Pension Rate Calculator A, point 1064-A1, method statement, Step 11