Who can get Parenting Payment

To get Parenting Payment, every part of the test must be met at the same time. You must be the principal carer of a child, meet the residence rules, and be under the income and assets limits. If any part fails, the payment is not payable, even if the other parts are met. You also cannot claim Parenting Payment before the birth of a child, and your partner cannot be receiving Parenting Payment for the same child at the same time.

The principal carer test

A principal carer is the person who has the most day-to-day care, welfare and development responsibility for a child. That is a practical test, not a title. It looks at who looks after the child most days, who makes the everyday decisions, and who the child mainly lives with. Only one person at a time can be a child's principal carer for Parenting Payment, so separated parents need to be clear about which parent meets the test. Shared care arrangements can complicate this, and Services Australia decides the question on the facts of each family, not on a private agreement alone.

The two child-age cut-offs

The single cut-off of 14 is the current position. Before 20 September 2023, a single principal carer could receive Parenting Payment only until the youngest child turned 8. That older limit is superseded and should not be used. A partnered principal carer still moves off Parenting Payment when the youngest child turns 6, which is a much earlier point, and that difference is the single biggest reason the two payments feel like different payments. Note also that the age test uses the youngest child in your care, not the child you first claimed for. A new baby in the family can therefore extend the period, while the youngest child growing up is what ends it.

Residence rules

You must be an Australian resident, generally be in Australia when you lodge the claim, and remain an Australian resident while you are paid. Newly arrived residents face waiting periods. The qualifying residence period is 2 years, or 104 weeks, and for a person whose first permanent residence visa was granted on or after 1 January 2019, a 4-year newly arrived resident's waiting period, or 208 weeks, also applies. The two periods are served at the same time, so the practical wait for a recently arrived resident is generally 4 years, not 6. Australian citizens are exempt from the newly arrived resident's waiting period, and other exemptions exist, for example for some family members of refugees and for holders of certain visa subclasses. Past periods as an Australian resident can count towards the qualifying residence period, and time spent overseas during a waiting period does not count towards it, although a short absence does not restart the whole period.

Income and assets limits

Parenting Payment is means tested. Your income and your partner's income are assessed, and your assets and your partner's assets are assessed. The income test and the assets test are explained in full on their own pages, but the headline point belongs here: you must be under the limits, not merely close to them. A family with substantial savings or a high household income will not qualify even if the caring test is met in full. If you receive certain payments from the Department of Veterans' Affairs, that can also affect eligibility, so it should be declared at claim time rather than discovered later.

If you are not sure whether you meet the principal carer test, the safest step is to claim and let Services Australia decide on your facts, rather than assuming you fail because another family member also helps. Help from grandparents, a former partner or a new partner does not automatically defeat a claim, but it must be described honestly, because care arrangements are one of the things Services Australia checks.