Free, and nothing changes on this page. One email, then only if the rates change or a deadline is close. Unsubscribe in one click.
Every calculation is unlocked. Change one date, one day count or one figure and run it again as many times as you like — nothing is deducted, nothing counts down, and none of it expires.
You have to decide this yourself, and nobody checks until they disagree
You took the job overseas, or you came here for one, and somebody at work has since said the words "you might not be a resident any more". Nobody at the airport told you. Nobody at the tax office will tell you either, until the year an audit reads your facts the other way. And it is never one year: a residency position is reopened across every year it held, so the amended assessments arrive together, with interest on all of them.
There are four separate tests and meeting any one of them makes you an Australian resident on your worldwide income. Three of them do not count days at all. This works all four out on your own facts in about three minutes.
A rough guide on two answers. The full calculator asks about your domicile, your home, your family and your visa — which is where three of the four tests actually get decided.
If this is you
The definition is in a 1936 Act, three of its four tests are pure judgement, and the bright-line test that was supposed to replace all of it was announced in 2021 and has never been legislated. Australia asks you to decide, and then decides whether it agrees.
That is genuinely how most people's residency position gets decided: one field on one return, chosen in a hurry, and then repeated every year afterwards because changing it would look like an admission. The four tests were never applied to anything.
It sits beside domicile, taxable Australian property, CGT event I1, Subdivision 768-R and the tie-breaker in Article 4. Every one of them is a real rule with real money attached, written in language nobody outside a tax office uses.
The 183 day rule is quoted on every expat forum as though it were the whole test. Being here 183 days can make you a resident. Being here fewer days makes you nothing at all — the other three tests never look at a calendar.
On the day residency ends, everything that is not Australian real property is treated as sold at market value and the gain is taxed. No sale, no cash. Most people have never heard of it and it has been law since 1997.
You tell us the facts. We apply all four tests separately, show which one is doing the work, score the judgement one factor at a time and publish the weighting, then price every outcome your facts could produce. No appointment, no sales call, and we never ask for your tax file number.
Eight short steps, about three minutes, and you will know which test is deciding it. It costs nothing.
The loss
Similar packages, the same income year, and both of them lodged as foreign residents. The difference is not the tax rate and it is not the country. It is four questions about where they actually live — and only one of them ever had them put to her. Both are on three year arrangements, so the figure underneath is Mark's, three times.
Mark and Priya are invented, and we say so. What is not invented is the arithmetic: both figures are computed by the same engine that runs your own report, on the — rates, and both of them appear as worked examples on the scenarios page where you can read every input that produced them.
The way out
That distinction is the whole subject, and it is why this is worth three minutes. The four tests read facts. Some of those facts are fixed. Some are only ever as good as the evidence behind them. And a small number are genuine elections worth five and six figures on their own. The report separates the three, on your own numbers.
A residency position is rarely close on every factor at once. It usually turns on two: a house that stayed available, a family that stayed behind, an intention nobody ever wrote down. The report scores each factor in TR 2023/1 separately and shows which are doing the work — because those are the only ones where anything can change. All $363,210 of Mark's rests on two of them. What the resides test weighs.
Most of these are not lost on the law. They are lost years later, on a lease nobody kept, a school enrolment nobody printed, a removalist invoice long gone. The general process is that the record is assembled at the move rather than after a question is asked, and the report lists what the Australian Taxation Office asks for, item by item. Costs nothing but the afternoon. The evidence checklist.
The 183 day test is one of four and the other three do not count days at all, so more days is not automatically worse and fewer is not automatically safe. The report prices every day count from none to the whole year on your own figures, which turns the number from a superstition into something known. What 183 days does and does not do.
Leaving triggers CGT event I1 and tax falls due on gains never actually received. Section 104-165(3) lets an individual disregard it and pay on the eventual sale instead. One of the two is cheaper, the difference is routinely five figures, and it is a real election rather than a reading of the facts. The report works both. How the choice works.
A foreign resident on the day the contract is signed generally loses the main residence exemption entirely — back to the day the home was bought, not apportioned for the years lived in it. On a long-held family home that single date is usually the largest figure in this whole subject. The report prices it on both sides of the line. What the 2019 change did.
Where two countries both claim you, a tax treaty has tie-breaker rules that decide it, and Division 770 gives an offset for tax already paid overseas. Neither is applied automatically — both are claimed, in a return, on the right basis. The report names the treaty for your country and the article that does the work. How the tie-breakers run.
None of this is advice about your own affairs and we are not a registered tax agent. What the report gives you is the arithmetic on your own facts with every line shown — which is what makes a conversation with an agent short, or tells you plainly that you do not need one. What we are, and what we are not.
The alternatives
| Guess What most people do |
A private ruling Free, from the ATO |
Resident or Not This calculator |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| What it costs | Nothing now, amended assessments later |
Free | $249 |
| How long it takes | An afternoon of forum threads | 28 days from full information | Under 3 minutes |
| You have to state your own conclusion first | Yes — that is what you are asking them to rule on | No | |
| Every outcome priced | |||
| Binding on the Commissioner | |||
| Working shown |
A private ruling is the only one of these that binds anybody, it is free, and this report is built to be the document you put in front of whoever prepares it — the facts, the four tests applied one at a time, and the arithmetic behind each outcome.
The clock
Residency is not a status you hold. It is a conclusion reached one income year at a time, and the dates that split those years are not negotiable. Miss one and the answer is made for you at a price nobody chose.
Everything is worked out from 1 July to 30 June and apportioned by month. Days either side of that line fall into different years, and the tax-free threshold is — only for somebody who was a resident for all twelve of them. How the part-year threshold works.
CGT event I1. Shares, funds, cryptocurrency and overseas property are valued at market on the day residency ends and the gain is assessed — no sale and no cash. Australian real property is not caught. What CGT event I1 does.
A foreign resident pays — from the first dollar and reaches — at the same point a resident does. Those brackets and the Medicare thresholds are reset on 1 July, and a calculation on a superseded schedule is not slightly out — it is out in every line. These figures are the — year.
The report
The free estimate tells you which way your facts lean and roughly what the question is worth. This is the part that applies all four tests one at a time, prices every outcome to the dollar and shows what would move you from one to the next. Seventeen sections and sixteen charts, on your own facts, with every working visible so you can check it or argue with it.
See a real one, free — an invented person run all the way through, with the open half exactly as a customer sees it, and the assistant live on it for two questions.
How it works
If you can remember roughly how many days you were in the country, you can use this. Simple mode asks eight short steps. Advanced adds the investment income split, the foreign tax you have already paid, and private hospital cover.
Days in Australia, the months you were based here, where you actually live, who is still in the country, your visa, your income and what you own. We never ask for your name, your tax file number, your Medicare number or a bank account — nothing you would not say out loud to a colleague.
All four tests applied to your own facts, the resides test scored out of 100, every outcome named, and how far apart they are as a range. That is the free half and it is yours whether or not you buy anything.
$249 opens the full report: every outcome priced to the dollar and ranked, the factor by factor working, the exit capital gains bill both ways, and the documents the position rests on. PDF included, ready to hand to a tax agent.
Section 6(1) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936, Schedule 7 to the Income Tax Rates Act 1986, and Taxation Ruling TR 2023/1. Every figure in the report says where it came from.
The resides test has no formula in it, so ours is set out in the report, factor by factor, so you can disagree with it. A score presented as though a court had produced it would be the most misleading thing here.
We are not licensed to tell you what your residency is or what to do about it. Residency is a question of fact for the Commissioner of Taxation. What is missing for most people is the arithmetic and the list of facts that matter.
If the report does not apply to your circumstances, tell us what went wrong within 14 days and we refund you in full.
Included with the report
Every report comes with an assistant that has read your report — your facts, your four test verdicts, your figures — and answers questions about it in plain English. Not a search box and not a help page. It knows what your report says because it has been given it.
An example of the kind of answer it gives, on the sample report's figures.
Pricing
One payment, no expiry, nothing to renew, and we never keep your card. It opens the whole report and lets you run the sums as often as you like — which matters here, because residency is decided one income year at a time and most people have more than one to check.
Prices in Australian dollars. Paid securely through PayPal — card or PayPal balance, no account needed. See a sample report before you decide.
Questions
Possibly, and living overseas on its own does not settle it. There are four tests and meeting any one of them is enough: the resides test, the domicile and permanent place of abode test, the 183 day test, and the Commonwealth superannuation test. This calculator applies all four to your own facts and tells you which one is doing the work.
No. It settles the 183 day test and nothing else. The resides test and the domicile test do not count days at all, which is how somebody who spent three weeks in the country can still be assessed on their worldwide income. It is the most expensive misunderstanding on this subject.
A resident is taxed on income from everywhere and keeps the $18,200 tax-free threshold, paying the 2% Medicare levy as well. A foreign resident is taxed only on Australian sourced income, at 30% from the first dollar with no threshold at all, and pays no Medicare levy. On a substantial foreign salary the difference runs into six figures a year.
There is. CGT event I1 treats everything that is not taxable Australian property — shares, managed funds, cryptocurrency, overseas property — as sold at market value on the day residency ends, and taxes the gain. There is no sale and no cash. You can choose instead to keep those assets inside the Australian tax net and pay on the eventual sale, but the 50% discount is not available for growth after 8 May 2012 once you are a foreign resident, so deferring often costs more. The report prices both.
It was announced in the 2021-22 Federal Budget, based on a Board of Taxation review, and it has never been legislated. There is no start date. Until it is law, the rules that apply are the four tests in the 1936 Act and the court decisions on top of them — so nothing in this calculator is worked out on the 45 day test, and the report shows where you would sit under it only with a label saying it is not law.
No. This is an information service. It applies the published tests and rates to the facts you enter and shows what they produce, with every working visible. It ranks outcomes on one stated arithmetic measure and does not recommend one, and it will never tell you what your residency is — that is a question of fact for the Commissioner of Taxation, settled with certainty only by a private ruling or by a court.
A residency position is not one decision. It goes on this year's return, and next year's, and the one after — and when it is reopened it is reopened for all of them at once, with interest. The documents that would have settled it are the ones that are easy to get today and gone in five years. Three minutes now is the cheapest three minutes in the whole process.
No card. No sign up. No tax file number. Your answer on the next screen.
Four tests. One of them is already deciding your position. It takes three minutes to find out which.
Most pages explain the residency tests. This one applies all four to your own facts and prices what each answer costs you — worldwide income against Australian sourced income, the tax-free threshold you keep or lose, and the capital gains tax that falls due the day you leave.
Figures as at —.
Your estimate
The outcomes your facts could produce, priced on your own figures.
You can provide a different email to use as your login - or the PayPal one
And you can ask it questions. Your report comes with an assistant that has read it and explains any figure or any test in plain English — if you want it. It is given the facts and figures on your report, never your name or your email, and the conversation stays in your browser.
One email with your estimate in it and a link that reopens everything you entered — the days, the domicile question, the home, the income — so you do not have to type it again before 30 June.
One email, then only if the figures change or the income year is closing. Unsubscribe in one click. We never sell your address.
Before this income year closes
A residency position is not one decision — it goes on this year's return and every year afterwards, and when it is reopened it is reopened for all of them at once. The arithmetic that settles it, and the list of facts it rests on, are on the other side of this page.
Yes, it is included, and using it is entirely your choice. It sits behind one button on your report and does nothing until you press it — nothing in the report is held back from somebody who never opens it.
When you do ask it something, what it receives is the figures on your report: amounts and categories. Not your name, not your email address, not your account, and never a Medicare number, tax file number or bank detail — we do not hold those in the first place. The name you can put on the report cover is optional and is not part of what it is given. The conversation stays in your browser tab and is gone when you close it, and we record that a question was asked without recording what it said.
Section 5 of the privacy policy sets out exactly what does and does not travel, including who processes it.
No. You pay once and the access is yours. There is no subscription and nothing renews. PayPal handles the payment, so we never even see your card number.
It tells you which of the four tests your facts engage, how each one comes out on them, and what every possible outcome costs in Australian tax. What it will not do is announce a conclusion, because residency is a question of fact decided by the Commissioner of Taxation on the whole of your circumstances — and on a genuinely finely balanced set of facts the report says that too, rather than picking a side and sounding certain.
The one thing that settles it with certainty is a private ruling, which is free and binding on the Commissioner. This report is built to be the document you put in front of whoever prepares one.
Resident or Not provides information, not financial product advice. We are not licensed to give personal financial advice and we never tell you which option to pick. What we do is apply the published tests and rates to the facts you enter and show you what they produce, with every working visible. Your real position is a question of fact determined by the Commissioner of Taxation on the whole of your circumstances, and settled with certainty only by a private ruling or by a court. The weighting behind the resides test score on your report is ours, not the law's, and it is published in the report so that you can disagree with it.
Pay once and the full report opens on the facts you already entered — all four tests applied, every outcome priced, and the PDF ready to download.
You can provide a different email to use as your login - or the PayPal one
Worked examples
Australians who left, people who arrived, and people living between two countries. Every figure on this page is worked out by the same engine that runs a paying customer's report, on the current rates, from the facts written down in each card. None of it is typed in and none of it is invented — which is why it cannot quietly go stale.
The resides test, the domicile and permanent place of abode test, the 183 day test, and the Commonwealth superannuation test. They do not vote and they do not average out — three can point away from Australia and the fourth still makes you a resident on your worldwide income.
Only the 183 day test counts days. So being under 183 days settles that test and nothing else — which is how somebody who spent three weeks in the country can still be assessed on everything they earn, everywhere.
It is a conclusion the facts produce, one income year at a time. So the figure on each card below is not "the cheapest outcome against the dearest" — it is the gap between what that person assumed and what their own facts actually produce.
Everything below is those three facts in real dollars, for eleven different people. Worked out on the current rates.
Your own answer turns on your days, your domicile, whether there is a settled home somewhere else, who is still in Australia, your visa and what you own that you have not sold. Change any one of those and the tests come out differently.
Every residency position these facts could support, and what each one costs across the arrangement. Same person, same facts — the difference is only in which position the facts are found to support. Open Show Details on any of them for what it means in plain English, what the law says, and the general process behind it — these panels are live on this page.
What is riding on this, where Daniel's facts point, and which parts of it are still open — on the 2026-27 rates.
| What is riding on this | Amount | Whose it is |
|---|---|---|
| Income tax and the Medicare levy $81,354 a year between the cheapest and dearest outcome, for 5 years | $406,771 | Follows the facts — and the evidence behind them |
| The exit capital gains election Paying CGT event I1 on departure against deferring it under section 104-165(3) | $15,423 | His to elect — priced both ways in “Capital gains tax on the way out” |
| At risk in total | $422,194 |
None of this is tax legitimately owed dressed up as a loss. Every line above is the difference between two outcomes that are both open on the same facts. The first follows where the facts point and the evidence behind them; the other is a decision, and the report prices both sides of it.
Read the next section before the table. The cheapest row on a ranking of residency outcomes is very often not the one that applies. Residency is not chosen — it is a conclusion the facts produce — so the report determines where they point first, and prices every outcome second.
Section 6(1) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 makes you a resident if any one of these is met. They do not vote and they do not average out.
| Test | Score | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| The resides testSection 6(1) ITAA 1936, applied through Taxation Ruling TR 2023/1 | 44 | Genuinely arguable |
| The domicile and permanent place of abode testSection 6(1) ITAA 1936 and the Domicile Act 1982; TR 2023/1; Harding v Commissioner of Taxation [2019] FCAFC 29 | 0 | Not met |
| The 183 day testSection 6(1)(a)(ii) ITAA 1936 | 30 | Not met |
| The Commonwealth superannuation testSection 6(1)(a)(iii) ITAA 1936; Superannuation Act 1976 and Superannuation Act 1990 | 0 | Not met |
The resides test. These facts sit in the middle. No single factor decides the resides test, and a position in this band is one the Commissioner could reasonably take either way.
The domicile and permanent place of abode test. Daniel's domicile is Australian, and on these facts he has established a permanent place of abode outside Australia, so this test is not met. It is the test the Commissioner argues about most often.
The 183 day test. He was here for 55 days, which is under 183. This test is not met — and that is all it means. Being under 183 days does not make anybody a foreign resident.
The primary test has no rule in it. These are the considerations Taxation Ruling TR 2023/1 lists, scored on Daniel's own facts, and they come to 44 out of 100.
| Factor | Weight | Score | Contributes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time physically in Australia55 days in Australia this income year | 25% | 26 | 7 |
| Intention and purpose of being awaya 60 month arrangement, with return unsure | 15% | 20 | 3 |
| Familya spouse and children remaining in Australia | 20% | 95 | 19 |
| Business and employment tiesemployed by an overseas entity | 15% | 10 | 2 |
| Assets and where they arethe Australian home kept available | 10% | 90 | 9 |
| Social and living arrangementsa settled home overseas | 15% | 30 | 5 |
The weighting is ours, not the law's. No court scores these factors arithmetically and neither does the Commissioner — TR 2023/1 lists them and expressly declines to rank any of them. It is published here so it can be disagreed with. What it is for is showing which facts are carrying the answer, because those are the ones evidence can move.
Two facts are doing almost all the work for Daniel: a spouse and children still in Australia, and a house he can walk back into. Together they are 28 of his 44 points. Everything else about his life is in Dubai.
Ranked on one measure and one only: total Australian tax for the 2026-27 income year, plus the capital gains tax on the assets treated as sold when residency changes, whenever it falls due. The top row costs the least. It is not a menu.
| # | Outcome | Threshold | Income tax | Levy | Total | Behind the leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Foreign resident from the day you leave, exit capital gains tax paid | $15,043 | $84,844 | $2,853 | $87,696 | — |
| 2 | Foreign resident from the day you leave, deferral choice made | $15,043 | $18,994 | $622 | $100,889 | +$13,193 |
| 3 | Australian resident for the whole yearWhere Daniel's facts point | $18,200 | $91,870 | $9,100 | $100,970 | +$13,274 |
The second row is not a mistake. Its income tax is by far the smallest of the three — $18,994 — because the section 104-165 choice takes the exit capital gains tax to nil this year. What it hands to a later year is $81,273 rather than the $65,850 payable now, because the eventual sale happens while Daniel is a foreign resident and his 50% discount is cut to 30.8%: eight years of the thirteen year ownership period spent as a resident, apportioned under section 115-115.
Deferring is not free, and it is not the catastrophe a flat "no discount for foreign residents" would make it either. It costs Daniel about $15,400 more, and that gap widens every year he holds on. Which is exactly why the measure runs past 30 June rather than stopping at it.
Income tax, the Medicare levy, the surcharge, withholding at the source and deferred capital gains tax are five different things that move for five different reasons.
Daniel's Medicare levy is $5,600 for a full year of residency and $1,756 for four months of it. He holds no private hospital cover, so the surcharge adds $3,500 on the resident outcome — at the family thresholds, because he has a spouse, which is worth $250 against what a single person on the same income would pay. A foreign resident pays neither the levy nor the surcharge.
On Daniel's 4 months of residency it is $15,042.67 — $13,464 plus a third of the $4,736 apportioned component, under section 20 of the Income Tax Rates Act 1986.
| Months a resident | Section 20, as it works | A straight pro-rata split |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $13,858.67 | $1,516.67 |
| 4 | $15,042.67 | $6,066.67 |
| 8 | $16,621.33 | $12,133.33 |
| 12 | $18,200.00 | $18,200.00 |
A part month counts as a whole month. Leaving on 2 October gives you the whole of October. That is the law being generous, and it is worth $394.67 for the sake of getting the date right.
The apportioned part is $4,736 spread over twelve months, so the monthly figure is $394.67 rounded — and twelve months lands back on exactly $18,200.
A foreign resident for the whole year gets none of it. That alone is worth about $5,460 a year before anything else is counted.
Everything above is real arithmetic on a fictional person. Run yours and this half opens on your own facts.
And you can ask it questions. Every report comes with an assistant that has read your report and explains any figure or any test in it in plain English. Using it is entirely your choice, it does nothing until you press the button, and it is given the facts and figures on your report and never your name, your email or your account.
That is somebody else's answer. Yours takes about three minutes and costs nothing.
The link may have already been used. If you are still getting emails, write to us and we will stop them by hand.
Guides
Written for somebody who has just been told they "might have a residency problem" and has never read a section of the Income Tax Assessment Act. Plain English, this year's rates, the authority named for every rule, and all the working shown — including the parts the official page leaves as a sentence with three links in it.
Reading is useful. Knowing which of the four tests is deciding your own position is better.
Coming to Australia
Arriving in Australia does not automatically make you a tax resident, and being made one is not always bad news. What matters most on arrival is the date: it fixes your tax-free threshold, decides how much foreign income is assessable, and sets the cost base of everything you already own.
The same four tests apply on the way in as on the way out. For somebody arriving, two of them do almost all the work:
The domicile test rarely reaches an arrival, because it only operates on people with an Australian domicile. An Australian coming home has one; a British engineer on a four year visa does not.
The date residency begins is a question of fact, and it is usually the date you took up the settled life rather than the date on the boarding pass. Somebody who came for a two week look, went home, and returned three months later to start a job began residing on the second visit, not the first.
This is the single most valuable thing on this page. When you become an Australian resident, everything you own that is not taxable Australian property is treated as having been acquired at its market value on that day.
Cost base for Australian CGT = market value on the day you became a resident
The consequence is straightforward and people get it wrong in their own disfavour constantly: growth before you arrived is not Australia's to tax. A portfolio bought nine years ago in Shanghai and sold three years after moving to Melbourne is taxed on three years of growth, not twelve.
What you need to prove it is a market value as at the arrival date. Listed shares are trivial to reconstruct. A foreign apartment, an unlisted holding or a private company interest is not, and a valuation obtained in the month you arrived is worth several times one obtained eight years later.
Threshold = $13,464 + ($4,736 ÷ 12 × months a resident)
Arrive in February and you are a resident for February, March, April, May and June — five months — giving $15,437.33 rather than the full $18,200. A part month counts as a whole month, so arriving on 27 February still gives you the whole of February.
It is a much better deal than the straight pro-rata split most people assume. How section 20 actually works.
| Income | Before you became a resident | After |
|---|---|---|
| Foreign salary | Not assessable in Australia | Assessable, unless you are a temporary resident |
| Foreign investment income | Not assessable | Assessable, unless you are a temporary resident |
| Australian salary | Assessable at foreign resident rates | Assessable at resident rates |
| Australian bank interest | Withheld at 10%, final | Assessable on a return |
| Capital growth on foreign assets | Outside the net entirely | Measured from the arrival market value |
If you are here on a temporary visa and neither you nor your spouse is an Australian resident within the meaning of the Social Security Act 1991, you are almost certainly a temporary resident under Subdivision 768-R.
That means you get the resident rate schedule and the full tax-free threshold, while almost all foreign income stays exempt and foreign capital gains are disregarded. It is the single largest concession on this subject and a great many people who qualify for it declare foreign income anyway, because the form asked. The temporary resident rules.
Two things end it: getting permanent residency, and your spouse becoming an Australian resident within the meaning of the Social Security Act. The second one catches households who never considered that a partner's visa was their tax problem.
An Australian coming home after years overseas has a different set of facts and one specific thing to check: whether a section 104-165 choice was made on the way out. If it was, becoming a resident again ends the deferral, and the assets covered by it come back into the ordinary resident rules.
If it was not — if the exit tax was paid — the assets were reacquired at market value on departure, and the arrival rules described above apply to them like anybody else's.
A resident pays the 2% Medicare levy, apportioned for a part-year. Somebody not entitled to Medicare — which includes many temporary visa holders from countries without a reciprocal health care agreement — can apply for a Medicare levy exemption certificate, and without one the levy is charged in full.
The surcharge is separate, applies above the income tiers to residents without private hospital cover, and is one of the reasons hospital cover is worth arranging on arrival rather than in July. The levy, the surcharge and residency.
None of this is advice about your own affairs. The general shape is: the date residency began is fixed and documented; the market value of everything owned on that day is established in writing; foreign income is split into the pre-arrival and post-arrival portions; the temporary resident position, including the spouse's status, is established and recorded; a tax file number is obtained, because the alternative is withholding at the top rate; and Medicare eligibility is checked, because both the levy and the exemption turn on it.
Of all of those, the valuation is the one that is free today and expensive forever afterwards.
We apply all four tests to your facts, work out the part-year threshold on your own dates, and price every outcome — including the temporary resident position, if it reaches you.
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About
Somebody takes a job overseas, or arrives here for one, and a question follows them around for years afterwards: are they still an Australian tax resident? The answer decides whether Australia taxes everything they earn anywhere or only what it sourced here, whether they keep a tax-free threshold or pay from the first dollar, and whether every share and every coin they own is treated as sold on the day they left. Across a few years of an overseas package it is routinely a six figure question. Australia asks each person to answer it themselves, and then decides — sometimes years later — whether it agrees.
None of the rules are secret. The definition is in section 6(1) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936; the Commissioner's view of how to apply it is Taxation Ruling TR 2023/1, issued on 7 June 2023 to replace IT 2650 and TR 98/17; the rates are Schedule 7 to the Income Tax Rates Act 1986; the exit capital gains rule is section 104-160 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997; and the leading cases have names — Harding, Pike, Addy, Applegate. What almost nobody has is those documents applied to their own facts and turned into a number. Three of the four tests have no rule in them at all, the statutory bright-line test announced in 2021 has never been legislated, and the one number everybody has heard of — 183 days — settles the least important of the four.
Resident or Not does one thing: it applies those published tests to your facts and shows you, in full, what they produce. All four tests separately, the judgement one scored factor by factor with our weighting published so you can disagree with it, and every outcome your facts could produce priced on one stated measure and put in order — with every working visible so you can check it, argue with it, or hand it to somebody who can.
We do not tell you what your residency is. We are not licensed to, and it is not ours to decide: residency is a question of fact determined by the Commissioner of Taxation on the whole of your circumstances, and settled with certainty only by a private ruling or by a court. What is missing for most people is not an opinion — it is the arithmetic and a list of which facts actually matter. Here is what the evidence looks like if you decide to take it further.
Short version: we hold as little as we can, we never ask for the identifiers that matter most, and the calculation runs on your own device. The long version is below, because you are entitled to it.
This policy explains how XTO Pty. Ltd. (we, us, our) collects, holds, uses and discloses personal information, and how you can access, correct or complain about it. We handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).
It applies to calculatedchoices.com.au and to every email we send you. It does not apply to any third party site we link to.
We do not ask for, and you should never send us, your Medicare number, tax file number, tax file numbers, Medicare numbers, passport numbers or bank account numbers, bank account details or card number. The calculator does not need them. If you send one to us anyway we will delete it rather than store it.
We do not collect sensitive information as defined in the Privacy Act — health information, racial or ethnic origin, political or religious beliefs, sexual orientation, or criminal record. Where the calculator asks about care needs it asks about funding categories, never about a medical condition.
Information you give us
Information collected automatically
In your browser, on your device. The figures you type into the calculator are processed locally to produce your result. They are transmitted to us only if you choose to save a scenario to your account. If you never save one, we never receive them.
Two exceptions, and both are things you have to choose to do:
A paid report comes with an optional assistant you can ask questions about your own figures. It is the one part of this site that sends anything to a third party, so it is set out here in full.
It is entirely your choice, and it does nothing until you use it. Nothing is sent anywhere unless you open the assistant and ask a question. If you never open it, this section does not apply to you at all, and the rest of the report works exactly the same.
What is sent when you do ask
What is not sent
What travels is a set of amounts and categories. On its own it does not identify anybody, and we do not send anything alongside it that would.
Who processes it
The request is answered by Google's Gemini API, which processes it outside Australia — see sections 10 and 11. We do not train any model on your figures and we have no arrangement permitting anyone to do so; what Google does with data sent to its API is governed by its own terms, which we do not control.
How long it is kept
Because the assistant is optional, you can have the entire paid report without any of the above ever happening. Nothing in the report is withheld from somebody who never opens it.
We use the following, and nothing else:
You can clear or block these through your browser at any time. Clearing them will sign you out and reset your preferences; the site will otherwise work normally.
We use Google Analytics and Google Ads to measure how people find and use the site and whether our advertising is worth running. Where these are enabled, Google receives your IP address, device and browser information, the pages you viewed, and — when you complete a purchase — the order reference and the amount paid. Google may set its own cookies and may combine this with data it holds from other sources. Google's handling of that data is governed by its own privacy policy, not ours.
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not disclose it to data brokers, advertising networks other than as described above, the Australian Taxation Office, employers, tax agents or any overseas revenue authority, or anyone who might try to sell you something.
You can opt out of Google Analytics using Google's browser add-on, and you can adjust personalised advertising in your Google account settings.
Payments are processed by PayPal. Your card or account details are entered on PayPal's systems and are never transmitted to, seen by, or stored on our servers. We receive only the transaction reference, the amount, the status and the email address associated with the payment.
Some of these providers store or process data outside Australia, principally in the United States (Google, PayPal) and, depending on our email provider, in other countries. By using the site you acknowledge that we take reasonable steps to ensure overseas recipients handle your information consistently with the APPs, but that we cannot control and are not accountable for how an overseas recipient handles it once disclosed, and that you may not be able to seek redress in that jurisdiction.
The site runs entirely over HTTPS. Passwords are stored as salted PBKDF2 hashes, not as text anyone here can read. Access to the database is restricted to those who need it. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee the security of information transmitted over the internet, but we take reasonable steps to protect it from misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
If a data breach occurs that is likely to result in serious harm, we will notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required by the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.
If you give us your email address for a free estimate we may follow up about the full report. Every commercial email we send identifies us and carries a functional unsubscribe link, as required by the Spam Act 2003 (Cth). We action unsubscribes immediately. You will still receive transactional email — receipts, access details and password resets — because those are not marketing.
Write to support@calculatedchoices.com.au. We will:
We will respond within 30 days and will not charge you for making a request. We may need to verify your identity first.
If you think we have breached the APPs, write to support@calculatedchoices.com.au with "Privacy complaint" in the subject line. We will acknowledge within 5 business days and respond substantively within 30 days.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner: oaic.gov.au, 1300 363 992, or GPO Box 5288, Sydney NSW 2001.
The site is intended for Australians working overseas, people moving to Australia, and anyone living between two countries. It is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18.
We may update this policy. The effective date at the top changes when we do. Where a change is material we will tell you by email or by notice on the site before it takes effect. Continuing to use the site after that means you accept the updated policy.
Privacy Officer
XTO Pty. Ltd. (ACN [ACN NOT SET])
Level 1, 457 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010
support@calculatedchoices.com.au
Plain English, because the whole point is that you understand it. Section 6 is the one that matters most — please read it before you rely on anything here.
By using calculatedchoices.com.au (the site) or buying a pass you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, do not use the site. In these terms we, us and our mean XTO Pty. Ltd.; you means the person using the site or, where you use it on behalf of another person or an entity, both you and that person or entity.
You must be at least 18 and legally able to enter a contract. The site is intended for use in Australia and applies Australian law and the published Australian tax residency tests and rates only. If you use it from outside Australia you do so on your own initiative and are responsible for local compliance.
Resident or Not is an information and calculation service. It applies the published Australian tax residency tests and rates to figures you supply and reports what those rules produce, showing its workings and naming the fee schedule used.
It is not financial product advice, personal advice, legal advice, tax advice, accounting advice or tax advice, and it is not a recommendation to acquire, dispose of or deal in any financial product.
You should obtain independent, licensed advice before acting. Any decision you make is yours.
We take considerable care to keep the rates current and the formulas right, and every report prints the schedule it was built on. Even so:
Always confirm before you act.
You acknowledge and agree that you are solely responsible for evaluating the output, for verifying it against official sources, for obtaining independent professional advice, and for every decision you make or do not make. We are not your adviser and no fiduciary or advisory relationship arises from your use of the site.
You are responsible for keeping your password confidential and for everything done under your account. Tell us immediately at support@calculatedchoices.com.au if you suspect unauthorised use. We may suspend or close an account we reasonably believe is being used in breach of these terms.
A report you export as a PDF or otherwise save remains yours to keep and to show to family, an adviser or a registered tax agent. That licence is personal and non‑commercial. It does not permit republication, resale, or use as part of a product or service you provide to others.
Our promise: if the calculator cannot properly model your circumstances, or something has gone wrong, write to us within 14 days of purchase and we will refund the pass. No form and no argument. We would rather refund you than have you rely on a number that does not fit.
This is a voluntary commercial guarantee offered in addition to, and it does not limit, your rights under the Australian Consumer Law. Refunds are made to the original payment method within five business days of us accepting the request.
You must not:
All content, code, calculation methodology, report design, text and branding on the site is owned by us or licensed to us and is protected by copyright and other laws. Legislated rates and government data are not owned by anyone; our expression, arrangement and implementation of them is. Nothing in these terms transfers ownership to you.
We aim to keep the site available but do not guarantee it will be uninterrupted, timely, secure or error free. We may modify, suspend or discontinue any part of it, and may perform maintenance, at any time. If we permanently discontinue the service while your pass is running, we will refund the unused portion.
The site relies on third party services including PayPal, Google and our hosting and email providers, and links to third party sites and government resources. We are not responsible for those services or sites, their availability, their content or their terms.
Our goods and services come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law. For major failures with the service, you are entitled to cancel your service contract with us and to a refund for the unused portion, or to compensation for its reduced value. You are also entitled to be compensated for any other reasonably foreseeable loss or damage. If the failure does not amount to a major failure, you are entitled to have problems with the service rectified in a reasonable time and, if this is not done, to cancel your contract and obtain a refund for the unused portion of the contract.
Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies any consumer guarantee, right or remedy conferred by the Australian Consumer Law or any other law which cannot lawfully be excluded, restricted or modified. If any part of these terms would do so, that part does not apply.
Subject always to section 15, and to the maximum extent permitted by law:
You agree that this allocation of risk is reasonable given the price of the service and that the service is information rather than advice.
Our liability is reduced to the extent your loss is caused or contributed to by you, including by entering incorrect figures, by failing to verify output against official sources, or by failing to obtain independent advice.
To the maximum extent permitted by law, you indemnify us against any claim, loss, liability, cost or expense (including reasonable legal costs) arising from your breach of these terms, your misuse of the site, or your provision of the site's output to a third party who relies on it. This does not apply to the extent the claim arises from our own breach, negligence or wilful misconduct.
You may stop using the site at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access immediately if you breach these terms. Sections 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 15, 16, 17, 19 and 20 survive termination.
Our Privacy Policy forms part of these terms and explains how we handle personal information.
These terms are governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia. You and we submit to the non‑exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New South Wales and the courts entitled to hear appeals from them.
XTO Pty. Ltd. (ACN [ACN NOT SET])
Level 1, 457 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010
support@calculatedchoices.com.au