Centrelink Income Bank Explained for Students Working Casual Shifts

Maybe the summer roster just came out with twice your usual hours, or your manager has asked whether you can pick up a few extra shifts before exams. Before saying yes, it helps to know what those wages will do to the payment you count on, and the balance in your Centrelink account is where that starts.

What your Income Bank balance counts

Income Bank belongs to the student personal income test, the rule that works out how much your own income reduces your payment. Each fortnight you can earn up to $539 in gross wages, your pay before tax, without that test reducing anything. That $539 is called the free area.

Income Bank keeps count of the free area you don't use. In a fortnight where you earn less than $539, the difference goes into your balance as credits, one for each dollar. When you earn more, credits cover the extra before your payment reduces, and a fortnight of exactly $539 leaves the balance where it was.

A credit isn't a dollar you own. It can't pay rent, you can't withdraw it and it isn't paid out when your payment stops. All it does is let a later busy fortnight be assessed like a quieter one.

Income Bank applies to students and Australian Apprentices on Youth Allowance, and to people on Austudy or ABSTUDY Living Allowance. On Youth Allowance as a job seeker or on JobSeeker Payment, you have Working Credit instead. Wages are the usual income here, but other income Centrelink assesses, such as interest on savings, counts towards the $539 too.

How quiet and busy fortnights move the balance

Meet Sam, a made-up student on Youth Allowance who works casual shifts at a café. Sam starts with no credits and has no other income. Here's the balance across four fortnights as the roster changes.

Two busy fortnights used everything one quiet fortnight built. Credits arrive in small amounts and go quickly, so checking the balance helps before agreeing to extra shifts, while there's still time to spread them out.

When the credits run out

In the $800 fortnight, Sam uses the last 78 credits. The wages left above the free area then reduce the payment.

That's the basic payment under the personal income test. Rent Assistance and other supplements can reduce too. Partner, parental and assets tests also still apply, so the payment Centrelink confirms can differ from this sum.

Report your whole pay before tax

Each time you report, enter the gross amount of any pay you received in that reporting period, even when you expect credits to cover all of it. Centrelink applies the credits after you report, so the amount you enter is never what's left after credits. It isn't your take-home pay either. Your payslip shows both figures, and our payslip guide points out which line is which.

Centrelink may prefill your pay from your employer's payroll records. Your payslip helps you check it for errors. A missed or doubled pay changes both your balance and your payment, and you can correct it as you report.

Where to find your balance

The balance sits in your Centrelink online account through myGov. Once you've signed in, choose MENU, then Payments and Claims, Manage payments and My payments, as Services Australia's instructions show.

Budget with the money that lands

Credits never reach your account, so they stay outside the budget. What you can plan with is your wages after tax once they've landed and the Centrelink payment once it's confirmed, kept as two separate amounts. The payment still has rent, food and bills to cover, which our guide to living on Youth Allowance works through.

Wages and the payment often land on different days, sometimes in different accounts. Clova, our budgeting app, brings your accounts from every bank into one view, so you see both together once they've arrived.

When shifts swing from fortnight to fortnight, a steady amount to live on helps more than reacting to every roster. Our guide to budgeting on casual income shows how to keep part of the busy pays for the quiet ones. You can test that with your own take-home pays in the casual pay planner, which works with wages only and doesn't calculate Centrelink payments.

Credits carry through the holidays

Your balance isn't reset each year, and continuing students keep their credits through the holidays. A semester of quieter fortnights can build enough to cover a summer of longer shifts. Students can hold up to 13,500 credits before the balance stops growing.

Bigger summer pays go further with a plan. In Clova, each pay is planned into allocations as it lands, so the extra from a long week can go towards the quieter fortnights once classes start again.

Next time extra hours come up, a quick look at your balance shows how much of them your credits can carry. From there, you can weigh the extra pay against your time and study.

A note from us

The money you plan with should be money you can actually spend, never a balance that only exists on a Centrelink screen. Clova puts upcoming bills beside your pay, so a busy fortnight can cover costs due when your shifts drop back.