Use this guide alongside the official service
Read the steps here first and keep the relevant documents or questions ready. Outside websites open in a new tab, so this guide stays here. To continue, return to the Pension Path tab or close the new tab.
If online steps are difficult, find phone, paper or in-person help.
Report your work correctly
Follow your reporting timetable even if your pension becomes nil. Employee reporting generally uses gross wages paid before deductions, with partner details where required.
Check any prefilled employer information against payslips. Tell Centrelink about errors and starting or stopping work. Self-employed people follow a different income-assessment process; ask what business evidence is required.
Work Bonus reduces assessable work income
For eligible pension-age recipients, Work Bonus offsets eligible employment and personal-effort self-employment income before the normal income test. It is not extra cash paid into your bank account.
The current allowance is $300 per fortnight, with unused amounts building to a balance capped at $11,800. Eligibility and transitional-rate exceptions apply. Partners have individual Work Bonus arrangements.
Work Bonus does not make all investment, rent or super income exempt. Report the actual income as instructed; Centrelink applies the relevant offset.
If work brings your payment to nil
Where qualifying Australian work income produces more than 12 consecutive nil-payment fortnights, pension can be automatically suspended for up to two years and the Pensioner Concession Card retained.
This protection has conditions and exceptions. Ask Centrelink whether it applies to you, what to report during suspension and how to restore payment before the deadline. A later new claim can be needed; do not assume restoration is automatic.
Before changing your hours
- Estimate your household budget, including tax and other benefits.
- Ask Centrelink or FIS to explain how the work income is assessed.
- Keep payslips or business records and follow reporting instructions.
- If payment stops, check the decision and restoration route.
Get the right help
FIS provides free education about pension interactions. It does not choose an investment or work strategy for you. Call the Older Australians line on 132 300 for your payment and reporting questions.
Your next-step checklist
For your own notes. Ticks do not submit a claim or notify an agency.
Print or write down your steps if you prefer.
Official sources for this page
Guidance reviewed 5 October 2026. Source checks and content reviews are different: a successful download does not confirm that every rule is unchanged.
- Working while receiving Age Pension (opens in a new tab)Services Australia · Content checked 5 October 2026Automated retrieval 5 October 2026. This is not an editorial review.
- How Work Bonus works (opens in a new tab)Services Australia · Content checked 5 October 2026Automated retrieval 5 October 2026. This is not an editorial review.
- Who can get Work Bonus (opens in a new tab)Services Australia · Content checked 5 October 2026Automated retrieval 5 October 2026. This is not an editorial review.
- What to report to Centrelink (opens in a new tab)Services Australia · Content checked 5 October 2026Automated retrieval 5 October 2026. This is not an editorial review.
- Financial services when thinking about retirement (opens in a new tab)Services Australia · Content checked 5 October 2026Automated retrieval 5 October 2026. This is not an editorial review.
How we check sources and handle changes · Tell us about a correction