What is Carer Payment?

A pension-rate safety net for people whose caring role stops them working full time.

Carer Payment is an income support payment, paid fortnightly by Services Australia, for a person who provides constant care for someone else in that person's private home. The person receiving care must have a severe disability, a severe medical condition, or frailty associated with ageing, and must need that level of care for at least six months, or have a terminal illness. The payment is assessed under the same income and assets tests as the Age Pension, which is why its maximum rate matches the Age Pension rate.

What “constant care” means

Constant care is not occasional help. It means you are personally providing a high level of personal care, supervision, or attention, day after day, because the person cannot manage without it. That can include help with moving around, bathing, dressing, eating, taking medicines, communicating, and staying safe. The care must be given in the care receiver's private home. You do not have to live in the same house — many carers live nearby and attend daily — but the care itself must be delivered at the care receiver's home, not in a hospital or a residential aged-care facility as the normal arrangement.

What Carer Payment is not

It is not a wage for caring, and it is not paid at an hourly rate for the hours you spend caring. It is not funding for the person with disability: the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) funds supports for a participant, which is a separate system with its own rules, and NDIS funding does not replace your Carer Payment. It is not compensation, and it is not a carer bonus — although a separate annual Carer Supplement of $600 is paid automatically each July to people who held Carer Payment or Carer Allowance over a period including 1 July. And it is not the United Kingdom's Carer's Allowance, which is a different benefit in a different country.

Who pays it, and how

Services Australia administers the payment through Centrelink. Claims are usually made online through a myGov account linked to Centrelink, or by phone or in person at a service centre if you cannot claim online. The payment is made fortnightly into a bank account. If you already receive another income support payment, such as JobSeeker Payment or Parenting Payment, that payment stops once a Carer Payment claim is granted — you cannot draw two income support payments at once. Carer Allowance, by contrast, is a supplement and can be paid on top of Carer Payment.

Why the rate matches the Age Pension

Carer Payment is classified as a pension for payment purposes, so it shares the Age Pension's maximum rate, its indexation dates of 20 March and 20 September, and its income and assets tests. That classification matters in two practical ways. First, the pension income and assets tests are more generous in some respects than allowance tests, but they still taper the payment down as income or assets rise. Second, the tax treatment follows the pension rules: Services Australia states that if you or the person you care for are Age Pension age or above, your Carer Payment is a taxable Centrelink payment, and you can ask for tax to be withheld to avoid a debt at tax time. If neither of you is Age Pension age, check the current tax treatment with Services Australia or the Australian Taxation Office rather than assuming it.

The caring role comes first

Everything in the Carer Payment rules flows from one question: are you personally giving constant care, and would that care stop or collapse without you? Paperwork, assessments, and financial tests all test different parts of that question. A claim can fail on the care assessment even when the finances pass, and it can fail on the finances even when the care need is beyond doubt. Understanding both halves before you claim saves the most common disappointment: a long wait followed by a refusal on a point that could have been checked at the start.

Sources: Services Australia, Carer Payment pages (including “How much Carer Payment you can get”, last updated 20 September 2026; “Income and assets test for Carer Payment”; “How much Carer Allowance you can get”; “Working while you get Carer Payment”; “Breaks from caring when you get Carer Payment”); Services Australia pension income and assets test pages. Photo credits: see IMAGE_MANIFEST.md in the site build notes; every photograph is a freely licensed Wikimedia Commons image.