Information about income apportionment

What income apportionment is

It’s a practice we used to evenly divide, or apportion, a customer’s employment income across two or more Centrelink fortnightly reporting periods.

We used this method to work out how much income support you were entitled to in each fortnight.

We only needed to divide your income evenly if all of the following applied:

• Your employer pay period didn’t line up with your fortnightly Centrelink reporting period.
• Your payslip or income report showed your total earnings but did not show which days you worked or how much you earned in each Centrelink fortnight.
• We had no other information available.

Your payment rate was still based on the total income you reported across those fortnights.

However, your eligibility or payment rate may have been impacted if the actual days you worked in those fortnights were not evenly spread out.

How we assess employment income

We don’t use income apportionment for debts related to income earned after 7 December 2020.

This is because on 7 December 2020, legislation was introduced to make income reporting easier.

Prior to 7 December 2020, you had to report your gross earnings based on the number of hours you worked during each Centrelink fortnightly reporting period.

Reporting could be complex if your earnings period didn’t align with your Centrelink reporting period. Since 7 December 2020, income only needs to be reported as it appears on your payslip for the same Centrelink fortnight you got paid.

This means we don’t need to divide income across fortnights to work out your payment rate.

How we’re addressing income apportionment

New legislation has passed to validate the use of income apportionment. This means payment rates and debts calculated using income apportionment before December 2020 are now valid.

The government has established the Income Apportionment Resolution Scheme to recognise income apportionment was not consistent with social security law at the time.

The Resolution Scheme will provide a payment of up to $600 for people with eligible debts impacted by income apportionment between 20 September 2003 and 6 December 2020.

You’ll need to apply to receive a resolution payment. Applications for the Resolution Scheme opened on 30 January 2026 and will close on 29 January 2027.

Read more about the Income Apportionment Resolution Scheme.

Restarting paused debt activities

We paused repayments and reviews for people with debts that might be impacted by income apportionment.

When we paused your debt or review, we wrote to you to let you know.

Now that the use of income apportionment has been validated by legislation, we’re restarting debt activities that had been paused.

These activities include:

• debt repayments
• explanations of debt decisions
• formal reviews.

If you have a debt that was paused, we’ll write to you let you know when your debt repayments will start again.

We’ll start writing to people from June 2026. We’re gradually restarting debt repayments over the next few months, so you may not get a letter from us right away.

You’ll have 4 weeks from when we send the letter to set up a payment arrangement. If you’re worried about this, we have information to help you repay money you owe.

If you need help repaying money or setting up a repayment arrangement, you can contact our debt recovery line.

If you have asked for a formal review or an explanation of decision, there is no need to call us for an update. We will contact you to discuss your request before making a decision.

If you need to discuss your income apportionment debt, you can call our Income apportionment line.

How this is different to Robodebt

Income apportionment is not Robodebt.

For income apportionment we divided a customer’s employment income across two or more Centrelink reporting periods. We did this to work out how their actual earnings affected their fortnightly Centrelink payment.

We took action on income apportionment when concerns were raised.

Robodebts are debts that were raised between July 2015 and November 2019 under the Income Compliance Program. They were raised using averaged Australian Taxation Office (ATO) income information. We no longer use income averaging to raise debts.

Read more information about Robodebt.