Weekly payment option

Some people can get income support payments paid each week instead of each fortnight.

With weekly payments you get the same income support but it’s split into 2 smaller amounts. This may help you budget.

Who can get weekly payments

We can only pay you weekly if one or more of the following apply. You are:

  • homeless
  • at risk of being homeless
  • having trouble managing your money.

You also need to be getting one of the following payments:

We can’t pay Family Tax Benefit weekly.

If you go on weekly payments, you can’t get an immediate or urgent payment.

How it works

Before we agree to weekly payments, we’ll talk with you about:

  • your budget including if you make payments such as rent weekly or fortnightly
  • your money problems
  • where you’re living.

We’ll also look at other ways you can manage your money such as Centrepay to pay your bills.

If we agree, your weekly payments start from your next payment date. You’ll get half what we would pay you for the fortnight. The amount depends on your income, assets and any automatic deductions.

You get the other half 7 days later.

If you get an extra payment, we may also be able to pay this weekly. Read more about extra payments we can pay weekly.

Apply online with some new claims

You may be able to choose the weekly payment option when you make a new claim for either:

If you’re eligible for weekly payments, this option may be available as part of your online claim. It won’t show as an option in all online claims.

Apply at any time over the phone or at a service centre

You can apply for weekly payments at any time if you’re already getting a payment from us.

You can also apply if you’re making a new claim for an income support payment and you can’t apply online.

You can either:

Extra payments we can pay weekly

We can pay the following payments weekly if you’re already getting other weekly payments:

We’ll pay half the amount of the extra payment weekly.

We can’t pay some extra payments weekly. We pay the full amount of these payments to you each fortnight.

If you go back to fortnightly payments

When things improve, you can go back to fortnightly payments. You can ask to do this at any time:

You may go back to fortnightly payments if any of the following apply:

  • there’s a break in your income support payment including cancelled or suspended payments, even if your payment restarts
  • you don’t meet your requirements
  • you’re no longer eligible for a payment we can pay weekly.

If you start work

If you’ve been on weekly payments since before December 2012, once you start working you can’t get weekly payments. We change your payments back to fortnightly. This means, instead of getting half of your payment when you start work, you’ll get all of it. How much you get depends on your income, assets and any automatic deductions.

You need to report your and your partner’s income so we pay you the right amount. Read about income reporting

When we do reviews

You can’t stay on weekly payments for longer than you need to. If you stay on weekly payments, we may do another review if one of the following apply:

  • you have a change in circumstances
  • you’ve been getting them for 11 months
  • you ask to stop this arrangement.

Except if you are on an Age Pension or Disability Support Pension, we may review your weekly payment when:

  • you have a change in circumstances
  • you ask to stop this arrangement.
Page last updated: 4 January 2023.
QC 28981