If you are planning to leave Australia permanently and want to get your super saving now, then there are certain things you need to consider or educate yourself. What you chose to do with your super saving relies entirely on whether you are an Australian citizen or not. With that in mind, this article is going to focus on Australian citizens and how they can get their hands on the country’s super savings if they chose to leave.

If you happen to be an Australian citizen or a permanent resident in Australia and planning to leave the country for good, you will still undergo or follow the same rules that Australian citizens who leave in Australia face. In simpler terms, this simply means that you will not be able to get your super savings until you reach the country’s preservation age, which is normally around the age of 55 to 60 years.

Upon reaching the preservation age (between 55 and 60), there are other conditions you need to meet before the super savings are made available to you. These conditions are:

• If you have a preservation age of 55 then you must be born before July 1960 before you receive access to the super savings
• If you have a preservation age of 56 and above you ought to have been born before June 1960
• you retire upon reaching your preservation age
• If you took a transition-to-retirement pension that is available to Australian citizens who have reached the preservation age
• If you happen to suffer from severe financial hardship (this does not apply to individuals residing outside Australia)

Certain things surrounding Australia’s super savings have changed over the years. For example, you could have access to your super savings relatively easier and earlier in the past, which is not the case now. In the past, if you planned to leave Australia permanently, all you had to do is to provide sufficient evidence of the place you plan to move.

Individuals who wanted to leave Australia had to submit an application for citizenship, job details and other small information about where one is going. This however has changed. Now, if you leave Australia, it is highly unlikely that you will receive your super savings early. The only exception to receive earlier is due to medical conditions or severe financial hardships.

It is important to note that in an event that an ex-pat has already left Australia, has reached the preservation age and is no longer considered employed but retired, then he or she can receive super savings as long as proof of residence overseas is produced.

For more information regarding the access to the super fund, do checkout the rules set out by Australia’s super fund and your employer, as they may vary from case to case basis.