Executive Summary: Moving overseas doesn’t pause or erase a HECS-HELP debt; it keeps indexing every 1 June. Since 1 July 2017, Australians abroad must report worldwide income annually, regardless of tax residency. Notify the ATO within 7 days of leaving (if overseas 183+ days), then report by 31 October. Repayment thresholds are $67,000 for 2025-26 and $69,528 for 2026-27, now calculated marginally. A one-off 20% balance reduction applied on 1 June 2025. GenZone handles the Dubai side of the move and coordinates timing with your Australian tax agent, so your HELP reporting and UAE setup stay in sync.
I’ve lost count of how many Australian founders have told me some version of the same thing. They move to Dubai, stop being an Australian tax resident, and quietly assume their HECS-HELP debt goes to sleep until they decide to move back. It doesn’t.
It’s one of the more common and genuinely costly misunderstandings I see in the Australian founders we work with, and it’s almost never anyone’s fault. The rule that closed this gap is now nearly a decade old, but the assumption it was designed to kill is still everywhere.
So here’s the actual mechanics. Not the vague “you still owe it eventually” version, the specific rules: what you need to tell the ATO, when, what counts as income, what the current thresholds actually are, and what genuinely happens if you decide to just not deal with it.
The Short Version
Moving overseas, even permanently, does not pause, freeze, or erase a HECS-HELP debt. It keeps indexing every year regardless of where you live.
Since 1 July 2017, Australians with a HELP debt living overseas have had to report their worldwide income to the ATO annually, not just their Australian-sourced income. This obligation exists whether or not you’re still an Australian tax resident.
If you intend to live overseas for 183 days or more in any 12-month period, you must notify the ATO within 7 days of leaving, through your myGov account.
You then report your worldwide income by 31 October every year you’re overseas, and make a compulsory repayment if that income is above the minimum threshold.
For the 2025-26 income year, that threshold is $67,000. For 2026-27, it rises to $69,528. Both years use a marginal repayment system, not a flat percentage applied to your whole income.
Living in a 0% income tax country like the UAE doesn’t get you out of any of this. It just means the ATO relies entirely on your own worldwide income declaration, since there’s no Australian tax return pulling that figure in automatically.
What HECS-HELP Actually Is, Quickly
HECS-HELP is the loan scheme that lets Australians defer the cost of university study, repaid later through the tax system once your income crosses a threshold. It sits inside the broader Higher Education Loan Program, HELP, alongside a few related study and training loans.
It’s genuinely interest-free in the traditional sense, but it’s indexed every year on 1 June, at whichever is lower of CPI or the Wage Price Index, so the balance still grows even while you’re not repaying anything.
Most people’s mental model of this system is built entirely around the Australian tax return. Income goes up, tax return gets lodged, ATO calculates a compulsory repayment, done. That model quietly assumes you’re lodging an Australian resident tax return every year. The moment you’re not, because you’ve become a non-resident living and working in Dubai, that automatic mechanism stops working, and a completely different, manual reporting obligation takes over.
The 2017 Rule That Actually Changed Things
Before 1 July 2017, this was a real and fairly well known gap. If you left Australia, became a non-resident, and stopped lodging Australian tax returns, there was no mechanism forcing your HECS-HELP repayments to keep happening based on your overseas income. A lot of people used exactly this gap, intentionally or not, to effectively stop repaying while living and earning well overseas.
The government closed it through an amendment to the Higher Education Support Act 2003. From that point forward, anyone with an outstanding HELP debt living overseas has to declare their worldwide income for HELP repayment purposes, regardless of their Australian tax residency status.
This is worth sitting with for a second, because it trips people up specifically: your HELP repayment obligation runs on its own separate framework. It doesn’t care whether you’ve successfully become a non-resident for ordinary Australian income tax purposes.
Even someone who’s done everything right on their residency exit, sold the house, cut the ties, genuinely lives in Dubai full time, still has to report worldwide income against their HELP debt every single year.
What You Actually Have to Do
If you plan to live overseas for 183 days or more in any 12-month period and you’ve got a HELP debt, there are two separate obligations, and they’re on different clocks.
The notification. Within 7 days of leaving Australia, you need to submit an overseas travel notification through ATO online services in your myGov account, and keep your contact details updated. This applies regardless of whether you expect to earn above the repayment threshold or not, and regardless of whether you think you’ll remain an Australian tax resident. The notification obligation exists independently of both of those things.
The annual worldwide income report. By 31 October each year you’re overseas, you report your worldwide income to the ATO, using one of a few permitted methods. The simplest is a self-assessment approach where you report your gross overseas income and apply a standard deduction the ATO sets based on your occupation.
If you’ve got genuine deductible expenses against that income that would exceed the standard deduction, a more detailed calculation method is usually worth using instead, since it can lower your repayment income. Once you’ve reported, the ATO issues a notice confirming whether a compulsory repayment or overseas levy applies and what the due date is.
Skipping either of these isn’t a quiet, victimless oversight. The notification and reporting obligations exist independently of whether you actually owe money that year. Even if your worldwide income comes in under the threshold, you still need to have gone through the reporting process to demonstrate that.
The Actual Current Numbers
This is an area where a lot of content floating around has stale figures, sometimes by a full financial year, so it’s worth being precise. For the 2025-26 income year, the minimum repayment threshold is $67,000. Below that, no compulsory repayment applies.
Above it, repayments are now calculated on a marginal basis rather than the old flat percentage applied to your entire income, similar in spirit to how personal income tax brackets work. For the 2026-27 income year, that minimum threshold rises to $69,528, with the same marginal structure continuing above it.
Separately from thresholds, the government applied a one-off 20% reduction to HELP and related study loan balances, legislated through the Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Act 2025 and applied to eligible balances as at 1 June 2025.
If you haven’t checked your myGov account since mid-2025, it’s worth a look, since this reduction applied automatically and a meaningful number of people either haven’t noticed it or aren’t sure whether it actually landed on their account.
None of this changes the core overseas obligation. The thresholds and the 20% reduction affect how much you owe. They don’t touch whether you need to notify the ATO and report worldwide income in the first place.
Living in Dubai Specifically Doesn’t Change Any of This
I want to address this directly because it comes up constantly with the founders we work with relocating to the UAE. The absence of personal income tax in Dubai has nothing to do with your HECS-HELP obligation.
The ATO’s worldwide income assessment for HELP purposes converts your overseas earnings, in dirhams or otherwise, into Australian dollars and applies the same thresholds and rates as if you’d earned that income at home. A 0% personal tax jurisdiction doesn’t create a 0% HELP obligation. It just means there’s no local tax authority withholding anything on your behalf, so the entire reporting burden sits with you, self-assessed, once a year.
This actually catches out a specific type of founder more than others: people running a profitable consultancy, agency, or e-commerce business through a UAE company, paying themselves well, with zero UAE tax friction making the whole thing feel frictionless.
It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that your Australian HELP debt is still watching your worldwide income, converted back to AUD, every single year, regardless of how tax efficient your Dubai structure is on every other front.
What Actually Happens If You Ignore It
This isn’t a debt that quietly disappears if you stay overseas long enough or simply don’t engage with it. It continues to index annually whether you’re paying attention or not.
Failing to notify the ATO or report your worldwide income can result in penalties, and if you’ve been overseas for years without reporting, you can end up facing multiple years of unfiled obligations at once. That’s a considerably more painful conversation to have with a tax agent than staying on top of it annually would have been.
The debt also doesn’t quietly wash away if you never return to Australia. It’s a legal debt to the Commonwealth, not something that lapses with time or a change in residency status.
If you’re reading this and realising you’ve been overseas for a while without ever having done the notification or the annual reporting, the fix is straightforward in principle, even if it takes a bit of legwork: get a registered Australian tax agent who specifically handles expat and non-resident HELP obligations to help you catch up the missed years properly, rather than trying to reconstruct several years of overseas income figures on your own.
A Worked Example
Say you’re 32, you’ve relocated to Dubai, and you’re running a growing e-commerce brand through a UAE free zone company, drawing a salary plus dividends that put your personal income comfortably above 150,000 AUD equivalent for the year. You’ve got a HECS-HELP balance of around 40,000 dollars left over from your undergraduate and postgraduate study.
Done properly: you notified the ATO within 7 days of leaving Australia, you report your worldwide income every year by 31 October using whichever assessment method gives you the fairer result, and each year the ATO calculates your compulsory repayment on the portion of your income above the relevant threshold, applying it against your balance. Your debt shrinks steadily, in a predictable, planned way, alongside the annual indexation.
Done poorly: you assume becoming a UAE tax resident quietly ended the obligation, never notify the ATO, and never report. Three or four years later, when you eventually get around to sorting out your Australian affairs, whether that’s a property sale, an inheritance, or simply deciding to move back, a tax agent discovers years of unreported worldwide income sitting against your HELP account.
It’s indexed the entire time, with a real possibility of penalties layered on top for the years you should have been reporting but weren’t. Same debt, same income, a genuinely worse outcome purely because the annual admin got ignored.
Where GenZone Fits Into This
To be straightforward about where the line sits: we’re not a registered Australian tax agent, and the actual HELP worldwide income reporting, the overseas travel notification, and any catch-up filing for missed years is a job for one, ideally one who specifically works with Australian expats rather than a generalist. I’d rather tell you that plainly than let you assume it’s something we file on your behalf.
What we do well is everything on the Dubai side of your move, timed so it actually supports the Australian obligations you’re managing rather than adding friction to them.
That’s genuine cross-border coordination with whoever’s handling your Australian tax affairs, transparent pricing on your UAE company, residency visa, and banking with nothing sprung on you after you’ve committed, and an end-to-end setup handled by one team so you’re not juggling three different vendors while you’re also trying to get your ATO reporting sorted for the first time.
Once your Dubai entity is running, the same team stays with you for ongoing corporate tax filings and renewals, backed by people who’ve actually walked other Australian founders through this exact transition, not a support inbox that goes quiet after the trade licence is issued.
If you’re also considering a US LLC alongside your Dubai company, common among founders serving international clients who want US banking and Stripe access, our LaunchPad portal keeps both structures visible in one place instead of scattered across separate logins and inboxes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does becoming a non-resident for Australian tax purposes stop my HECS-HELP repayments?
No. This is one of the most common misunderstandings. Your HELP repayment obligation runs on its own separate framework under the Higher Education Support Act, independent of your ordinary Australian tax residency status. You can be a genuine non-resident for tax purposes and still owe worldwide income reporting and repayments on your HELP debt.
What do I need to tell the ATO before moving overseas?
If you intend to live overseas for 183 days or more in any 12-month period and have a HELP debt, you need to submit an overseas travel notification through ATO online services in your myGov account within 7 days of leaving, and keep your contact details current.
How do I report my income if I’m not lodging an Australian tax return?
You report your worldwide income directly through ATO online services by 31 October each year, using one of the ATO’s approved assessment methods. This is separate from an ordinary Australian tax return and applies specifically because you have an outstanding HELP debt.
What are the current HECS-HELP repayment thresholds?
For the 2025-26 income year, the minimum repayment threshold is $67,000. For 2026-27, it rises to $69,528. Both years use a marginal repayment system, where the repayment rate applies only to income above the relevant threshold, rather than a flat percentage applied to your total income.
Is it true HECS-HELP debts were reduced recently?
Yes. A one-off 20% reduction was applied to eligible HELP and related study loan balances as at 1 June 2025, under the Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Act 2025. It’s worth checking your myGov account to confirm it’s been applied to your balance.
What happens if I’ve been living overseas for years and never reported my income?
You likely have multiple years of unfiled obligations that need to be caught up, and the debt has continued indexing the entire time regardless. Penalties can apply for not notifying or not reporting. The practical fix is engaging a registered Australian tax agent who specialises in expat and non-resident HELP obligations to reconstruct and lodge the missing years properly.
Does my HECS-HELP debt ever just get written off if I never move back to Australia?
No. It’s a legal debt owed to the Commonwealth and isn’t forgiven by emigration, a change in residency status, or the simple passage of time. It continues to index annually until it’s repaid.
Do I still have to pay HECS-HELP if I live in Dubai?
Yes. Living in a country with no personal income tax doesn’t remove your HELP repayment obligation. Since 2017, Australians overseas with a HELP debt must report worldwide income annually and make a compulsory repayment if that income exceeds the relevant threshold, regardless of where they’re living or paying tax.
Does GenZone handle my HECS-HELP reporting for me?
No, and we’ll always be upfront about that. The overseas travel notification, the annual worldwide income report, and any catch-up filing for missed years are the work of a registered Australian tax agent who deals with expats. What GenZone handles is the Dubai side of your move, your company setup, residency visa, banking, and ongoing UAE compliance, and we coordinate the timing with whoever manages your Australian tax affairs so the two sides line up rather than clash.
Can GenZone set up my Dubai company while I get my HELP reporting in order?
Yes, and they run on separate tracks, so neither has to wait on the other. GenZone builds and sequences your UAE company, visa, and banking, while your Australian tax agent handles the HELP notification and worldwide income reporting. We’re used to working alongside home-country advisers rather than around them, so nothing falls through the gap between the Australian and UAE sides of the move.
Related Reading from GenZone
If you’re planning the wider move, these cover the other Australian obligations founders manage alongside their HELP debt:
- The complete guide to moving to Dubai from Australia
- How to exit the Australian tax system when moving to Dubai
- What to do with your Australian Pty Ltd when you move to Dubai
- Selling Australian property from Dubai and the 15% FRCGW withholding
- What it actually costs to move to Dubai from Australia
This article is general information only and does not constitute personal tax, legal, or financial advice. HELP repayment obligations, overseas income reporting, and penalties depend on your individual circumstances. Speak with a registered Australian tax agent who specialises in expat and non-resident HELP obligations about your specific situation before you rely on any of the above.
