So You’re Moving Overseas. Here’s How to Land on Your Feet.

Moving overseas is one of the great adventures. New streets, new smells, a new everything. One day you’re arguing about parking in Parramatta, the next you’re working out how to order a coffee in a language you’ve been practising on an app for three weeks.

Most of the advice you’ll read is about the fun stuff, and we’ll get to that. But there’s a second half nobody puts on Instagram: a pile of unglamorous Australian admin that has a nasty habit of following you onto the plane. Sort both and you’ll have a ball. Ignore the second half and it’ll be waiting for you when you get home, with interest. Let’s do the fun part first.

Eat where the locals eat

The fastest way to feel at home somewhere new is through your stomach. Skip the restaurant with the laminated menu and pictures of the food. Find the hole-in-the-wall joint with a queue of locals out the front, the street stall, the place your new workmate swears by.

Yes, you’ll miss a good meat pie. You’ll cope. Eating what the locals eat, where they actually eat it, is the quickest shortcut into a culture there is, and it’s a lot more fun than a guidebook.

Learn the local rules of the game

Every country runs on an invisible rulebook, and us Aussies have a reputation, fair or not, for being a bit loud and a bit much. You don’t have to lose your personality. You just have to read the room.

Tipping is the classic trap. In much of the United States a tip of 15 to 20 per cent isn’t a thank-you, it’s effectively part of the bill, and leaving nothing is read as genuinely rude. Fly to Japan and it flips completely: tipping generally isn’t expected and can leave staff confused, or even a little offended. Same gesture, opposite meaning.

So watch, then copy. How do people queue? How loudly do they talk on the train? Do they take their shoes off at the front door? You’re the guest here, and matching the local rhythm is the difference between blending in and becoming the story everyone tells at dinner.

Find your tribe

Here’s the good news: you don’t have to stop being you. Love your footy? AFL clubs and Aussie expat teams exist in most major cities around the world, so you can still get along to a game, whether you’re playing or just yelling at the screen. Not your thing? Adopt a local side. Pick a soccer team, learn the rules of baseball, work out what on earth cricket’s longer cousin is doing.

Missing live music? Every city has a scene if you go looking. The truth is, lots of people share your interests, they just wear different jerseys. Put in a bit of legwork in the first few months and you’ll find your people just about anywhere.

Now for the boring stuff that’ll save your bacon

Right. Accountant hat on, because this is the bit that catches good people out. Moving overseas does not press pause on your life back in Australia. A handful of things in particular love to bite expats who assumed “out of sight, out of mind.” Sort these before you go, or at least soon after you land.

Your Medicare card is not a global passport

Plenty of Aussies assume Medicare has them covered wherever they wander. It does not. Australia has reciprocal health care agreements with just 11 countries (the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Ireland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Norway, Slovenia, Malta and Italy), and even in those places it only stretches to medically necessary care, not the full works. Move to the US, Singapore, the UAE or most of Asia and you’ve got nothing to fall back on. Get proper health insurance before you go. One uninsured hospital stay overseas can torch years of savings in a single week.

Tell the AEC you’re leaving

Here’s one that surprises people: voting is not compulsory while you’re living overseas. But you can’t just vanish into the night. If you stay on the electoral roll and don’t vote, the AEC can write asking you to explain yourself, and eventually take you off the roll altogether. The rules are also time-limited. You can generally only enrol from outside Australia if you left within the last three years, and to register as an overseas elector you usually need to intend to return within six years. So if keeping your vote matters to you, deal with your enrolment before you’ve been gone too long.

Bookmark Smartraveller

The Australian Government runs a free service called Smartraveller, and it’s genuinely worth two minutes of your time. Register your details and subscribe to the advisories for your new country, and you’ll get a nudge when something goes sideways, whether that’s a natural disaster, civil unrest, or a sudden change you’d want to know about. Set it and forget it.

Your HECS debt got on the plane too

This is the big one people conveniently forget. If you’ve got a HECS-HELP debt and you head overseas, that debt does not go on holiday with you. Since 1 July 2017, Australians living abroad have had to report their worldwide income to the ATO each year and make a compulsory repayment once they earn above the threshold. For the 2025 to 2026 year, that threshold is $67,000.

Living it up in a tax-free spot like Dubai? Doesn’t help you here. The repayment is worked out on what you earn anywhere in the world, not just in Australia. And if you’re heading off for six months or more, you’re meant to let the ATO know. Stick your head in the sand and the debt just keeps quietly growing in the background, indexed every year, while you’re not looking.

The taxman might still think you live here

This one is our bread and butter, so lean in. Leaving the country does not automatically make you a non-resident for tax purposes. The ATO runs its own residency tests, and they have nothing to do with your passport or your frequent flyer tier. Get it wrong and you can end up taxed on your worldwide income, or hit with capital gains surprises you never saw coming, especially if you’ve still got property or investments back home. This is the single most expensive thing to get wrong as an expat, and it’s worth proper advice before you fly. We’ve written a separate, deeper piece on the residency tests if you want to go down that rabbit hole.

And no, your super doesn’t unlock

Quick one to kill a common daydream: leaving Australia does not free up your superannuation. For Australian citizens and permanent residents it stays locked away until you reach preservation age, exactly as if you’d never left. Don’t pencil it in as an early escape fund.

The bottom line

Moving overseas is brilliant, and you should absolutely do it. Eat the strange and wonderful food, learn the local customs, find your people, throw yourself in headfirst. Just don’t be the Aussie who flies home three years later to a fat HECS bill, a cancelled enrolment, no health cover and a please-explain letter from the ATO sitting on the mat.

The adventure is the fun part. The admin is the cheap insurance that protects it. Do both.

Sort your tax before you fly

Here’s the thing: every expensive expat tax mistake we see started as a small, fixable question that nobody asked in time. Don’t be that story. We’re Australian tax specialists who work with expats every single day, and a single appointment now can save you a small fortune later.

Book an appointment and let’s get you sorted before you go.

Disclaimer: This article is general information only and does not take your personal circumstances into account. It is not tax, financial, legal, health or migration advice, and should not be relied on as such. Thresholds, rules and government programs change, and the figures quoted were current as at June 2026. Before acting, please confirm the current position with the relevant government body or a registered Australian tax agent.

References

Services Australia, “When Reciprocal Health Care Agreements apply for Australians who go overseas” (Australia has agreements with 11 countries covering medically necessary care). Available at: https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/when-reciprocal-health-care-agreements-apply-for-australians-who-go-overseas

Australian Electoral Commission, “Australians overseas” (voting from overseas is not compulsory, plus enrolment and overseas elector rules and time limits). Available at: https://www.aec.gov.au/overseas/

Australian Government, Smartraveller (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade travel advisory and registration service). Available at: https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/

Australian Taxation Office, “Overseas obligations when repaying loans” (requirement to report worldwide income and make compulsory study and training loan repayments while overseas). Available at: https://www.ato.gov.au/individuals-and-families/study-and-training-support-loans/overseas-repayments

Australian Taxation Office, “Your tax residency” (the statutory residency tests used to determine Australian tax residency). Available at: https://www.ato.gov.au/individuals-and-families/coming-to-australia-or-going-overseas/your-tax-residency