Picture this. You've had an incredible year in Australia. You've done your 88 days, seen the east coast, maybe made it to the Great Barrier Reef. Your visa is wrapping up. You pack your bags, say your goodbyes, and fly home with whatever savings you've managed to hold onto.
Then six months later you find out there was a separate pot of money sitting in your name in an Australian financial system that you never claimed. Money your employer was legally required to put there. Money you could have had back.
This happens to a genuinely staggering number of backpackers every year. There is estimated to be over a billion dollars in unclaimed superannuation in Australia belonging to departed workers — a significant chunk of it from former WHV holders who just didn't know.
This article is so that you know.
What even is superannuation
Superannuation is Australia's mandatory retirement savings system. By law, every employer must pay a minimum of 11.5% of each employee's ordinary wages into a designated superannuation fund. This payment is on top of your wages — not deducted from them.
So when your payslip says $700 gross for the week, your employer is actually paying out $777 — $700 to you, and $77 into your super fund. You won't see the super payment on your regular payslip necessarily, but it should appear on your quarterly super statements if you check your fund account.
For Australian citizens, this money stays locked in the super fund until retirement age (currently 60-67 depending on year of birth). But for Working Holiday Visa holders who are leaving Australia permanently, there's a special mechanism to get it out early — the Departing Australia Superannuation Payment, or DASP.
The real numbers — what you actually get back
Here's where it gets both good and slightly painful. The tax rate on DASP for Working Holiday Visa holders is 65%. Yes, that sounds brutal. But do the maths:
$901 you'd have left behind versus $901 in your pocket. That's a flight home. Or a few weeks of rent. Or just money you earned and deserve to have.
The tax rate is genuinely high — 65% is not a good rate by any stretch. But it was legislated specifically for Working Holiday Visa holders in 2017 as a revenue measure. It is what it is. The alternative to claiming at 65% tax is not claiming at all, which is worse.
We built a free superannuation calculator specifically for backpackers. Enter your wages and it'll show you exactly how much super you've earned and what you'll get back via DASP. Takes 30 seconds.
How to make sure your super is actually being paid
Unfortunately, not every employer does the right thing. Super theft — employers deducting super from workers' payslips but not actually paying it to the fund — is a real problem in Australia, particularly in agriculture and construction where a lot of backpackers work.
How to check your super is actually being paid:
- Set up a myGov account and link it to the ATO — this gives you a dashboard showing super contributions from all your employers
- Log in to your super fund directly (AustralianSuper, HostPlus, etc.) and check your member statement
- Super is paid quarterly, not weekly — so don't panic if you've only been at a job 2 weeks and nothing shows yet
- If after 3-4 months nothing has been paid, contact the ATO — they have a specific team for recovering unpaid super
Some employers — particularly in farm work — pay cash in hand with no payslip and no super contributions. This saves them 11.5% and costs you. Not only do you miss out on super, you also can't prove income for your tax return or your 88 day documentation. Always insist on proper payslips.
Setting up your super fund
You need to choose a super fund and give your employer your member number before your first paycheck. If you don't, they'll either put you into a default fund (which is fine but more complicated to track) or — if they're dodgy — use it as an excuse not to pay super at all.
The most popular funds for backpackers are:
- AustralianSuper — biggest fund in Australia, easy to set up online, good app
- HostPlus — very popular with hospitality workers, simple setup
- REST Super — popular in retail and hospitality, also simple
Pick one. Stick to it for every job. Having all your super in one place makes the DASP process much simpler when you leave. If you end up with super scattered across 3 different funds — which happens when you just let employers pick the default — you'll need to claim DASP from each one separately.
How to claim DASP when you leave
The process is straightforward but requires a bit of admin. Here's what to do:
- Wait until your visa has expired or been cancelled — you can't claim DASP while in Australia on a valid visa
- Go to ato.gov.au and search "DASP" — the online application portal is there
- You'll need your super fund name, member number, TFN, and Australian bank account or overseas bank details
- Submit the application — your super fund then processes the payment, usually within 28 days
- The 65% tax is deducted automatically before the payment is made
There's no hard deadline for claiming DASP, but don't leave it too long. If super sits unclaimed for a long time it can eventually be transferred to the ATO as "lost super." It doesn't disappear, but recovering it becomes significantly more complicated. Claim it within 6-12 months of leaving Australia.
Lost super from previous jobs
If you worked several jobs in Australia and didn't always use the same super fund — or if your employer put you in a default fund without telling you — you may have super sitting in multiple places you've forgotten about.
The ATO has a "Find my super" tool in myGov that searches all registered super funds by TFN and shows you every fund that has money in your name. It's free, takes about 2 minutes, and occasionally turns up money people had genuinely forgotten about.
Worth checking before you leave, even if you think you only had one fund.