Technical article

Will My Income From Home Be Taxed If I Move to Australia, New Zealand or Fiji?

The Australian Taxation Office says a temporary resident is someone who holds a temporary visa.

By Neil Solomon · 5 min read

Picture a couple named Dale and Priya. Both are 61. They have a pension, some savings that pay interest, and a rental flat back home. They are looking at Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. The question they keep coming back to is simple. When we arrive, does the tax office there want a share of what we already earn at home?

The answer depends on the visa, on how the income is earned, and on how long they stay. Each of the three governments has a page for this. Two of them have a time-limited status for new arrivals. The third does not mention foreign pensions at all.

Australia: the temporary resident

The Australian Taxation Office says a temporary resident is someone who holds a temporary visa. It adds that "you and your spouse (if you have one) are not Australian residents within the meaning of Social Security Act 1991." In plain terms, neither of you is a citizen or permanent resident.

For people in that group, the ATO says "Most of your foreign income is not taxed in Australia." It also says temporary residents "generally don't pay tax in Australia on income they earn in another country." Its example is interest on an overseas bank account, which does not need to be declared.

There is a limit. The same page says "you may be taxed in Australia on income you earn from employment or services you perform overseas." It adds that this can depend on a tax treaty. The page does not say how a foreign pension is treated, so I cannot confirm that point from an official page.

One more detail for people who think about currency. The page says you "must convert all foreign income, deductions and tax offsets to Australian dollars" in your tax return. So the exchange rate on the day matters for what you report.

New Zealand: the transitional resident

Inland Revenue calls it the "temporary tax exemption." You qualify if you are a new migrant or a New Zealander returning home, you became a tax resident on or after 1 April 2006, and you were not a tax resident in the 10 years before. The page says you qualify automatically and can only have it once.

It "lasts for about 4 years." It can end sooner, for example if you are in New Zealand more than 183 days in a 12-month period and set up a permanent place of abode (that is my paraphrase of a longer rule on the page), or if you apply for Working for Families tax credits.

What is exempt: "Most types of foreign-source income are exempt for the period of the exemption." The page gives overseas interest, dividends, foreign investment fund income and rent as examples. What is not exempt: overseas employment income and income from personal services. Foreign pensions are not covered on this page, other than lump sum withdrawals from foreign superannuation funds, which "have their own 4-year exemption rule."

New Zealand: buying a home

Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) says citizens and permanent residents who are "ordinarily resident" can buy without restrictions. To count as ordinarily resident you need three things:

• a residence class visa,
• to have lived in New Zealand for the last 12 months, counted back from the date you sign the agreement, and
• to be a tax resident, described as "personally present in New Zealand for more than 183 days in the last 12 months."

If you hold a residence class visa but are not yet ordinarily resident, you can apply for consent to buy one home to live in. The page says you cannot buy if you hold "a temporary, limited, interim or transit visa (such as a student, work or visitor visa)", although a discretionary exemption may be granted in limited cases. The page does not mention retirees.

Fiji: rates and the pension exemption

The Fiji Revenue and Customs Service publishes two rate tables "from the 2024 tax year onwards." The page shows only a dollar sign. The exemptions page writes FJ$, so I read these as FJD.

Higher bands run to 39% above FJD 1,000,000. My arithmetic: on FJD 60,000, a resident would owe FJD 5,600 and a non-resident FJD 12,000.

On pensions, the FRCS exemptions page (last updated 6 July 2026) says "Pension Income is not subject to income tax." It names pensions paid by the Fiji National Provident Fund, the Fiji Government, or "any other fund approved by the FRCS CEO." Foreign pensions are not addressed, and no age condition is stated.

What is left open

• How Australia treats a foreign pension for a temporary resident.
• Whether a foreign pension counts as exempt income in New Zealand during the 4 years.
• Whether Fiji treats a foreign pension as exempt, and when a person counts as a resident there.
• The exact end date of the Fiji rate tables; the page says only "from the 2024 tax year onwards."