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To be a complying super fund and receive tax concessions, your SMSF needs to be an Australian super fund at all times during the financial year.

If your fund stops being an Australian super fund because it does not satisfy the residency rules, It may become non-complying and its assets (less certain contributions) and its income are taxed at the highest marginal tax rate.

On this page:

• Fund residency conditions
• What to do if members go overseas

Fund residency conditions

An SMSF is an Australian super fund if it meets all three of these residency conditions.

1. The fund was established in Australia, or at least one of its assets is located in Australia.
   • The fund was ‘established in Australia’ if the initial contribution to establish the fund was paid and accepted in Australia.
2. The central management and control of the fund is ordinarily in Australia.
   • This means the SMSF’s strategic decisions are regularly made, and high-level duties and activities are performed, in Australia. It includes formulating the investment strategy of the fund; reviewing the performance of the fund’s investments; formulating a strategy for the prudential management of any reserves; and determining how assets are to be used for member benefits.
   • In general, your fund will still meet this requirement even if its central management and control is temporarily outside Australia for up to two years. If central management and control of the fund is permanently outside Australia for any period, it will not meet this requirement.
3. The fund either has no active members or it has active members who are Australian residents and who hold at least 50% of:
   1. the total market value of the fund’s assets attributable to super interests, or
   2. the sum of the amounts that would be payable to active members if they decided to leave the fund.

For the purposes of condition three, a member is an ‘active member’ if they are a contributor to the fund or contributions to the fund have been made on their behalf.

What to do if members go overseas

If members are planning to go overseas for an extended period, get professional advice about maintaining the residency status of your SMSF.

If a member of your fund becomes a non-resident but still wishes to make or receive contributions, they should do this outside of their SMSF, for example through a retail or industry super fund. They can then rollover the contributions to their SMSF when they return as an Australian resident.

If your SMSF fails the residency test, you should rollover your funds to a resident regulated super fund and wind up the SMSF. Otherwise we have to make the fund non-complying.

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