Rates are indexed twice a year, on 20 March and 20 September. The March 2026 indexation round has now been applied. These are the fortnightly and annual figures rounded from official Services Australia schedules.

The maximum payment rate includes the basic pension, Pension Supplement, and Energy Supplement. Pensioners on reduced rates receive proportional supplements. The final payment still depends on the income test, assets test, residency rules, and personal circumstances.

Where advice earns its keep

To put those numbers in retirement-plan context: a single homeowner receiving the full pension plus a planned super drawdown can have a very different retirement income from someone relying on the pension alone. The numbers are useful, but the advice question is how Centrelink, super, cash reserves, and spending fit together.

Rates and thresholds matter, but the bigger issue is how your super, cash flow, home-care costs, and Centrelink paperwork fit together. It is worth getting advice before you sell assets, gift money, change pension income, or lodge forms you are not sure about.

• Assets near a threshold
• Changing pension income
• Home-care or Centrelink forms

The short answer: after the March 2026 indexation, the current maximum Age Pension is $1,200.90 per fortnight for a single person and $905.20 each for a partnered person. That is about $31,223 a year for a single person and $47,070 a year combined for a couple, before the income and assets tests reduce the payment. The deeming rate freeze ended on 20 March 2026 and rates rose by a full percentage point. Support at Home has been live since November 2025 and changes how home-care payments interact with pension. Work Bonus remains one of the most useful pension levers for people who still do some paid work.

This is a plain-English update on where the Age Pension sits in May 2026, what's changed in the past 12 months, and what the May 2026 Budget might move. It deliberately doesn't re-cover the income and assets tests mechanics; if you want the test details, our earlier post on Age Pension income and assets tests handles that.

Three structural changes landed between April 2025 and April 2026. Most of the others were just indexation.

Support at Home (1 November 2025). The old Home Care Package system was replaced with an eight-level Support at Home program. The new system has clearer funding bands and a distinction between everyday living, daily support, and clinical care categories. For pensioners, the main change is that co-contribution rules shift with income rather than being flat. Clinical care, such as nursing, is fully government funded for everyone. Other services carry a co-contribution set as a percentage of each service’s price, lowest for full pensioners and highest for self-funded retirees, with a lifetime cap.

Commonwealth Seniors Health Card threshold indexation resumed September 2025. The thresholds were reset in November 2022, to $90,000 for singles and $144,000 combined, a reform that significantly broadened eligibility. September 2025 brought the first meaningful indexation since then.

Deeming thresholds moved with the March 2026 indexation. The single threshold is now $64,200 and the couple combined threshold is now $106,200. From the same date the deeming rates also rose, so both the thresholds and the rates changed on 20 March 2026.

Deeming rates are the notional interest rates Centrelink applies to financial assets (bank, shares, super in pension phase) for the income test. Actual returns on the assets don't matter; deeming is a simplification.

Deeming rates were frozen from 1 May 2020 until 20 March 2026. On 20 March 2026 the freeze ended and the rates rose by a full percentage point. The lower rate is now 1.25% and the upper rate is now 3.25%. The lower rate applies to the first $64,200 of financial assets for a single person, or the first $106,200 combined for a couple where at least one partner gets a pension. The upper rate applies to the balance above those thresholds. The next scheduled indexation is 20 September 2026.

The increase reduces Age Pension entitlements for some people with significant financial assets outside the family home, because deemed income is now higher. The lower rate moved from 0.25% to 1.25% and the upper rate moved from 2.25% to 3.25%.

Worked example. A single pensioner with $400,000 in assessable financial assets now has deemed income of about $11,700 a year. The first $64,200 is deemed at 1.25% and the balance at 3.25%. The Age Pension reduces by 50 cents for every dollar of income above the free area ($220 a fortnight single), so a higher deemed income can lower the annual pension by a few thousand dollars for people near the income test thresholds.

Where advice earns its keep

Now that the rates have risen, it is worth checking how your financial-assets structure responds and whether your pension entitlement has changed. This is one of the bigger 2026 changes for pensioners with assessable assets.

Support at Home is provided by aged-care providers under government funding. It's not a welfare payment, but the means-test determination that Services Australia runs for it draws on the same asset and income data as the pension. The two systems are connected even though they're administered separately.

The main implication for Age Pensioners is that home-care package value doesn't disappear if your pension status changes. The clinical and nursing components remain fully government-funded regardless of means, which is the part most people need.

Where advice earns its keep

Rates and thresholds matter, but the bigger issue is how your super, cash flow, home-care costs, and Centrelink paperwork fit together. It is worth getting advice before you sell assets, gift money, change pension income, or lodge forms you are not sure about.

The Commonwealth Seniors Health Card (CSHC) isn't the Age Pension, but it matters for retirees who miss the pension on asset or income grounds and still want access to concession-rate prescriptions and bulk-billed GP incentives.

The income test thresholds for 2026, following September 2025 indexation, are approximately:

• Single: $101,105 per year (up from $90,000 in 2022, indexed).
• Couple combined: $161,768 per year (up from $144,000 in 2022, indexed).

If you think you might qualify, Services Australia processes applications online via myGov. Approvals are usually within a few weeks.

Benefits include cheaper PBS prescriptions ($7.70 per item versus $25.00 general from 1 January 2026), Original Medicare Safety Net thresholds, and in some states additional utilities concessions.

Where advice earns its keep

The income test uses adjusted taxable income plus deemed income from account-based pensions (super in pension phase for people who started drawdown after 1 January 2015). There's no assets test, so wealthy retirees with the "right" income structure often qualify.

The Work Bonus allows Age Pensioners with employment income to earn up to $300 per fortnight ($7,800 per year) without the income test reducing their pension. Unused Work Bonus credits accumulate in a personal bank, up to $11,800 as at 2026.

In practice this means a pensioner who isn't working can build up Work Bonus credits quietly, then take casual or part-time work for a few months a year without losing pension. A six-month part-time job at $25 per hour, 15 hours per week, earns about $9,750. The Work Bonus exempts $300 a fortnight automatically, around $3,900 over those six months, and banked credits can cover up to another $11,800. For many pensioners, a job like this does not reduce the pension at all.

Three things to know about the Work Bonus. Employment income includes wages, salary, director fees, and some self-employed active income. Passive income (dividends, interest, rent) is not eligible. You don't need to apply; it's automatic for anyone of Age Pension age receiving the pension and reporting employment income to Services Australia. And partners can each use their own Work Bonus separately.

Where advice earns its keep

For pensioners considering a return to part-time work for social reasons, the Work Bonus converts what used to be a financial drag into a net positive.

The 2026-27 Federal Budget, handed down on 12 May 2026, announced no changes to Age Pension rates, the income and assets tests, or deeming settings. The deeming rate change in March 2026 was decided separately, on Australian Government Actuary advice, before the Budget.

The measure most relevant to pensioners sits in aged care: from 1 October 2026, personal care services under Support at Home, such as help with showering, will be fully government funded, removing the co-contribution for that category. The Budget allocated $1 billion to the measure. The Budget also funded a broader aged-care package, including incentives to build up to 5,000 new residential aged-care beds a year.

Source: Budget 2026-27, budget.gov.au; Services Australia, Budget 2026-27 measures; Department of Health. Verified 10 June 2026.