The Cost of Living Concession in South Australia

Who can be paid it

Eligibility is judged on where things stood on 1 July of the financial year in question. Run down the list below; every line has to hold.

• You live at the property the application is for.
• You qualify in one of three ways: through a concession card on the list, through one of the listed Centrelink payments, or by showing that your household income is under the low-income limits.
• If you rent, there is a written agreement behind it. A residential tenancy agreement counts, and so do a rooming house agreement and a resident contract in a supported residential facility.

Asylum seekers can be eligible too, under a separate set of instructions on SA.GOV.AU.

The cards that count

The Pensioner Concession Card, the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card and the Low Income Health Care Card all qualify. So do some Veteran Gold Cards: those marked Totally and Permanently Incapacitated, Extreme Disablement Adjustment or War Widow, and those issued under the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004 to a veteran assessed at 80 impairment points or more.

The payments that count

On the Centrelink side the list is: Austudy and ABSTUDY, Youth Allowance, JobSeeker Payment, Parenting Payment, Farm Household Allowance, Special Benefit and Self-Employment Allowance. A war widow pension paid under United Kingdom or New Zealand law also qualifies.

The low-income limits

Without a card or one of those payments, you can still qualify by showing that you, together with any spouse or domestic partner, earn under these amounts.

How the concession year runs

1. 1 July. The date your circumstances are measured for that year’s payment. People who were paid before, and whose living arrangements and income have not changed, do not need to apply again.
2. August to December. Payments go out by electronic funds transfer during these months.
3. 31 December. The last day to apply and still be paid for that financial year.

Because it is paid by EFT, ConcessionsSA needs bank details on file. Those can be added or changed through the online household concessions form or by calling the ConcessionsSA Hotline.

Spotting it on a bank statement

For 2026–27 the government suggests checking statements from August onwards for a deposit of $270.60 described as SA GOV COLC or DHS Controlled. The amount is indexed, so it changes from one financial year to the next.

Applying, and what to have ready

There is a single online form for four household concessions: this one, the energy bill concession, the water and sewerage concession, and the remission on the emergency services levy. The same form is used to update an address, an energy account or bank details.

• A Centrelink Customer Reference Number, or a Department of Veterans’ Affairs file number. Without either, a copy of your latest tax assessment.
• Your latest electricity bill and water bill.
• For homeowners, the latest Notice of Emergency Services Levy Assessment.
• Your BSB and account number.

Paper forms exist as well, including an easy read version, and ConcessionsSA will post one out on request. The ConcessionsSA Hotline is 1800 307 758, open 9am to 5pm on weekdays, and its email address is concessions@sa.gov.au.

How it sits beside the other concessions

This payment lands in your bank account rather than on one particular bill. The others on the same form behave differently: the energy concession usually appears as a credit on the electricity bill, and the levy remission is credited against the levy itself. Folios 02 and 03 cover those. If you rate with the City of Adelaide, Folio 05 covers the council’s own $100 pensioner rebate, which is tied to eligibility for this concession.