Retiring overseas with grandchildren in Australia

The order of decisions for you

With family here, you’ll want to be home for birthdays and school holidays, and for the hard days when someone needs you. The pension rules happen to favour shorter stays as well.

1. Mark the dates you won’t miss. That might be birthdays, school holidays, Christmas or a new baby due. Plan your time away around them. Our guide to talking to your partner and family can help you start that conversation.
2. Choose the shape: a winter away, or two bases. A winter away is one long trip each year. With two bases you spend time in each place and make more trips in between.
3. Count each trip’s weeks. The 6 and 12-week points count from when you leave. If two trips are close together, ask Services Australia how it treats the short time home between them. Services Australia says you must tell it about any trip over 6 weeks. Our guide to the 6, 12 and 26-week rules explains each point.
4. Put flights home in the budget. The living cost estimates on this site don’t include flights, so trips home and an emergency fare come on top.
5. Agree how you’ll stay in touch. A regular video call and a shared photo album help, and someone in the family should have your address and insurance details.
6. Ask how a policy covers a dash home. Find out from insurers what happens if you need to fly home early for a family emergency.
7. Choose places that make visits easy. These suit grandparents:
   • Bali: Smartraveller says a visa on arrival gives 30 days, extendable once by 30. That fits a winter of up to about 8 weeks, at about A$3,970 a month for a couple (our estimate).
   • Penang: 90 days on arrival, so a full winter fits with no visa application.
   • New Zealand: close enough for family to visit you too, and a reciprocal health care agreement country.

A worked example

An example, not a real person.

Sandra and Phil are 68 and 70. They own their home in Perth and get the maximum couple rate of the Age Pension. Their daughter has two children under 10, and they want time in Bali without missing the July school holidays or Christmas.

So they plan eight weeks in Bali from early August to late September, then home for spring, summer and Christmas.

	Amount
Their Age Pension, couple maximum (A$1,866.00 a fortnight combined)	about A$4,040 a month
A month in Bali for a couple, rent included (our estimate)	about A$3,970 a month
Living costs for 8 weeks in Bali (our estimate)	about A$7,330

Pension rate from Services Australia (20 September 2026). How we worked out our estimate: Numbeo’s living costs for one person (without rent), plus a one-bedroom city-centre rent, plus 30% for eating out, local trips and extras. For a couple we multiply living costs by 1.8. We converted at the Reserve Bank of Australia’s average exchange rate for the 12 months to September 2026 (A$1 = 11,938 rupiah, for example). Health insurance isn’t included. Numbeo’s Bali page was last updated 15 October 2026. Its Bali rent is far above its figure for Denpasar, so this estimate may run high. Flights are extra.

How the rules fit:

• Visa: 30 days on arrival, extended once by 30 days at an immigration office, covers eight weeks. Smartraveller says Bali’s tourist levy is IDR 150,000 a person (about A$13), separate from the visa.
• Pension: eight weeks is under 12, so the Pension Supplement keeps paying. After 6 weeks the Energy Supplement stops and their Concession Cards are cancelled.
• Family: they video call every Sunday, and their daughter has a copy of their insurance and the villa address.
• The house: it stays their home, and Phil’s brother collects the mail.

What to ask a professional

• Insurance broker: “Does this policy cover an early flight home for a family emergency?” “Does it cover a second trip later in the year?”
• Registered tax agent: “If we spend part of each year overseas, does our tax residency change?”
• Licensed financial adviser: “If we later moved overseas for good, how would our pension and visits home add up?”
• The country’s embassy or a licensed visa agent there: “How does the 30-day extension work, and how long before the end of the first 30 days do we apply?”

Book a free planning session on Zoom. Once we know your situation, we can tell you which of these people to start with.