//
© 2026 Zoe. All rights reserved.
Zoe is a legal information platform. Always consult the official source for authoritative text.
Commonwealth act
This Act is essentially a tax-imposing mechanism for Australians living overseas who still owe money on their student loans or apprenticeship support loans.
This law affects Australians living or working overseas who have outstanding balances on any of these loan types:
Under the normal system, Australians repay their student loans through the tax system — when they lodge a tax return and earn above a certain threshold, repayments are automatically collected. But if you move overseas, you're no longer filing Australian tax returns, so the standard collection mechanism doesn't work.
This Act formally imposes a levy (a compulsory charge) on overseas debtors so that the government has a legal basis to collect repayments from people living abroad. The amount you owe is still calculated by the other relevant acts (the Higher Education Support Act, VET Student Loans Act, or Australian Apprenticeship Support Loans Act) — this Act simply gives the government the constitutional power to actually charge it as a tax/levy.
Want the full deep dive?
Zoe can write the in-depth analysis on top of the summary above: how it works, who it affects and what each part actually does.
Direct links to the current provisions in Student Loans (Overseas Debtors Repayment Levy) Act 2015.
Zoe has indexed the source text for search and analysis. Use the official register for the original document and download formats.
View on official registerSourced from the Federal Register of Legislation (legislation.gov.au), CC BY 4.0.
If you've moved overseas and have an Australian student or apprenticeship loan, you can't escape your repayment obligations just by leaving Australia. This law ensures those debts can still be legally collected from you, regardless of where you live.