Employing Workers Under the Seasonal Worker Programme

The Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP) allows people from Pacific nations and Timor-Leste to work in Australia on short-term assignments.

The following applies to payees who work in Australia under the SWP:

• they have tax withheld at a flat rate (15% at time of writing) except if they are tax residents of Papua New Guinea or Kiribati and are in Australia for less than 90 days, in which case they are exempt from withholding

• they do not have to provide a Tax File Number (TFN) Declaration.

In FastTrack360 a Payee record is created for an SWP payee by setting the following in the PAYG Tax Details section of the Payee Entry screen:

• the Tax Scale field must be set to the Variation - Approved Withholding Variation Percentage option

• the Seasonal Worker Program field must be ticked

• if the payee meets the criteria for being exempt from withholding, the Exempt From Withholding field must be ticked

• if the payee is not exempt from withholding, the applicable withholding percentage must be keyed in the Withholding Variation % field.

For more information about creating payees, see How to Create a Payee.

For more information about the SWP, see Seasonal Worker Programme and Pacific Labour Scheme | Australian Taxation Office (ato.gov.au)