Add or cancel someone to act for you

How you add or cancel someone to help you with your Centrelink payments or aged care fees depends on the acting arrangement you choose.

You can add or cancel an acting arrangement at any time.

Adding someone

You can ask a person or organisation to help you with Centrelink. We call someone acting for you, a nominee.

Online

If you and the person you choose to act for you both have a Centrelink account linked to myGov, you can add a nominee arrangement online. Our online guide can help you add a nominee.

Sign in to myGov

If neither of you have this set up, create an account now.

The person or organisation acting for you must respond to the nominee request within 14 days.

By form

You can use a form to add someone to act for you.

For Centrelink, complete the Authorising a person or organisation to enquire or act on your behalf form. The person you choose to act for you must complete their section of the form before you send it to us. There are instructions on the form about how to send it to us.

Use the Aged Care Request for a Nominee for Department of Veterans’ Affairs customers form if you:

  • get a Department of Veterans’ Affairs payment, and
  • are in residential aged care or get a home care package.

Prove their identity

The person you ask to act for you must show photo identification at a service centre or agent and access point. For example, a current Australian driver licence or passport.

If an organisation is acting for you, they will need to verify their details. They’ll do this when they create their Provider Digital Access (PRODA) account to access nominee online services. Find out more about PRODA.

Cancelling someone to act for you

You can cancel a nominee arrangement at any time one of these ways:

Sign in to myGov

Our online guide can help you cancel an existing nominee arrangement using your online account.

When you cancel your arrangement, we’ll send a letter to you and the person who was acting for you.

When you cancel a payment nominee arrangement, update your bank details to make sure your payment is going where you want it to.

If your nominee is cancelling an arrangement

The person or organisation acting for you can cancel the acting arrangement by completing the Cancel nominee arrangement form.

We’ll send a letter to both of you when the acting arrangement is cancelled.

Adding a person permitted to enquire or update arrangement

A person permitted to enquire can only talk to us about your payments and services for you.

A person permitted to update can talk to us and make some updates to your Centrelink payments and services.

To add someone you can either:

Prove their identity

The person you ask must show photo identification at one of our service centres or agents and access points. For example, a current Australian driver licence or passport.

Cancelling a person permitted to enquire or update arrangement

To cancel a person permitted to enquire or update arrangement at any time, call us on your regular payment line or visit a service centre.

Adding an organisation to manage your money

You can ask us to send your payment straight to an organisation under a group payment arrangement for them to manage your payment. We can do this if both of these apply:

  • you get a pension
  • the organisation is approved for group payment arrangements.

To do this you and the organisation must complete the Send my payment to an institution - Group Payment form and return it to us. The details are on the form.

Cancelling a group payment arrangement

To cancel your payment from going to an organisation through a group payment arrangement, you should contact us. We’ll update your bank account details to make sure your payment is going where you want it to.

Adding someone to ask about your Status Resolution Support Services payment

You can authorise someone to ask about your Status Resolution Support Services payment if you need help. To do this, complete the Status Resolution Support Services payment - authorising a person or organisation to enquire on your behalf form.

Cancelling the Status Resolution Support Services acting arrangement

To cancel someone asking about your SRSS payment at any time, call us on your regular payment line.

Page last updated: 10 December 2024.
QC 80278