How to enrol your baby in Medicare if they were born overseas - Medicare

When you’re an Australian citizen

If your child has an Australian passport

If your child has an Australian passport, you can enrol them if they’ve come to Australia to live.

If your child has a foreign passport

If your child enters Australia on a foreign passport, you can enrol them if they both:

have Australian citizenship
have come to Australia to live.

If your child already has citizenship, they’re eligible for Medicare on the date they arrive.

If you apply for Australian citizenship for your child after they arrive, they’re eligible on the date they become a citizen.

If you’ve been overseas less than 5 years

If you’ve been overseas less than 5 years, fill out a Medicare enrolment form for your child.

You’ll also need to provide all of these documents for your child:

foreign passport
Australian citizenship certificate
birth certificate.

You don’t need to get the documents certified.

If you’ve been overseas more than 5 years

If you’ve been overseas more than 5 years, you need to both enrol:

yourself for Medicare again
your child in Medicare.

Complete a Medicare enrolment form for yourself and your child.

You’ll also need to provide 2 documents proving you live in Australia now.

You don’t need to get your documents certified.

Read more about enrolling in Medicare if you’re an Australian citizen.

When you’re an Australian permanent resident

If you’re an Australian permanent resident, you’ll need to apply for your child to be a permanent resident too. After this, you can enrol them in Medicare.

If you’ve been overseas less than 12 months

If you’ve been overseas less than 12 months, fill out a Medicare enrolment form for your child.

You’ll also need to provide all of these documents for your child:

passport
birth certificate
visa and proof the child has applied for or been granted permanent residency.

You don’t need to get the documents certified.

If you’ve been overseas more than 12 months

If you’ve been overseas more than 12 months, you need to enrol both:

yourself for Medicare again
your child in Medicare.

Complete a Medicare enrolment form for yourself and your child.

You’ll need to provide:

2 documents proving you live in Australia now
proof that you’re still eligible for Medicare yourself.

You don’t need to get your documents certified.

Read about how to enrol in Medicare if you’re an Australian permanent resident.

When you’re applying for permanent residency

If you’ve applied for permanent residency, you’ll need to apply for your child to be a permanent resident too. After this, you can enrol them in Medicare.

Fill out a Medicare enrolment form for your child. You’ll need to provide all of these documents for your child:

passport
visa
proof of application for permanent residency
birth certificate.

Find out more about enrolling in Medicare if you’ve applied for permanent residency.

Submitting your enrolment form and documents

Complete a Medicare enrolment form and mail or email it with your documents to Medicare Enrolment Services. If you email us, include ‘enrolment’ in the email subject line.

Make sure your documents are:

in PDF, JPG, PNG, GIF or BMP format
not password protected, or in a WinZip or RAR file
no larger than 5MB for each document
no larger than 10MB in total for all the documents.

If they were born overseas

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