Working holiday tax and your passport
Do I pay 15% working holiday tax on a Germany passport?
Not necessarily. Germany is one of eight countries whose treaty carries a non-discrimination article. If you are also an Australian resident for tax purposes, you are taxed on the resident scale rather than at 15% from the first dollar.
The two conditions
Both must hold. The passport must be one of the eight, and you must be an Australian resident for tax purposes. Most people on a working holiday are not residents for tax purposes, which is why the article helps fewer people than the country list suggests.
Where both do hold, the difference is large: the working holiday scale charges 15% from the first dollar, while the resident scale gives you the tax-free threshold first.
Which scale applies
If you are not a resident for tax purposes, the working holiday scale applies: 15% to $45,000, then 30% to $135,000, 37% to $190,000 and 45% above. If you are a resident, the resident brackets apply instead — and the low income tax offset still does not, because that offset is written for residents on the resident scale.
One thing to know about this year's table
The ATO had not published a 2026–27 working holiday maker table as at 25 Aug 2026, although the 2026–27 resident brackets were published on 13 Aug 2026. This carries the 2025–26 table forward unchanged and must be re-checked when the ATO publishes.
What this rests on
Every figure above comes from one of these records. This list is generated from them, so it cannot fall out of step with the calculator.
- ATO — taxation of Australian resident WHMs from NDA countries
- au.whm.nda-countries · effective 1 Jan 2017 · read 23 Aug 2026
- ATO — tax rates, working holiday maker
- au.whm.rates.2026-27 · effective 1 Jul 2026 to 30 Jun 2027 · read 23 Aug 2026