Living Away From Home Allowance

The Living Away from Home Allowance (LAFHA) is paid to employees who live away from home to compensate for additional expenses or disadvantages that arise while working in a new location.

These employees could include the following:

• Australian residents moving to other locations within Australia
• Overseas long stay visa holders
• Australians working overseas

What are the benefits to your organisation?

LAFHA allowances mean your employees increase their take home pay by legitimately reducing tax.

For example, a salary earner of $100,000 with a spouse and one child can potentially be better off by $15,000 per annum.

This means that you can:

• Reduce financial stress of relocation for your employees
• Boost recruitment and retention
• Build staff loyalty
• Reduce some on-costs to your organisation such as workers’ compensation insurance premiums and payroll tax
• Transfer risk of error to third party
• Free capacity within your organisation.

Getting the right advice

LAFHA is complex and time consuming to administer and Bates Cosgrave can offer your business and employees the right advice and support needed to take advantage of this allowance. We work extensively with businesses that have mobile workforces, both international and within Australia, ensuring that our team is experienced in delivering a premium service.

We also work with individuals who are transitioning from temporary to permanent residency helping them navigate the significant taxation implications in Australia.

More information

Download a copy of our LAFHA and relocation fact sheets and if you would like to discuss your needs, please contact Matt Zhou on 02 9957 4033.