Deeming rates for the Age Pension, 2026–27

The Age Pension’s income test doesn’t look at what your savings and investments actually earned. Instead it assumes, or deems, that they earned a set rate, and counts that as income. The rates are set by the Government and have moved a lot in recent years, so they can change a pension by hundreds or thousands of dollars a year without anything in your accounts changing.

What is deemed

Financial assets: bank accounts and term deposits, offset accounts, shares, managed funds, and super. Super paying an account-based pension is deemed at any age; super still in accumulation is deemed once its owner reaches Age Pension age, 67. The family home isn’t a financial asset and isn’t deemed. An investment property isn’t deemed either: its rent is counted as income instead.

The rates for 2026–27

As at 20 September 2026, Services Australia deems:

Before that the rates were 1.25% and 3.25%, from 20 March 2026, and 0.75% and 2.75% from 20 September 2025; the thresholds were $64,200 and $106,200 until 1 July 2026. The thresholds are indexed each 1 July; the rates move only when the Minister sets them.

An example

A single pensioner has $200,000 across a bank account, shares and an account-based pension.

• The first $66,800 is deemed to earn 1.75%: $1,169 a year.
• The other $133,200 is deemed to earn 3.75%: $4,995 a year.
• Deemed income: $6,164 a year, about $237 a fortnight, whatever the accounts actually earned.

On the rates and thresholds from 20 March 2026 the same $200,000 was deemed to earn $5,216 a year. With no other income, $237 a fortnight is $11 over the single income free area of $226, so the income test would take about $5.50 a fortnight off the pension, at 50 cents for each dollar over. The pension paid is the lower of what the income test and the assets test give, so the assets test can still be the one that sets it; our post on the income and assets tests explains how the two fit together.

Why deeming matters to a plan

• A portfolio that earns more than the deemed rate is assessed on less than it earns, and one that earns less, such as cash in a low-rate account, is assessed on more.
• Money moved out of financial assets, into the home or spent, stops being deemed, and money moved into them starts. Selling an investment property turns rent, counted as income, into cash that is deemed.
• A rate change moves every pensioner’s assessed income at once, so a projection that holds deemed income fixed drifts from the real figure.

In a projection

My Runway works out the Age Pension each year from Age Pension age, with each year’s financial assets deemed at the published rates and the thresholds indexed each July. Past the latest published table it keeps the deeming rates where they were last set and grows the thresholds with inflation. Treat the result as an estimate and confirm with Services Australia.