HECS-HELP loan

If you are a Commonwealth supported student and you will be obtaining a HECS-HELP loan for all or part of your student contributions, then you must include your tax file number (TFN) or supply a Certificate of application for a TFN on your Commonwealth Assistance Form (CAF).

If you don't yet have one, you should apply for a TFN as soon as possible.

If you do not supply a tax file number or Certificate of application for a TFN to the University then you will be unable to obtain a HECS-HELP loan and will need to pay your student contribution amount up-front.

Note: If you are a Commonwealth supported student, and you are not eligible for a HECS-HELP loan or you will be paying all of your student contribution amounts upfront, then you do not need to supply your TFN on your CAF.

If your student contribution amount remains unpaid after the relevant due date your enrolment will be cancelled.

More information at Study Assist.

Apply for a tax file number at the Australian Tax Office.

A Commonwealth Assistance Notice (CAN) is a statement of your enrolment, a record of the Commonwealth assistance you have accessed as part of your studies and shows what has been deferred via a HELP program for future payment through the Australian Taxation Office.

Your CAN is not an invoice and does not require payment. If you are enrolled in semester and non-semester topics you may receive multiple CANs within the same semester. CANs are generated based on the census date for each topic you are studying.

A CAN is provided to all students who have received Commonwealth assistance, and will include:

• Information about your enrolment
• HECS-HELP, FEE-HELP, OS-HELP and SA-HELP loan amounts
• Any up-front payments (student contributions) you have made
• Any loan fee(s) you have incurred

In accordance with Commonwealth legislation, you will be provided with a CAN within 28 days:

• of a topics’ census date for which you have received Commonwealth assistance via HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP
• of the date the debt is incurred for SA-HELP and OS-HELP

You will receive a notification to your Flinders email account when your CAN is available. You can access your CAN via the Student System under the ‘My Documents’ tab.

When viewing the information in 'My Finances' in the Student System, it may appear that your fees are overdue even when a valid HECS-HELP form has been submitted. 

If you know that you have successfully submitted a HECS-HELP form in the Student Information System, then simply ignore your student contribution fees listed.  Fees will remain listed until after the census date when they are deferred.

To check that your HECS-HELP form has been submitted successfully, get your fee account from 'My Finances' in the Student System.  You should see that your fees are set to be deferred leaving $0.00 owed by you if you have submitted valid HELP forms.

Note that student services and amenities fees may also be due.  Again, check your fee account if you wish to confirm that a SA-HELP form has been submitted successfully to defer these fees.

The 2018 Student Loan Sustainability Bill introduced a combined HELP loan limit that applies from 1 January 2020.

The combined HELP loan limit replaced the FEE-HELP limit and includes HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP.

Only HECS-HELP borrowings from 1 January 2020 count towards a person's HELP limit. This means that any HECS-HELP loans taken out before 2020 does not count towards the HELP limit.

For 2025, the combined HELP loan limit will be $126,839 for most students. For students undertaking medicine, dentistry, veterinary science or eligible aviation courses, the HELP loan limit will be $182,172.

From the 2019-2020 income year, repayments made towards HELP loans will top up your HELP balance.

Any compulsory or voluntary repayments can be re-borrowed in the future, up to the then current HELP loan limit.

You do not need to start repaying your HECS-HELP debt until your income is above the minimum threshold for compulsory repayment.

In the 2024 - 2025 tax year the income threshold is $54,435.  Visit the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) website for more information about repayments, including early voluntary repayments.

To check your current outstanding HELP balance, you can either contact the ATO on 13 28 61 or log in to myGov and click on the 'Accounts' tab to access your 'loan accounts'. 

For more information about accessing your current outstanding HELP balance, visit the ATO's Repaying your student debt website.