Youth Allowance for job seekers

A payment if you’re 21 or younger and looking for work or temporarily unable to work because of illness or injury.

This is a payment from Services Australia.

Who can get it

To get this payment, you must be aged 16 to 21 and one of the following:

looking for full time work
unable to do your usual work or study for a short time because of illness or injury.

Find out more about who can get it and how much you can get on the Services Australia website.

If you know your circumstances are going to change, you can start your claim up to 13 weeks before the change.

If your circumstances change without much notice, it’s best to claim as soon as possible.

Find out more about when to claim on the Services Australia website.

You'll need to link Centrelink to your myGov account, if you haven’t already.

Follow the steps to create a myGov account. After you’ve created one, you can link services to your account.

Call the Centrelink multilingual phone service on 131 202 to speak with someone in your language.

Page last updated: 31 March 2025