Payment for mandatory placements

To help ease financial pressure during mandatory practical placements, the Australian Government is offering eligible domestic students a cost-of-living payment.

If you meet the eligibility requirements, for each week you’re doing a mandatory placement (up to the maximum number of weeks funded), you’ll get a payment of:

• $331.65 per week (from 1 July to 28 December 2025), and
• $338.60 per week (from 29 December 2025).

We’ll issue the funds to your nominated bank account as a single upfront payment, as close to the start date of your placement as possible.

Keep in mind, these payments are considered assessable income for taxation and social security purposes – this means you’ll need to report your Commonwealth Prac Payment (CPP) to the Australian Taxation Office, and it may impact how much you receive in Commonwealth income support payments (or financial assistance from other sources).

Maximum CPP-funded weeks of placement

There is a cap on the number of weeks for which you’re eligible to receive payments (based on the standard minimum period of placement required by the relevant accrediting body for your discipline). If your placement provider requires you to undertake your placement for longer than the period listed below, you won’t be eligible to receive payment for those additional weeks.

Eligibility

To receive payment, you’ll need to meet the enrolment, placement and income eligibility criteria.

If you don’t meet some of the eligibility criteria, you may still be able to receive the payment in exceptional circumstances.

Enrolment criteria

You need to be:

• a domestic student enrolled in a Commonwealth supported place (CSP), and
• enrolled (either full-time or part-time) in an eligible teaching, social work, nursing or midwifery degree (check the list below).

Eligible courses

Placement criteria

You must be undertaking a mandatory placement (in an eligible course) that:

• takes place on or after 1 July 2025
• is linked to the same field of study as your course, and
• involves either:

• an average of 30 hours or more per week (calculated across placement duration weeks from 1 July), or
• continuity of care (as part of a course of study in midwifery) that prevents you from maintaining paid work due to the need to be available during the placement.

Income criteria

You need to:

• be on a Commonwealth income support payment (including an ABSTUDY living allowance), or
• demonstrate that you need to work to support yourself during your studies:

• you worked on average more than 15 hours a week either in the four weeks before applying for the Commonwealth Prac Payment, or the four weeks before starting your placement – whichever is earlier (but no less than 60 hours across four weeks), and
• earned no more than $1,500 per week during 2025 or $1,536.70 per week during 2026 (before tax) on average within the same four-week period. This includes scholarship payments, or similar financial cost-of-living assistance from the Commonwealth, States and Territories.

Applying the need to work thresholds to your CPP application:

• If you apply in 2026 for a placement you finished in 2025, your application will be checked against the 2025 threshold.
• If you apply in 2025 for a placement you will finish in 2026, your application will be checked against the 2026 threshold.

When you’re assessing your eligibility, keep in mind that scholarship payments received during the four-week period will be converted to a weekly amount and assessed as part of your income eligibility threshold.

Supporting documents

Regardless of whether you meet the Commonwealth income support or need to work criteria, you’ll need to declare all of your income sources (with supporting documents) that are paid directly to you within the four-week period (including scholarships/bursaries, wage subsidies, and any other university or government support).

Commonwealth income support

To prove you’re receiving Commonwealth income support, you’ll need to submit a copy of your Centrelink payment details or an income statement (log into your Centrelink account and select Request a document under Documents and appointments).

If you’re receiving payments from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, you can submit a copy of your DVA Payment Summary or General Statement of Pension.

Need to work

To show you meet the need to work criteria, you can submit copies of your payslips (or payroll prints, time sheets and wages sheets), or if you’re self-employed, you can submit client invoicing and billing information, or sole trader timesheets.

Just make sure your documents show you worked more than 15 hours a week on average either in the four weeks before applying for the Commonwealth Prac Payment or the four weeks before starting your placement – whichever is earlier (but no less than 60 hours across four weeks).

Exceptional circumstances

If you’re experiencing exceptional circumstances that prevent you from meeting the income or placement-hours eligibility criteria (but you meet all other requirements), you may still be able to receive the payment. The circumstances can be temporary or ongoing, but they must fall into one of the following categories:

• Disability
• Health or medical condition
• Significant personal or family circumstances.

What are exceptional circumstances

Exceptional circumstances are circumstances that:

• are outside your control (such as a disability) and/or temporary, uncommon, irregular, or unusual (such as a short-term illness), and
• can be shown (via documented and credible evidence) to have a direct and significant impact on your ability to meet the eligibility requirements.

If exceptional circumstances prevent you from meeting the income criteria, you’ll need to show that you’d usually meet the criteria during your normal studies (for example, you worked a minimum of 15 hours and earned less than $1,500 (for 2025 placements) or $1,536.37 (for 2026 placements) a week prior to being impacted by exceptional circumstances).

The impact of the exceptional circumstances also needs to have occurred either during the four-week evidentiary period (detailed under income criteria) or during your placement (full-time basis of more than 30 hours per week on average).

Examples of exceptional circumstances

Exceptional circumstances could include:

• Being unable to work more than 15 hours per week on average because of an illness, disability or caring responsibilities, despite ordinarily relying on paid employment of less than $1,500 (for 2025 placements) or $1,536.37 (for 2026 placements) per week (before tax).
• Needing reasonable adjustments made to your placement hours (to less than 30 hours per week on average) – illness or disability entitles you to adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education 2005.

Supporting documents

Depending on your circumstances and the category of exceptional circumstances you’re applying for, here are some examples of evidence you can provide in support of your application:

• Disability: Details of the disability or condition documented by a registered health practitioner, Individual Education Plan, Placement Reasonable Adjustment Plan or similar.
• Health or medical condition:
• Significant personal or family circumstances: Statutory declarations, medical certificates, death certificates or other evidence that demonstrate the circumstances.

• Medical certificate or statements, or letters of support from registered health practitioners which outline:
• In circumstances of caregiving, letters of support from the registered health practitioner of the person receiving the care.

• the details of an illness or chronic condition
• the kinds of adjustments that may be required
• how long the adjustments should apply, or a Placement Reasonable Adjustment Plan (or similar).

How to apply

If you believe exceptional circumstances apply to your situation, you'll need to submit a different application on the CPP portal. Each application is assessed on a case-by-case basis in consultation with the Department of Education.

If your application is accepted, you’ll only receive payment for the period you were affected by exceptional circumstances.

If you don’t meet the criteria for exceptional circumstances, see our financial assistance page for information on other ways we can support you during your studies.

Disputing your outcome

If you don’t agree with your outcome, you can request a review by submitting a complaint to the Department of Education. If you're not satisfied with their review, you can request a review from the Commonwealth Ombudsman.

Apply for exceptional circumstances

How to apply

You’ll need to submit a separate application for each mandatory placement you complete. Placements that meet the eligibility criteria will appear in the CPP portal and be available for you to apply. You can expect placements to start appearing in the portal approximately two to four weeks before your placement commences.

You can apply up to six months after your placement commences (but before you graduate) at the latest.

If your placement details are incorrect or do not appear in the portal at least two weeks before your placement commences, contact your Placement Coordinator.

Bachelor of Education (Honours) students

If you’re a Bachelor of Education (Honours) student in your first, second or third year, you have a different application process:

1. Check your placement details in InPlace – they’ll be available two to four weeks before your placement begins.You'll also receive an email from your faculty’s Professional Experience Office (PEO) with detailed instructions on how to confirm your placement schedule. You’ll need to do this before you can apply for CPP.
2. After confirming your placement schedule with your placement host, you'll need to update your schedule details in InPlace and confirm the number of weeks you’re on placement for at least 30 hours per week (as per the CPP placement criteria).
3. Apply for CPP in the CPP portal during the second week of your placement (as long as you meet the eligibility criteria), and up to six months after your placement starts.

Your PEO will send you all the information you need to apply about two to four weeks before your placement starts, so look out for their email around that time.

Apply for the payment

If you’re applying under exceptional circumstances, you’ll need to submit a different application – check the information above for details.

After you’ve applied

Once you’ve applied, you’ll receive an email with an outcome.

If you applied for CPP more than two weeks before your placement began, the CPP support team will email you before you can get your payment to confirm your circumstances have not changed. You’ll also be asked to confirm your banking details.

Need to make changes to your application?

If you’d like to add supporting documents to your application or make any other changes, contact the CPP support team through the portal (just click the messaging icon in the bottom-right corner after you log in).

Receiving your payment

If your application is approved, we’ll send a single upfront payment for each of your placements to your nominated bank account (equivalent to $331.65 per week for 2025 placements and $338.60 per week for 2026 placements).

The timing of your CPP payment depends on when your placement is scheduled and when you submitted your CPP application. You’d normally get your payment during week two of your placement, but you might need to wait up to two weeks if:

• you recently added your bank details to the CPP portal
• your application was approved after your placement started.

You’ll receive a notification once your payment has been processed.

Reporting your payment

If your application is approved, you’ll need to report your CPP payments to:

• the Australian Taxation Office as part of your annual tax return – you’ll be able to access a statement on the CPP portal at the end of the financial year to help you with this
• Services Australia, so that they can assess your ongoing rates of social security payment or other allowances, if applicable
• the Department of Veterans Affairs, if applicable.

Need help?

• For questions about your CPP application or payment, submit a question on the CPP portal by clicking the messaging icon in the bottom-right corner after you log in.
• For general information about CPP, contact Monash Connect.
• If your placement details are incorrect on the portal, contact your Placement Coordinator.

More information

Australian Government’s Commonwealth Prac Payment page

Australian Government’s Frequently Asked Questions page