Medicare on a working holiday visa, country by country

Last checked: 15 August 2026

The default answer is no. Home Affairs puts it plainly: you are personally liable for all your healthcare costs while you are in Australia, and they strongly recommend you take out health insurance. The only way around that is a Reciprocal Health Care Agreement between Australia and your country.

The eleven countries on the list

Australia has agreements with Belgium, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. New Zealanders don't need a working holiday visa, so ten of them matter here, and Slovenia is the only one in the Work and Holiday (462) program — the rest are 417 countries.

Every other working-holiday passport gets no Medicare and pays full price. Germany, France, Canada, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Denmark, Estonia and Hong Kong are all outside the scheme, and so is every 462 country except Slovenia.

What the agreement actually gives you

For nine of the ten it is a real Medicare enrolment covering three things: medically necessary care out of hospital, medically necessary care as a public patient in a public hospital including inpatient and outpatient services, and some PBS prescription medicines at the general rate. It does not apply if you travelled to Australia to get treatment.

Ireland is the tenth, and it works differently. Services Australia says Irish visitors don't enrol in Medicare and won't get a Medicare card. The cover is public hospital care only — inpatient and outpatient — and outpatient care does not include visits to a medical practitioner. A GP appointment comes out of your pocket. At a public hospital or pharmacy you ask staff to treat you under the reciprocal health care agreement and show your Irish passport.

When the cover runs out

Cover always starts the day you arrive. The end date is where the agreements diverge, and it is rarely the end of your visa.

• Italy: ends after 6 months or when your visa expires, whichever comes first
• Malta: ends after 6 months unless your visa expires earlier
• Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and Slovenia: ends when the first of your home health insurance, your European Health Insurance Card or your visa expires
• Finland and Sweden: visa expiry if you are a citizen, the insurance test if you are not
• Ireland and the United Kingdom: the day your visa expires

Norway has the extra conditions worth flagging. To be eligible you must have been living in Norway before you arrived and been a member of the Norwegian National Insurance Scheme, and Norwegian diplomats are the one group the agreement excludes rather than includes. The UK asks for evidence you were resident in the UK, Jersey, Guernsey or the Isle of Man.

Enrolling, and what to do if you can't

Italy and the UK can enrol online through myGov. The others complete a Medicare enrolment form and send it in with a copy of your current visa, your passport and proof you are covered at home. If you are here briefly and don't need care, there is no reason to enrol at all. If you get treated before you enrol, enrol and then submit the claim — Services Australia will tell you whether a benefit is payable.

If you are not eligible, buy overseas visitor health cover before you fly. Without it you carry the full cost of anything that goes wrong. And if you lodge an Australian tax return while ineligible, you can claim a Medicare levy exemption — for that you need a Medicare Entitlement Statement from Services Australia.

Medicare, answered

Whether you can even apply is the age limit guide, and the rest of the rules are in the guides. What get88 actually does is on the homepage.