{"id":321608,"date":"2026-02-28T09:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T09:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/321608\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T09:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T09:58:09","slug":"pensioners-investment-deeming-rates-to-rise-for-the-second-time-in-6-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/321608\/","title":{"rendered":"Pensioners’ investment deeming rates to rise for the second time in 6 months"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Federal Government has announced a second increase to\u00a0deeming<\/a>\u00a0rates, which may affect your eligibility for the age pension. <\/p>\n

This follows the first increase to deeming rates in five years, which came into effect on 20 September last year<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The lower deeming rate will rise from 0.75% to 1.25% for financial assets under $64,200 for single pensioners and $106,200 for couples.<\/p>\n

The upper deeming rate will be increased from 2.75% to 3.25% for financial assets above these amounts.<\/p>\n

The new deeming rates remain well below the typical interest rate on basic savings accounts.<\/p>\n

However, they may affect your pension eligibility if the higher rates push your income above the income test<\/a> thresholds.<\/p>\n

You may also receive a lesser pension as a result of higher deemed investment income. <\/p>\n

\"an<\/p>\n

Image source: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Deeming rates explained <\/p>\n

Deeming is the method used to estimate a pensioner’s investment income each year.<\/p>\n

Instead of asking pensioners to report their actual returns, the government assumes a ‘deemed’ rate of return.<\/p>\n

The relevant deeming rate is applied to the total value of your assets to work out your deemed investment income per year.<\/p>\n

That investment income, along with any other income, determines whether you’ll get the age pension, and if so, how much you’ll receive. <\/p>\n

Some assets, such as investment property<\/a>, are not subject to deeming rules. Pensioners have to report actual net rental income received.<\/p>\n

For most other assets, including ASX shares,\u00a0international shares<\/a>,\u00a0bonds<\/a>, and cash in savings accounts, the deeming rates apply. <\/p>\n

Minister for Social Services, Tanya Plibersek, said: <\/p>\n

To make sure our social security system delivers value for taxpayers it must be grounded in fairness, which is why we have made responsible adjustments to deeming rates.<\/p>\n

Minister Plibersek said the upcoming changes were in line with the government’s commitment to gradual changes to deeming rates.<\/p>\n

Deeming rates were frozen during the COVID pandemic and remained static for five years until September last year. <\/p>\n

Pension boost <\/p>\n

At the same time as announcing the new deeming rates, the minister gave an estimate as to how much the age pension payment would increase next month. <\/p>\n

Minister Plibersek said she expected the full single rate of age pension to go up by $22.20 per fortnight in the next lot of indexation changes, effective from 20 March. <\/p>\n

The Department of Social Services will confirm the exact amount next month. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Federal Government has announced a second increase to\u00a0deeming\u00a0rates, which may affect your eligibility for the age pension.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[72,176,61,60,174,175,2278],"class_list":["post-321608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-trending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}