Commonwealth Rent Assistance - single, no child, share accommodation

What Is This Payment?

The sharer variant of Commonwealth Rent Assistance is tagged as a monetary primary federal benefit in the Commonwealth Rent Assistance cluster, with the additional sharer tag in the rule database. The entitlement scope is per-person and ongoing, like the rest of the cluster. CRA itself remains a supplementary payment that rides on top of a qualifying primary payment such as JobSeeker, Age Pension, Disability Support Pension, Carer Payment, Parenting Payment, Youth Allowance, Austudy, ABSTUDY, or Family Tax Benefit Part A above the base.

The administering body is Services Australia. Channels recorded on the rule are online and service centre, identical to the non-sharer single rule, because the same myGov accommodation update form drives the assessment. The difference is captured by a single field in the answer: when the customer ticks share-accommodation in the housing details, the engine routes them to this rule instead of the standard single rule, applying the lower cap.

The design intent of this rule is to mirror the household-economics observation that two unrelated adults sharing a kitchen, bathroom, and living area together do not bear the full rent cost individually that an isolated tenant would. Centrelink reduces the cap to two-thirds of the non-sharer single rate (math: $219.40 multiplied by 2/3 equals approximately $146.27). Boarding-house residents on a board-with-meals arrangement are also assessed via this path, with rent counted at two-thirds of the inclusive board figure.

How Much Can You Get?

The amount block is defined as fixed, paid fortnightly. The rule value is $146.27 per fortnight, which is the maximum payable cap for a single sharer without dependent children. Across 26 fortnights this approximates $3,803.02 per year, although the assessment cycle is fortnightly and is paid alongside the underlying entitlement.

The minimum-rent threshold and the slope are identical to the non-sharer rule: payable equals min($146.27, 0.75 times max(0, fortnightly share of rent minus $154.80)). What differs is the maximum-rate rent point: the cap is reached at $349.83 per fortnight, instead of $447.34 in the non-sharer rule, because the cap itself is lower.

Audit the calculation in five steps:

1. Confirm the qualifying primary payment is current.
2. Identify the customer's personal share of fortnightly rent (not the household total). For board-and-lodging, take two-thirds of the inclusive amount.
3. Subtract the $154.80 threshold; if the result is zero or negative, CRA is zero.
4. Multiply the excess by 0.75.
5. Apply the cap at $146.27; the smaller of the two values is the payable CRA.

The output display period in the rule is yearly. The rule has empty multiplier, empty reduces_if, and empty date_windows. There is no income taper inside this rule because that test runs on the qualifying primary payment, and there are no date-sliced rate variants.

A worked comparison highlights the sharer impact. A single tenant paying $400 per fortnight in a non-shared rental receives the non-sharer cap of $219.40 (because $400 is above $447.34's calculated entitlement after the 0.75 slope reaches the cap), wait - $400 minus $154.80 is $245.20, times 0.75 is $183.90, which is below $219.40 so the non-sharer payable is $183.90. The same $400 paid as a personal share in a share-house yields min($146.27, $183.90), which equals $146.27. The sharer carve-out costs roughly $37.63 per fortnight at this rent level.

Eligibility Conditions

The eligibility block is an all set, so every item must pass.

1. Qualifying primary payment: receiving_qualifying_payment = true. The qualifying list includes JobSeeker, Age Pension, DSP, Carer Payment, Parenting Payment, Youth Allowance, Austudy, ABSTUDY, and FTB Part A above the base rate.
2. Private rental: is_renting_private = true. Same scope as the non-sharer rule: community housing, retirement village service fees, and boat mooring fees count; rent paid to a state public housing authority does not.
3. Single status: partner_status = single. Partnered adults living in share-style arrangements are assessed under one of the couple CRA rules, not here.
4. No dependent children: dependent_children = false. The presence of any dependent child routes the assessment out of the no-child cluster.
5. Share accommodation: is_share_accommodation = true. Sharing kitchen, bathroom, or major living areas with at least one unrelated adult triggers this rule.
6. Rent above threshold: rent_fortnightly > 154.80. The threshold is identical to the non-sharer rule and uses the same strict greater-than comparison.

Required fields are partner status, dependent children, private renting, fortnightly rent (the customer's share), qualifying payment status, and the share-accommodation flag. The flag is the discriminator between this rule and the non-sharer rule and is asked explicitly during the rent details update inside the Centrelink online account.

The exclude block is empty. Routing happens by eligibility. Switching from share-house to a self-contained one-bedroom flat changes the answer to is_share_accommodation = false, which fails item 5 and pushes the case to the non-sharer rule with the higher $219.40 cap.

Two practical considerations from the rule notes are worth flagging. First, only the personal share of rent is counted in the formula; sharing a $900 house with two flatmates and reporting $900 will be corrected on review. Second, board-with-meals arrangements (where the room rent includes meals from the household) are calculated at two-thirds of the inclusive board figure, so a $400 board-and-meals charge is treated as $266.67 of rent for CRA purposes.

How To Apply

Application metadata defines two channels: online and service centre. There is no separate sharer claim; the same accommodation details screen in the Centrelink online account branches on the share-accommodation flag and routes the rule selection. Customers who recently moved into a share house should update the rent details before the next assessment fortnight to ensure CRA flows on time.

Evidence requirements are explicit in the rule:

• lease agreement or rent proof - typically a written tenancy agreement listing all co-tenants, or a sub-tenancy agreement for room renters; a Rent Certificate signed by the head tenant or landlord is accepted where no formal lease exists for the sharer

Two practical tips. First, name all flatmates and the rent split clearly on the lease or rent certificate so there is no ambiguity at review time about who is paying which share. Second, if the household includes a non-related adult who is not a tenant on the lease but contributes to rent, Centrelink may still treat the situation as share accommodation; honesty about the living layout avoids retrospective reclassification.

Update rent details on the official Services Australia page

Rule-Based Scenarios

Scenario 1: full-rate sharer cap

Indra is 27, single, no dependent children, on Youth Allowance while studying. She rents a room in a 4-bedroom house with three unrelated flatmates, paying $360 per fortnight as her share of the $1,440 household rent. Excess rent above $154.80 is $205.20; multiplied by 0.75 gives $153.90, which exceeds the $146.27 sharer cap. CRA pays her the full $146.27 per fortnight.

Scenario 2: partial rate, JobSeeker recipient

Faisal is 38, single, no dependent children, on JobSeeker. He rents a room in a friend's house for $230 per fortnight. Excess rent is $75.20; multiplied by 0.75 gives $56.40, which is well below the $146.27 cap so it becomes the payable amount. His CRA top-up is $56.40 per fortnight.

Scenario 3: not eligible, rent share below threshold

Lisbet shares a regional rental with two friends and her share comes to $140 per fortnight. The strict eligibility item rent_fortnightly > 154.80 fails, so CRA returns zero. The other tenants might individually receive CRA if their personal shares are higher, but Lisbet does not because her share does not clear the minimum threshold.

Scenario 4: routed back to non-sharer rule

Magnus moves out of his share house into a self-contained granny flat behind a friend's house. He has his own kitchen and bathroom, and he reports the new arrangement on myGov as not-shared. The eligibility item is_share_accommodation = true now fails, so this rule no longer applies; the engine evaluates the non-sharer single rule and his cap rises to $219.40 per fortnight.

Common Mistakes

• Reporting the household rent instead of the personal share: share-house tenants who tell Centrelink the full $1,200 household rent rather than their $300 personal share inflate the apparent rent. The figure will be corrected on review using the lease or rent certificate, often producing a debt covering several fortnights.
• Treating a granny flat as share accommodation: a self-contained granny flat with its own kitchen and bathroom is not share accommodation, even if it is on the same block as a friend's house. Ticking is_share_accommodation = true in this case routes the customer here at the lower $146.27 cap when they were entitled to the full $219.40 elsewhere.
• Ignoring the two-thirds rule for board with meals: board-and-meals arrangements have CRA calculated on two-thirds of the inclusive amount, not the full board figure. Reporting the full $450 board fee instead of the $300 rent equivalent overstates entitlement and can produce a recoverable overpayment.
• Counting siblings or relatives as share-makers: living with a parent, sibling, partner, or dependent child does not constitute share accommodation under CRA rules. Only unrelated adults sharing major facilities trigger this rule, so a customer living with a brother and his partner should not tick the share flag.
• Missing the rent update when a flatmate moves out: when one of three flatmates leaves and the remaining two split the rent, each personal share rises. CRA must be recalculated on the higher share figure; a missed update leaves money on the table.
• Assuming the cap rises during peak rent markets: the $146.27 cap is set in the rule version 2025-26 and does not move with local rent inflation. High-rent metropolitan tenants in share houses already hit the cap once their share exceeds $349.83, with no further uplift inside this rule.

Related Benefits

The conflicts list mirrors the rest of the CRA cluster. The sharer carve-out is unusual in that the most direct cross-reference is to the non-sharer single rule, because moving in or out of share accommodation is the most common trigger for switching rules within the cluster.

• Commonwealth Rent Assistance - single, no dependent child - direct conflict; tenants leave share accommodation and route here at the higher $219.40 cap.
• Commonwealth Rent Assistance - single, 1-2 dependent children - sharer status does not apply once a dependent child is in the household; routing moves to the with-child rule.
• Commonwealth Rent Assistance - couple, no dependent child (combined) - partnered share-housers are assessed here; the sharer carve-out applies to single tenants only.
• JobSeeker Payment - single, 22+, no dependent child - the most common qualifying primary payment for working-age share-house tenants.
• Youth Allowance (job seeker) - independent or living away from home - frequent qualifying payment for younger share-house tenants in the 16-21 band.
• Health Care Card (HCC) - auto-issued with most qualifying primary payments and runs alongside the same CRA stream.

Frequently Asked Questions