Lifetime Pension

Transition to Retirement

Retirement Income account

Lifetime Pension

What’s a Lifetime Pension?

The Lifetime Pension is a product you purchase with your super that gives you fortnightly tax-free payments for the rest of your life. You can use some or all of your super to buy a Lifetime Pension.

The money you use to buy a Lifetime Pension then gets pooled with other Lifetime Pensions. We invest this pool of money in the Balanced Risk-Adjusted option. You get paid a fortnightly income for life from that pool.

Why buy a Lifetime Pension?

Income for life

Payments designed to increase over time

Potential Age Pension benefits

Optional spouse protection

6-month cooling-off period

Money-back protection¹

How it works

The Lifetime Pension is an alternative way of using your super to create a regular income in retirement that will last for the rest of your life.

Here’s how it works:

You’ll need at least $10,000 in super to get started.

If you’re eligible, you’ll get a bonus when you open a Lifetime Pension with money from your QSuper Accumulation or Transition to Retirement account.

You can choose from a single or spouse protection option, which means if you die, your payments keep going to your spouse for the rest of their life.

When you buy a Lifetime Pension, we invest the money you used to buy it with other Lifetime Pensions, in the Balanced Risk-Adjusted option.

We pay you a tax-free fortnightly income for life from this pool. We adjust this amount every year.

Once you buy a Lifetime Pension, you have 6 months to decide whether it’s right for you. After this, it’s a permanent purchase.

Download the Product Disclosure Statement (pdf)

How you get paid

Payments are fortnightly, and how much you get paid from a Lifetime Pension changes each year. The amount you’ll get depends on the pool's performance, your age, when you purchased the Lifetime Pension, fees, and mortality experience. This makes sure the pool can keep paying everyone an income for life.

We expect payments to increase over time, but they could go up or down.

How it works with other sources of income

You can use the Lifetime Pension alongside other pensions or sources of income. But it could also give you Age Pension benefits too. That’s because only 60% of your Lifetime Pension purchase price counts towards Centrelink’s income and assets tests.²

Age Pension

Only 60% of the money you use to buy a Lifetime Pension counts towards Centrelink’s income and assets tests.²

This might mean you become eligible to get some or more Age Pension payments.

Retirement Income account

You can continue to get paid a regular income from a Retirement Income account alongside a Lifetime Pension.

Accumulation account or other funds

Your Lifetime Pension doesn’t affect your Accumulation account.

Example of how you could use your difference sources of income

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Lifetime Pension

Age Pension

Regular income paid for life

Income to pay for the things you cannot live without, such as:

Housing

Transportation

Utilities

Food

Clothing

Medical expenses

Income account

Other income sources

Flexible payments and accessible funds

To pay for the things that improve your standard of living, such as:

Meals out

Regular coffees

Long travel

Leisure

Sports and membership

Weekends away

How much you can get

Lifetime Pension payment rates

Find out how much you could get in your first year.

Retirement Calculator

Compare your income when using different products.

Lifetime Pension payment rates

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Besides pool performance, how much you will be paid in your first year also depends on:

Your purchase price
Whether you have the single or the spouse protection option
Your exact age in days when your Lifetime Pension starts (or if you have the spouse protection option, the age of the younger person)
When your Lifetime Pension starts during the financial year.

This table shows the annual payment amounts per $100,000 at the start of a Lifetime Pension. Your first-year payment will be a pro-rata amount according to when you purchased the product. Payments after the first year will be based on our annual adjustment.

The spouse protection rate will apply if you choose to have payments continue to your spouse when you pass away, based on the age of the younger person.

Download the PDS for more information.

Payment amount at start of Lifetime Pension per year per $100,000

Starting age	Single person rate	Spouse protection option rate
60	$6,485	$6,075
61	$6,582	$6,151
62	$6,686	$6,233
63	$6,797	$6,321
64	$6,914	$6,416
65	$7,041	$6,518
66	$7,176	$6,627
67	$7,320	$6,745
68	$7,474	$6,872
69	$7,640	$7,009
70	$7,817	$7,156
71	$8,006	$7,315
72	$8,211	$7,486
73	$8,430	$7,673
74	$8,664	$7,872
75	$8,917	$8,088
76	$9,189	$8,323
77	$9,479	$8,574
78	$9,793	$8,846
79	$10,131	$9,142
80	$10,489	$9,456

Recognised for innovation

Our Lifetime Pension has won several awards for helping you feel more confident about enjoying retirement. These include Chant West's Longevity Award 2023 for making your super last, and Canstar's Innovation Excellence Award 2023.³

Why retire with QSuper?

Your QSuper account is managed by Australian Retirement Trust (ART). That means you're with one of the biggest super funds in Australia!

Focused on long-term returns

We automatically invest your Lifetime Pension pool in Balanced Risk-Adjusted, which aims to produce strong, long-term returns with less ups and downs along the way.

Award-winning customer service

Our dedicated and friendly team is rated #1 for customer satisfaction, according to Finder.³ And you have access to education and seminars to help you make your super last.

Profit for members

With over a century of experience,⁴ we're always working hard for our 2.4 million members. And as a profit-for-member fund, you can be sure we're working in your best interests.

Open a Lifetime Pension

Make your super last with an income for life.

Open your Lifetime Pension

FAQs

Have a question? Check here

Who can open a Lifetime Pension?

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You can start a Lifetime Pension any time between your 60th and 80th birthdays, if you meet at least one of the following conditions:

Permanently retired
Stopped working on or after your 60th birthday
Aged 65 or older
Received an eligible death benefit
Met another approved condition of release.

Download the PDS (pdf) to find out more about eligibility. If you don't already have a QSuper account, you can still open a Lifetime Pension.

You can also open a Retirement Income account anytime after retiring, and these two products are designed to work well together.

Attend one of our member seminars to find out more about your retirement options.

Is the Lifetime Pension a retirement income stream from your super?

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Yes, once you open a Lifetime Pension with your super, it becomes an income stream.

You get fortnightly tax-free payments for the rest of your life, and the life of your spouse (if you've chosen the spouse protection option).
It can be used with an account-based pension like our Retirement Income account to build an income stream to meet your individual needs.

If you're not ready to retire, our Transition to Retirement Income account gives you payments from your super while you're still working.

Find out why it's great to retire with us. You can explore your options for retirement income with our Retirement Calculator to help you make the most of your super.

Is the Lifetime Pension an account-based pension?

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Our Lifetime Pension isn't an account-based pension but it's designed so you can combine it with one (like our Retirement Income account) to take advantage of the differences between the two product types:

With an Income account, there's no guarantee that your balance will last your lifetime. It may run out. So our Lifetime Pension provides an income for life.
A Retirement Income account is more flexible - you can choose your investment options, change how much and how often you get payments, and take out money when needed. Your Lifetime Pension is a set-and-forget product that is designed to maximise income, so you can’t change your annually adjusted payments or how they are invested.
Once you purchase a Lifetime Pension, you can't withdraw that money after the 6-month cooling-off period, except for terminal illness or death. So a Retirement Income account can be helpful because it allows withdrawals at any time.
Centrelink's income and assets tests for the Age Pension treat an Income account and a Lifetime Pension differently.

Using our Lifetime Pension together with an account-based pension can give you the best of both worlds: the confidence of an income for life, and the flexibility to withdraw money when you need it.

Learn more about account-based pensions or consider getting financial advice about how our retirement solutions might suit you.

Can't find an answer to your question? Try our full list of Lifetime Pension FAQs

Footnotes Show content

1. Get at least your money back as income or a death benefit, subject to a legislated maximum in limited circumstances. Read the PDS for Income Account and Lifetime Pension for more information on how this works

2. Under the rules that apply to lifetime income streams, 60% of the purchase price is assessed under the assets test until you reach the life expectancy for a 65-year-old male, which is currently 85 years old, or a minimum of 5 years from the assessment day. It’s 30% after that.

3. Awards and ratings are only one factor for you to think about when deciding to invest. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

4. QSuper was founded in 1913 before merging with Sunsuper on 28 February 2022 to form Australian Retirement Trust.