Your Indian income while you are on a temporary Australian visa

Generally no, not while you are a temporary resident. Australia gives temporary residents almost the same treatment as non-residents on foreign income. Under section 768-910 your Indian interest, dividends and rent are non-assessable non-exempt income, so they never go on your Australian return. Under section 768-915 your gains on Indian shares, mutual funds and property are disregarded, because these are not taxable Australian property. So the worldwide-income rule you have heard about does not reach your Indian assets yet.

You count as a temporary resident when you hold a temporary visa such as a 482 or 485 and neither you nor your spouse is an Australian resident under the Social Security Act, meaning a citizen or permanent-visa holder. India still taxes your Indian income in its own right, because you remain an NRI there. The point is that during this window India is the only side taxing it, so there is no Australian top-up and no double tax to relieve.

This is the one period when a sale of your Indian shares or property is taxed once, in India, and not again in Australia. Sell while you are a temporary resident and Australia disregards the gain entirely, so you pay only the Indian capital-gains tax and keep the full benefit of it. Sell after you become a permanent resident and Australia taxes the gain too, credits the Indian tax through a capped foreign income tax offset, and often cannot absorb all of it, so some Indian tax is lost.

So the timing of when you realise Indian gains genuinely matters. If you are planning to sell an Indian holding within a few years of getting PR, doing it while the temporary-resident shield still holds can be the difference between one tax bill and one and a bit. The India side needs to be right either way: a clean Section 112A or Section 112 computation, and where the TDS on a property sale is heavy, a lower-deduction certificate so the buyer withholds closer to the real tax rather than the gross.

The cost-base reset that shelters your pre-migration Indian gains does not happen on the day you arrived. For someone who came on a temporary visa it happens later, on the day you stop being a temporary resident. Australia gives every migrant this reset, the same one our arrival-day valuation page covers, but the date it uses is not the one most people assume.

Under section 768-955, when you cease to be a temporary resident but stay an Australian resident, each of your Indian assets is treated as acquired at its market value on that day, normally the day your permanent residency is granted. That later date, often years after you landed, is the one your future Australian gain is measured from. Fixing your Indian assets at their arrival-day value instead is a common and expensive mistake: it uses the wrong, usually lower, figure and can overstate your Australian gain for years. The number that matters is a credible India-side market value of each asset as on the day you cease to be a temporary resident.

The shield is easy to lose without noticing. Because a temporary resident is defined partly by your spouse's status, you stop being one the moment your spouse or de facto partner becomes an Australian citizen or permanent resident, even though your own visa is still temporary. From that point your Indian interest, dividends, rent and share gains all become assessable in Australia, and your NRE interest, tax-free in India, is suddenly fully taxed there with no offset because India took nothing.

Getting permanent residency yourself does the same thing, on the grant date. And the switch is one-way: once you have been a full Australian resident for tax, you can never be a temporary resident again, even if you later drop back to a temporary visa. NRIs on a 482 whose partner's PR comes through first routinely miss that their Indian income just became worldwide-taxable. Knowing the exact date it flips is what lets you plan around it rather than find out at tax time.

Rohan arrived in Melbourne in 2023 on a 482 visa, so he is a temporary resident. He holds two parcels of Indian listed shares.

Parcel A he bought in 2016 for 8 lakh. In 2026, still on his 482, it is worth 24 lakh and he sells it. India taxes the roughly 16 lakh long-term gain under Section 112A at 12.5% above the yearly 1.25 lakh exemption, about 1.8 lakh of tax plus cess. Australia disregards the gain completely under section 768-915. He pays Indian tax only, with no Australian layer and nothing lost to an offset cap.

Parcel B he bought in 2015 for 6 lakh and keeps. In 2027 his permanent residency is granted, so he ceases to be a temporary resident. Under section 768-955, Parcel B's Australian cost base resets to its market value that day, say 30 lakh, not his 2015 cost and not its 2023 arrival value of about 20 lakh. In 2029 he sells it for 34 lakh. Australia measures its gain from the 2027 reset value, so 4 lakh, and his Australian accountant works the Australian tax on that figure. India taxes the whole gain from his 2015 cost, 28 lakh, under Section 112A. He claims a foreign income tax offset for the Indian tax, and we supply the India-tax-paid certificate behind it. Had he wrongly used his 2023 arrival value, Australia would have measured a 14 lakh gain instead of 4 lakh, and he would have overpaid for years.