The census date is a date by which you must fulfil your obligations as a Commonwealth supported student. If you fail to do so, your enrolment as a Commonwealth supported student will be cancelled.
Your higher education provider must set a census date for your units of study. This date cannot be earlier than 20% of the way into the unit. Your provider will publish census dates about six months before the commencement of the unit – check your provider’s website. Often there will be only one census date for all units in a teaching period but this is not always the case, and units of study in the same teaching period can have different census dates.
Your provider can also set an earlier date for the submission of the Request for Commonwealth assistance and HECS-HELP form and up-front payment of your student contribution. If it has set an earlier date, you must ensure that you meet this deadline as your provider may charge you a late fee or cancel your enrolment if you do not. Your provider can allow you to fulfil the requirements for Commonwealth support and HECS-HELP assistance after this earlier date but not after the census date.
Remember, the census date is usually different from the academic withdrawal date (the last date that you can withdraw from a unit without receiving a fail mark).
It is your responsibility to be aware of these dates. Your provider can tell you the census date and any earlier date it may have set.
If you don’t meet the requirements for Commonwealth support by the census date, your provider must cancel your enrolment as a Commonwealth supported student. (See Census dates about the requirements you must meet by the census date to ensure your eligibility for Commonwealth support).
IMPORTANT NOTE - the Department of Education, Science and Training has endeavoured to ensure that the information in this publication is consistent with the Higher Education Support Act 2003, the Higher Education Funding Act 1998 and the Higher Education Support (Transititional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Act 2003 (copies of which may be found at www.comlaw.gov.au 
) and associated guidelines (copies of which may be found at www.dest.gov.au ). However, there may be differences between this publication and those Acts from time to time. To the extent of any inconsistency between this publication and any of those Acts, the Act takes precedence.
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