18. Payments to providers

You will usually be paid monthly in arrears. To receive payments, you need to submit student liability data into the Tertiary Collection of Student Information (TCSI) system. You must meet the deadlines for submitting data for each reporting period. You must not provide false or misleading information or fail to provide required data. This is a contravention of the Act.

Data for all census days [part 26] that have occurred in each month will be assessed for payment after the 7th of the following month. Payment dates are normally the 24th of the month after you submit the data, or the first working day after that.

If a provider defaults, we may pay a loan amount to a replacement provider instead of the defaulting provider.

Providing false or misleading information or failing to provide the required data contravenes the VSL Act and may be an offence.

18.1 - When the department won’t pay loan amounts

The department will not pay loan amounts to providers for a student’s course if:

we are not given the student’s Tax File Number through the eCAF [part 30]
the student’s TFN has not verified in TCSI
we are not given the student’s unique student identifier (USI)
we are satisfied the student:
is not an eligible student [part 31]
is not a genuine student [part 42]
payment of the amount would breach a provider fee limit [part 11]
payment of that amount would exceed the course cap for the student [part 35]
the loan amount is greater than the student’s HELP balance [part 39]
we suspect on reasonable grounds that the course provider is not complying with the VSL Act
the provider’s approval has been revoked or suspended or has expired.

If we decide not to pay a loan amount for a student for a course, we will notify you as soon as practicable.

18.2 - When the provider must repay loan amounts

You must repay loan amounts where:

a student’s HELP balance is recredited [part 46]
you received a loan amount that was not payable. That is, the payment has been made erroneously or made based on false information.
the loan amount exceeds your provider fee limit [part 11]
you adjust a record in TCSI, after receiving payment for it, resulting in it no longer being eligible for payment
you owe a debt to the Commonwealth
there is a debt from one or more loan amounts which would otherwise be payable to you in relation to a student

Note: If a debt is recovered from a loan amount that was originally intended to be paid to you for a student, the recovered amount is still treated as if it had been paid to you for that student.

18.3 - Reporting timetable

Information relating to census days occurring in the month must be reported in accordance with the Data Reporting timeframes [part 55.6] published in TCSI Support (generally in real time, within 7 or 14 days of an event occurring). Census days in each month reported by the 7th of the following month will be assessed for payment.

Payment will be made, following data monitoring and analysis and compliance checking, for eligible assessed data on the 24th of the month of assessment or the first working day thereafter.

The consumption of a provider’s fee limit is based on when a unit census day falls, not when the payment is made. For example, a unit with a census day in December 2025 would be assessed, and if eligible, paid on 24 January 2026 against the provider’s 2025 fee limit.

The reporting and payment schedule is a guide only. Under the VSL Act we have flexibility on the timing of payments.

18.4 - Payment eligibility assessment of reported records

The VSL payment assessment processing is conducted each month. It checks that reported loans are within the VSL maximum course cap after data is accepted in TCSI. The payment validation process for the reported loans includes eligibility checks of data entered into TCSI, eCAF and provider approvals in HITS.

If data you’ve reported fails eligibility checks, it will be assigned an error message. The error message appears in the Reason for Exclusion or Revision column of your Provider Payment report in HITS.

You should review your Provider Payment report each month to identify if any reported unit has failed the eligibility assessment and rectify any issues identified by the assigned error message promptly.

The Provider Payment reports are generally available mid-month in HITS, after the payment assessment process and before the payment date.

A list of the non-payment error messages is in Data Reporting Requirements for 2025 and includes a description of the issue and what action you need to take to rectify it.

18.8 - Invalidated records

A record that has failed payment eligibility assessment 3 months in a row will be invalidated in TCSI. Records that will be invalidated as part of the current payment cycle can be viewed in the fourth tab of the Provider Payment report in HITS. We recommend you correct these records as soon as they receive an error message in the Payment Report to avoid invalidation.

Records will also be invalidated in TCSI if you update TCSI elements after payment is received and the update results in the record no longer being eligible for VSL. The payment for these loans will be recovered from you in the next pay cycle. The records will appear in the second tab of the Provider Payment report with an Invalidated Debt error message in the column titled Reason for Exclusion or Revision. These records don’t appear in the Invalidated Records tab of the Provider Payment report.

More information

For instructions on how to use TCSI, see How to report as a VET Student Loans provider | TCSI Support. [Also, the section Understanding VET reporting requirements]

Legislation: Act s 19, Act s 22(1–6)