How to recover a state or territory government account

People describe this as being locked out of 'the government website', which is not specific enough to act on. Australia's federation produced nine separate citizen identity systems and they do not talk to each other. myGov, run by Services Australia, sits in front of the Australian Taxation Office, Centrelink and Medicare, with its own username, password and code-generator recovery flows. Each state and territory then built its own front door for what it administers — driver licences, vehicle registration, fines, occupational licensing, concession cards and grants. Resetting a myGov password does nothing whatsoever to a MyServiceNSW Account, and vice versa.

Queensland changed underneath everybody. On Sunday 6 April 2025 the QGov system was replaced by the Queensland Digital Identity, and only active QGov accounts were migrated and matched — closed and suspended ones were not. If you have not signed in to a Queensland service since then, expect to log in with your old QGov credentials, accept new terms, set up multi-factor authentication and verify your identity with two government-issued documents before you get anywhere. That is the migration working as designed, and it catches people who assume their password has stopped working.

Western Australia is most likely to send you to the wrong help page, because it runs two things at once. The ServiceWA app has no password of its own — you sign in with myID through the Australian Government Digital ID System, then verify a mobile number by SMS. Driver licence and vehicle registration transactions run through DoTDirect, a separate account with the Department of Transport and Major Infrastructure with its own username, password rules and two-factor authentication. Losing one tells you nothing about the other.

The Australian Capital Territory takes the narrowest approach. The ACT Digital Account is browser-based with no app to download, and Access Canberra lists a limited set of things it is needed for: feedback and complaints, reporting a street issue, certain occupational licences, the Automatic Mutual Recognition scheme, the Diversity Register, Rental Bond Help, transferring a fine to another driver and a Working with Vulnerable People check. Access Canberra states plainly that other ACT Government transactions do not require an account, so a lockout there blocks less than a lockout elsewhere.

The Northern Territory is structurally different again, which changes what 'locked out' even means. Territory Services is the NT front door, but many Motor Vehicle Registry transactions are keyed to a document rather than a login — renewing a driver licence online uses the MVR transaction number printed on your renewal notice, and updating contact details uses your MVR Customer ID with a driver licence or registration number. In the Territory the crisis is usually not a forgotten password but a renewal notice thrown out and a Customer ID nobody can find.

Finally, identify the email address, not the account. Every reset flow in the country begins by sending something to an email address, and the commonest reason a reset appears to fail is that the account was created years ago against a work, university or old internet-provider address that no longer receives mail. Service NSW makes the point directly in its guidance on changing an email address, using the example of a work address you lose when you change jobs. Write down every address you have ever used before you start clicking, because the South Australian and Queensland flows both expect you to try the others.

Service NSW gives this its own heading on the page about changing your email address: do not create a new MyServiceNSW Account, because it can cause issues with multiple accounts. The warning is not boilerplate. Starting again is the intuitive move when the old account will not open, and it converts a recoverable problem into an administrative one a call centre has to unpick by hand. The reason is architectural — your licence, vehicle registrations, notification preferences, vouchers and business profile are linked to a specific account record, and a new account is empty by definition. You can sometimes re-add services, but the history stays behind and the old account keeps quietly receiving the renewal reminders, which is how people end up driving on expired registration while insisting no notice ever arrived.

There is no merge button anywhere in Australia. The nearest thing Service NSW publishes is a manual sequence for resolving multiple accounts: on the account you no longer want, remove all the services first, then deactivate it. Where an account has been shared between two people, one person keeps it and removes the other person's details and services, and the other person creates their own. That is a tidy-up procedure, not a merge, and nothing is transferred by it.

Queensland has the sharpest version of the trap, now baked into the identity system rather than the account layer. The transition guidance states that anyone who previously held multiple QGov accounts under different email addresses now holds multiple Queensland Digital Identities — and that documents used to strengthen one Digital Identity cannot be used again for a second, said directly in relation to the Digital Licence app. Scatter your Queensland records across two identities and you may find you cannot verify the second with the driver licence and passport you already used.

South Australia treats the duplicate as an expected diagnosis rather than a disaster. The mySAGOV troubleshooting page carries a heading called 'Already have an account with another email' whose entire advice is to try logging in with a different address and use Forgot password if you cannot recall the credentials. Read that as an instruction to exhaust every address you have ever owned before concluding the account is unrecoverable.

Tasmania makes the decision irreversible in one direction. Deactivating a myServiceTas account removes your linked services and stops your login working on myServiceTas or any other government system that relies on it, and the account cannot be reactivated. You can create a new one using the same email address, but you rebuild from zero and re-link licence and registration by matching name and date of birth again. Deactivation is the last step in a recovery, never the first.

Victoria is the one genuine exception, and it is worth knowing about because it changes the calculus for Victorians specifically. Service Victoria's account security page describes what happens when it locks an account — it does so when you can neither access your mobile number or email nor answer your secret questions — and then offers two ways forward: go through account recovery once you regain access to the phone or email, or set up a new Service Victoria account using a different email address. That is Service Victoria explicitly sanctioning the second-account route that Service NSW warns against.

Sign in to the email account first and prove to yourself that mail is arriving, because every jurisdiction sends the reset there and a large share of the failed resets people describe are actually failed email deliveries. Check the junk or spam folder as a matter of course; SA.GOV.AU tells mySAGOV users to do exactly that before contacting Service SA. In New South Wales, go to the log in screen and select Reset password, then follow the prompts and create a strong new password. If you are already signed in and merely want to change it, the option sits inside your account settings. Service NSW treats a reset as an alternative route out of a locked account too, so after failed attempts you can either wait for the unlock email or reset the password outright.

In Victoria the forgot-password page asks for one thing: the email address you used to sign up, after which a code is emailed to you. If you cannot remember which address that was, Service Victoria runs a separate forgot-username flow that asks for your given name or names, your family name and your mobile number, and uses those to identify you. Run the username flow first if there is any doubt, because guessing at addresses in the password flow tells you nothing.

In Queensland the reset happens inside the Digital Identity sign-in flow. The troubleshooting page is worth reading before you conclude your password is wrong, because two of its listed errors are not password problems at all: an 'incorrect password' message that resolves when you turn off browser autofill and type the password manually, and an 'unauthorised access' message that resolves when you return through the original service link rather than typing the identity system's address directly. Both send people into unnecessary resets.

Western Australian drivers deal with DoTDirect, the most prescriptive of the eight. Select Forgot password, enter your username and date of birth, and if they match departmental records a temporary password is emailed to the address on the account. Sign in with it, then set a permanent password of at least fourteen characters containing an uppercase letter, a lowercase letter and a digit; special characters are optional and several are excluded. You then complete two-factor authentication with a six-digit code sent by SMS to the linked mobile. A separate Forgot username option exists if that is the missing piece.

South Australia adds one rule that catches almost everybody: do the reset in a web browser, not in the mySAGOV app. The instruction repeats across the SA troubleshooting page and applies equally to changing your email or mobile number, managing multi-factor authentication, updating payment details and closing the account. The app shows credentials and registrations; account administration happens on the website.

Tasmania asks for two channels at once, which is a meaningful difference. Select 'Forgot my password' on the myServiceTas home page, enter your email address and the code emailed to you, then enter a second code texted to the mobile recorded on the account before you may set a new password. Recovering a Tasmanian account therefore needs working access to both the registered email and the registered mobile, and losing either pushes you straight to the phone or a service centre.

This is the case that separates the jurisdictions, because a reset link sent to an address you cannot open is worthless. The rule across all eight systems is that you can change the email yourself only while you can still get in — because you know the password, or because you can still open the old address and complete a reset. Once both are gone, the change becomes an identity-verification job for a human. Service NSW states the position without hedging: if you cannot access your email and have forgotten your MyServiceNSW Account password, you need to call 13 77 88 or go to a service centre. From outside Australia the number is +61 2 8894 1555. It is on this same page that Service NSW tells you not to create a new account instead, and the two instructions belong together — the phone call exists precisely so that you do not have to.

There is a NSW consequence worth planning for. Changing the email on a MyServiceNSW Account also changes the email held against your driver licence and vehicle registration with Transport for NSW, but it does not propagate to other NSW Government services, which must be updated separately. A successful change therefore fixes your renewal notices and leaves everything else pointing at the dead address.

In South Australia the self-service email change only completes if you verify the new address: sign in through a browser, go to My account and Change email address, save the new address, sign in again using it, open the verification link that is emailed to you, and return to your account. Skip a step and the change does not take effect. Where you cannot sign in at all, SA.GOV.AU routes you to Service SA — the mySAGOV hotline on 1300 450 422, or a Service SA centre, with evidence of your identity.

Victoria treats a dead email as one of the two conditions that produce a locked account: its account security page says the account is locked when you can access neither the mobile number nor the email and cannot answer the secret questions, and that recovery becomes possible once you regain the phone or the email. The implication matters — if the email is permanently gone but the mobile works, the secret questions are what stand between you and recovery, which is why they are worth recording somewhere durable.

Queensland and Tasmania both anchor the account to an email meant to last. Queensland's setup guidance tells you to use an address not used for another Digital Identity and warns against shared addresses, work addresses and anything you may lose. Tasmania builds the same assumption into recovery by demanding an emailed code and a texted code in one flow. In both, the fallback when the address is gone is the published support channel: 13 QGOV (13 74 68) in Queensland, and 1300 135 513 or [email protected] in Tasmania.

The Northern Territory has a quieter version. Territory Services expects an email address recorded against your MVR Customer ID, and the two-factor code that lets you update contact details or order a replacement licence card goes to that recorded address or mobile. If neither is current you are not locked out of a password so much as unable to prove you are the customer — and the fix is MVR on 1300 654 628, weekdays 8am to 4pm, or [email protected].

Multi-factor authentication is standard across every state system and is the commonest reason a person with the correct password still cannot get in. The remedy depends entirely on whether you set up a second method beforehand. South Australia publishes the cleanest recovery and it is worth copying as a mental model: with a backup method, sign in through a browser, select 'Try another way' on the Enter code screen, choose your other method and enter the six-digit code, then go to My account, open Manage multi-factor authentication and remove the method you no longer have. SA.GOV.AU recommends adding a fresh backup immediately, and notes you can hold one mobile number for SMS and multiple authenticator apps at once. With no backup and no access to any code, you must contact Service SA.

New South Wales draws the same line and staffs it. If your device is lost or stolen or you cannot reach the old one, call 13 77 88 or attend a service centre — or +61 2 8894 1555 from overseas. If you can still reach the old device or another method, remove the old device from Security settings and multi-factor authentication in the Service NSW app or your account settings, then set up the new one. Service NSW supports an SMS code to the mobile on the account, a push notification approved in the Service NSW app and a one-time code generated inside the app, plus third-party authenticator apps such as Microsoft or Google Authenticator.

Western Australia's DoTDirect account sends a six-digit SMS code at every sign-in and publishes an unusually practical fallback for when it never arrives: check the unknown-sender folder, wait and request another, or select 'Sign in another way' and verify using your driver licence and vehicle licence details instead. That last option is the one to remember, because it lets you in without the phone at all. If the number itself has changed, the department directs you to 13 11 56 or a service centre.

The ServiceWA app is a different animal because the authentication is federal. You sign in with myID through the Australian Government Digital ID System, and only then does ServiceWA verify a mobile number of its own. A lost phone therefore breaks myID first, and no amount of contact with the WA Government fixes it — you re-establish myID on the new device before ServiceWA will let you in. ServiceWA support is 13 33 92 or [email protected], but they cannot re-verify a federal digital identity for you.

Victoria issues a verification code on every login, by SMS or authenticator app, and accepts only Australian mobile numbers — ten digits starting with 04. Its designated fallback is the secret questions, described as the way to unlock your account when you cannot use your phone and stored encrypted separately from the rest of your details. Queensland and Tasmania also require multi-factor authentication at setup, Queensland offering SMS or an authenticator app during Digital Identity creation.

Prevention is the same everywhere and takes five minutes. Register two methods, not one, and make one an authenticator app rather than SMS: Service NSW recommends at least two methods before going overseas, and SA.GOV.AU recommends an authenticator app specifically for people who travel or may lose an Australian mobile number, telling temporarily overseas users to sign in through a browser rather than the app. If you are about to change phones, move the method while you still hold the old device — in that order it takes seconds, and afterwards it takes a phone queue.

A deliberate lockout after repeated failed attempts is not a forgotten password, and treating it as one wastes time. The system has decided something looks like a guessing attack and stopped accepting attempts, either for a period or until you complete a specific unlock step. New South Wales sends an unlock email after multiple unsuccessful sign-ins, and the link inside is valid for five days after it is sent — a generous window by the standards of security emails, which means an unlock message sitting unread in a spam folder from earlier in the week is probably still usable. If the five days have passed, Service NSW's published alternative is to reset the password instead.

Western Australia uses a timed lockout on DoTDirect: after three or more failed attempts the account locks for one hour, after which you can sign in normally with your username and password. There is one bypass worth knowing — if you have linked a Digital Identity to your DoTDirect account, you can use it to get in immediately rather than waiting out the hour. That is a concrete argument for linking a digital identity to DoTDirect before you ever need it.

Victoria's lock is triggered by a different condition. Service Victoria locks the account when you can access neither your mobile number nor your email and cannot answer your secret questions — in other words, when every recovery channel has failed rather than when a password has been mistyped. The published exit is account recovery once you regain access to the phone or email, with the alternative of creating a new account under a different email address.

Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT publish less about lockout timers than about the recovery routes themselves, so the safe approach in those jurisdictions is to stop guessing at the first sign of trouble and run the documented reset instead. Queensland's troubleshooting page lists a 'session expired' error whose fix is to close the browser window and return through the service you were trying to reach — a reminder that not every rejected sign-in is an account problem at all. In South Australia the documented route out of any code or password trouble is the browser-based forgot-password flow, then Service SA.

Two habits keep you out of a lockout altogether. Stop after two failed attempts and go to the reset flow deliberately, rather than cycling through remembered passwords until the system intervenes. And type credentials manually when something is not working: Queensland's troubleshooting guidance identifies browser autofill as a cause of incorrect-password errors, and an autofilled wrong password entered five times is indistinguishable from an attack.

The anxiety behind most of these searches is not the account, it is the card inside it. Digital driver licences live in state apps in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and, for a growing list of credentials, Tasmania, and being unable to sign in means being unable to display them. A digital licence has never replaced the plastic one: Service Victoria says in its own FAQ that a digital licence is legally the same as a physical licence, then advises carrying the card anyway because businesses set their own rules about accepting digital credentials.

Separate a display failure from an account failure. Service Victoria notes that QR-code checking needs an internet connection at both ends and will error without one, and that an error can equally mean the licence is expired, void or suspended rather than that anything is wrong with your account — in which case the next step is checking the licence status with VicRoads, not resetting a password.

South Australia's app adds a wrinkle people misread as a lockout. The mySAGOV app signs you out after thirty days of inactivity, after which you re-enter your PIN or biometric login. SA.GOV.AU documents an app-cache remedy for credentials that disappear or refuse to re-add, and warns that older versions of the app stop working from 10 August 2026 — so an app that suddenly refuses to open may need updating rather than recovering.

Queensland is where an account problem and an identity problem genuinely fuse. The Digital Licence app relies on a Queensland Digital Identity strengthened with verified documents, and the transition guidance states that documents used for one Digital Identity cannot be used again for a second. Combine that with the rule that strengthening happens only once and the practical position follows: end up on the wrong Digital Identity and you may not be able to rebuild the right one from the same passport and driver licence. Strengthening requires one document from each of two lists, plus a name-change or marriage certificate where the names differ.

New South Wales is running a NSW Digital ID as a pilot, and the terms are specific about where it lives. It is a reusable, voluntary, government-issued evidence of identity proofed to Identity Proofing Level 3, stored by Service NSW and reached through your MyServiceNSW Account, and it can be deactivated at any time. Because it is reached through the account, an account lockout takes the Digital ID with it — though the underlying verification is not lost, and Service NSW runs a dedicated form for reporting suspected fraud involving either.

The Australian Capital Territory sits at the other end of the spectrum. Access Canberra's description of the ACT Digital Account lists what it unlocks — complaints and feedback, street issues, some occupational licences, Automatic Mutual Recognition, the Diversity Register, Rental Bond Help, transferring a fine and Working with Vulnerable People checks — and states that other ACT transactions do not require an account at all. Nothing in that list is a digital driver licence. An ACT lockout is genuinely less costly than the equivalent in Sydney or Brisbane.

When self-service is exhausted the remaining path is a person, and the difference between a five-minute call and a wasted afternoon is what you have in front of you when you make it. Every jurisdiction resolves an unrecoverable account by re-establishing that you are the person on the record, which means original identity documents rather than photographs of them. SA.GOV.AU says it plainly: to confirm it is you, you need to give evidence of your identity. Assume the same everywhere.

Gather the documents before dialling. A current Australian driver licence or photo card, a passport, a Medicare card, a birth or citizenship certificate and something linking you to your current address will cover the requirements in every jurisdiction. If your name has changed, add the marriage or change-of-name certificate — Queensland's identity-strengthening step requires exactly that where names across documents do not match, and a mismatch is a common reason an otherwise valid check fails.

The numbers, with published hours where the agency states them, are these. Service NSW is 13 77 88, or +61 2 8894 1555 from outside Australia. Queensland is 13 QGOV — 13 74 68 — with chat, email and in-person help at more than ninety locations. The mySAGOV Service SA hotline is 1300 450 422, Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm and from 9:30am on Wednesdays. Service Tasmania is 1300 135 513 on weekdays 9am to 5pm, or [email protected]. Access Canberra is 13 22 81, open 8am to 6pm on weekdays and 9am to 5pm at weekends. In Western Australia, DoTDirect is 13 11 56 and ServiceWA is 13 33 92 or [email protected]. In the Northern Territory, MVR is 1300 654 628 on weekdays 8am to 4pm, or [email protected].

Victoria is the outlier and Victorians should plan for it. Service Victoria publishes no general account-recovery phone line. Its contact page routes you to a virtual assistant available around the clock, with the option of asking for the customer service team between 9am and 5pm on weekdays, or a message it undertakes to answer within a week. If your Victorian account is locked and you need it today, chat during business hours is the realistic route, and the secret questions are the mechanism the system itself expects you to use.

The in-person option is the strongest and is under-used. Service NSW, Service SA and Access Canberra all list a service-centre visit alongside the phone number as an equivalent path, and Service Tasmania operates twenty-seven centres. Where a call centre must verify you with limited tools, a counter officer can look at your documents, which is why complicated cases — a dead email plus a lost phone plus a changed name — resolve faster in person.

Two cautions about the call itself. No state agency will ring you and ask for a verification code; SA.GOV.AU states that Service SA will never ask for your password or verification codes, and the same holds everywhere. And if you believe the lockout is not accidental — that someone else has changed the email or mobile on the account — say so at the start, because that is a fraud report rather than a password reset. Service NSW runs a specific online form for suspected fraud involving a MyServiceNSW Account or NSW Digital ID.

Once you are back in, spend the ten minutes that prevent a repeat. Update the email to one you will still hold in five years and verify it properly, since South Australia's change only takes effect when the verification link is opened. Add a second authentication method on a device you keep. Check the mobile recorded for notifications is current, which in South Australia is a separate setting from the number used for authentication. Record your secret questions if your jurisdiction uses them. And confirm your services are still linked, because in Tasmania the link depends on the name on your profile matching your licence or registration.