Foreign Awards

From time to time, foreign governments confer honours or awards on Australians. These honours and awards may be in recognition for gallantry in operations, bravery in civil actions or for meritorious or outstanding service.

To ensure that Australia maintains the integrity and quality of its system and to avoid a proliferation of awards, policies have been developed for the acceptance and wearing of foreign awards.

The official guidelines issued by the Governor-General on the acceptance and wearing of foreign awards may be viewed or downloaded here.

Personnel enlisting in the Australian Defence Force (ADF) from other nations who wish to wear medals they have been awarded during that prior service must apply for approval to do so. Only those awards which have an equivalent award in the Australian system will be approved for wear on uniform.

Requests for clarification, or further information should be directed to DH&A using the contacts list in the Contacts section.

Order of Wearing for Foreign Awards

There has been much confusion relating to the order in which foreign awards may be worn by ADF personnel.

The Order of Wearing Australian Honours and Awards issued by Government House directs that foreign awards are worn immediately after all Australian honours or awards, in the order of date of approval to wear. A post-nominal is not used, eg. ‘MBE’ for Member of the British Empire.

The only exceptions to this are:

• When all foreign awards are approved on the same date (this will predominantly only apply to those ADF personnel who have received awards as a result of prior service with a foreign defence force). In this circumstance, the awards may be worn in the order of precedence of the awarding country but must only be worn immediately after all Australian honours and awards the member may be in receipt of, or subsequently receive.

• Imperial honours and awards issued under the Australian system until 5 October 1992 are considered Australian and their status will be upheld. As such, they are to be worn according to The Order of Wearing Australian Honours and Awards and carry any appropriate post-nominals.

• In cases where more than one foreign award from the same nation has been given to an ADF member, they may be grouped according to the order of wearing of that nation, eg. an ADF member is given approval to wear the US Meritorious Service Medal and later the Legion of Merit Degree Commander. As a courtesy to the awarding nation, these may be worn in accordance with that nation's order of wearing.

It is acknowledged that a number of medal ribbon posters have been produced by various commercial entities. These have been produced as a visual reference guide for medal ribbons and should not be used as an authority on the order of wearing foreign awards.

Web page last updated 15 December, 2011