Most cost guides quote one big number and hope you do not check it. Four of the five costs below are set by the Australian government and can be stated exactly. The fifth — tuition — is the one only your offer letter can answer, and this page explains why.
People ask what it costs to study in Australia as though there were one answer. There is not, because tuition is both the largest item and the most variable — it is set per course, per university, per year. But the other four are set by government or by a small number of insurers, and they can be quoted to the dollar.
| Cost | Amount | When you pay it |
|---|---|---|
| Tuition | Indicative AUD 20,000–45,000 a year (bachelor’s), AUD 22,000–50,000 (master’s) | Deposit before your CoE; the rest by semester |
| Living costs you must evidence | AUD 29,710 for 12 months, single applicant | Evidenced at visa lodgement, spent after arrival |
| Visa application charge | From AUD 2,500 | At lodgement. Not refunded on refusal |
| OSHC | About AUD 623–806 a year, single | Before lodgement, must cover your whole stay |
| Flights and setup | Varies; budget realistically | After grant |
Tuition ranges are indicative figures published by Australian universities and vary widely by course. Medicine, dentistry and some MBA programmes sit well above the top of these ranges. Everything else on this page is a published government or insurer figure, sourced at the foot of the page.
Why we will not give you one total. A single headline number is the easiest thing to put on a page and the least useful thing to read. Two students starting the same month in the same city can be AUD 25,000 a year apart purely on course choice. What we can do is make four of the five numbers exact, so the only thing you have to find out is your own tuition.
Published ranges exist and they are not useless, but they mislead in one specific way: they average across courses that have almost nothing in common. A Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Dental Surgery are both “a bachelor’s degree in Australia’. One might cost AUD 30,000 a year and the other more than three times that.
There is also a timing trap. Universities publish fees per year of commencement, and they increase. A figure you find in a blog post from last year is not the figure on your invoice.
So the honest sequence is: shortlist courses first, get the published fee for your commencing year from each university’s own fee schedule, and only then build the budget. That is the order we work in, and if a course does not fit your family’s budget we will say so before you pay an application fee rather than after. You can start with our course finder or the Study in Australia overview.
To be granted a Subclass 500 visa you must evidence funds for living costs. For a student applying on their own the figure is AUD 29,710 for twelve months. If family members are included, the instrument adds AUD 10,394 for a partner, AUD 4,449 for each child, and AUD 13,502 in school costs for a school-age child.
Section 6(3) of the same instrument allows you to evidence a parent’s annual income instead of savings: AUD 87,856 a year where you are applying alone, or AUD 102,500 where family members are included. No fixed deposit, no money sitting untouched for months. We have sat with families who borrowed against property to build a lump sum they did not need, because the agent who advised them had never read past the headline figure.
If your course runs less than twelve months, section 11 applies the requirement pro-rata — the annual amount divided by 365, multiplied by the number of days of your stay. Quoting the full annual figure to a student on a nine-month programme overstates what they need by thousands of dollars.
Our Australia funds calculator works out your exact requirement including the income route and the pro-rata rule. It is built directly on the instrument, not on a rounded summary of it.
Do not treat AUD 29,710 as your living budget. It is the amount the Department wants evidenced, not a forecast of what a year costs. In Sydney or Melbourne, rent alone can consume most of it. Budget on the real cost of the city you are actually moving to.
The Subclass 500 application charge starts at AUD 2,500. It rose to that level on 1 July 2026 from AUD 2,000. Concessions exist for eligible Pacific Island, Timor-Leste and ASEAN citizens and for ELICOS and Non-Award applicants — Pakistani applicants are not in those groups.
Two things about it that catch people out. A card surcharge applies on top when you pay online. And the charge is not refunded if your application is refused, which is the strongest practical argument for not lodging a file that is not ready.
Before you can lodge at all you will also have paid a tuition deposit — the CoE only issues once it clears — and bought OSHC covering your entire stay.
On 17 September 2026 the Australian government announced its intention to stop most students bringing family members, with exemptions expected for PhD students and for ASEAN and Pacific nationals. Nothing has changed in the published rules yet and no instrument has been made. If your family joining you is central to the plan, read our full breakdown of what was announced before committing money.
Overseas Student Health Cover is compulsory under condition 8501 and must run for your whole stay. Universities routinely bundle a provider into the offer letter, and it is rarely the cheapest.
For a single student in 2026, approved providers ranged from roughly AUD 623 a year with ahm to about AUD 806 with Allianz Care. For couples and families the ranking reverses entirely, which is why “the cheapest OSHC” is not a single answer. Our OSHC comparison page has every approved provider with current prices.
A student visa permits work of up to 48 hours a fortnight while your course is in session, and unlimited hours during scheduled course breaks. The visa itself can run up to six years, in line with your enrolment.
Treat part-time work as a contribution to living costs, not as the funding plan. The Department will not accept prospective earnings as evidence of funds, and a budget that depends on finding a job in your first month is a budget that has already failed. Plan the first six months as though you will earn nothing.
Most cost guides stop at the visa grant. If you intend to stay and work afterwards, the Subclass 485 Temporary Graduate visa carries an application charge of AUD 5,750 for the primary applicant and AUD 2,875 for each secondary applicant aged 18 or over.
You will also need health insurance that specifically satisfies the 485 requirement, which is a different product from student OSHC. Knowing this at the start changes how much you set aside; discovering it in your final semester rarely ends well.
There is no single figure, because tuition is the largest component and it is set per course, not per country. What can be stated exactly is everything around it. For the 2027 intake you must evidence AUD 29,710 in living costs for twelve months if you are applying alone, pay a Subclass 500 visa application charge of AUD 2,500, and hold OSHC for your whole stay, which runs from about AUD 623 to AUD 806 a year for a single student. Tuition on top is commonly AUD 20,000 to AUD 45,000 a year for a bachelor's degree and AUD 22,000 to AUD 50,000 for a master's, with medicine and some MBA programmes well above that.
It is the amount you must evidence, and there is more than one way to do it. The obvious route is savings. The route almost nobody is told about is section 6(3) of the same instrument, which lets you evidence a parent's annual income instead: AUD 87,856 a year if you are applying on your own, or AUD 102,500 if family members are included. If your course runs less than twelve months, section 11 assesses the requirement pro-rata rather than at the full annual figure. We have seen families borrow money they did not need to borrow because nobody mentioned either provision.
The Subclass 500 application charge starts at AUD 2,500. It rose to that level on 1 July 2026, up from AUD 2,000. Concessions apply in limited circumstances, including for eligible Pacific Island, Timor-Leste and ASEAN citizens and for applicants in the ELICOS and Non-Award sectors; Pakistani applicants do not fall into those groups. A card surcharge applies on top when you pay online, and the charge is not refunded if the application is refused.
No. Each family member included in the application attracts their own charge. Note separately that on 17 September 2026 the Australian government announced it intends to stop most students bringing family members at all, with exemptions expected for PhD students and for ASEAN and Pacific nationals. Nothing has changed in the published rules yet and no instrument has been made, but if bringing your family is central to your plan, this is the thing to check before you commit money.
You can choose, and most students do not, which is where the money goes. For a single student in 2026 the approved providers ranged from about AUD 623 a year with ahm up to AUD 806 with Allianz Care. Universities routinely bundle a provider into the offer letter and it is rarely the cheapest one. For couples and families the ranking reverses, so the right choice depends on who is travelling with you rather than on a single cheapest name.
Partly, and only after you arrive. A student visa allows work of up to 48 hours a fortnight while your course is in session, and unlimited hours during scheduled course breaks. Treat it as a contribution to living costs, never as the plan that funds your degree. The Department will not accept future earnings as evidence of funds, and a budget that depends on finding a job in your first month is the budget that fails.
If you apply for a Subclass 485 Temporary Graduate visa, the application charge is AUD 5,750 for the primary applicant, with AUD 2,875 for each secondary applicant aged 18 or over. You will also need health insurance that specifically satisfies that visa, which is not the same product as student OSHC. Budget for both at the point you finish, not at the point you apply to study.
Counting the living requirement as their living budget. AUD 29,710 is the figure the Department wants to see evidenced; it is not a forecast of what a year in Sydney or Melbourne costs, and in those cities rent alone can consume most of it. The second mistake is forgetting that the visa charge, OSHC, the deposit on tuition and the flights all fall due before you have earned a single dollar in Australia.
Bring us your shortlist and we will build the actual first-year cost for those courses — tuition, funds requirement, visa charge, OSHC and flights — and tell you honestly whether the timeline still fits this intake.