RELOVA JOURNAL

Blog/Published April 10, 2026 · Updated September 19, 2026

How to Move to Australia in 2026: Skilled Visas, Working Holiday, and Expat Life

By Anna Moore

How to move to Australia 2026: points 65+, WHV $635, Sydney rent AUD 2,800–3,800, Brisbane AUD 2,000–2,800, Medicare after PR, min wage AUD 23.23; verify off…

Australia's immigration system runs on points and persistence more than any single magic qualification, and understanding which of its three main non-family pathways fits your situation is the first real decision anyone planning a move needs to make. The Skilled Independent visa (subclass 189) and related skilled-migration routes use a points test where 65 points is commonly cited as the minimum needed just to enter the candidate pool — it is not, on its own, a guarantee of an invitation to apply, since actual invitation rounds regularly favor applicants scoring well above that floor depending on occupation demand. Anyone serious about this route should check current SkillSelect invitation trends for their specific occupation rather than assuming 65 points is competitive; in practice, many in-demand professions see effective cutoffs well into the 80s or 90s in a given round. Read related guides: family relocation, health insurance patterns for expats, and banking abroad.

The three main immigration routes

The 189 Skilled Independent visa is points-tested and doesn't require sponsorship from an employer or state, which makes it attractive but also means it draws the largest and most competitive applicant pool — your occupation needs to be on the relevant skilled occupation list, and your points score against the 65-point floor is only the starting gate. The 482 Temporary Skill Shortage (TSS) visa runs on a fundamentally different model: it's employer-led, meaning you need a specific Australian employer willing to sponsor you before you can apply at all, which shifts the challenge from a points competition to a job search — for many people already working in an in-demand field, this ends up being the faster and more predictable route into the country. For people not pursuing either skilled pathway, the Working Holiday visa (subclasses 417 and 462) offers a simpler if more limited option: it costs around AUD 635 in current fee schedules, and eligibility is capped by age — typically 18 to 30, extended to 35 for a subset of eligible nationalities — making it primarily a young-adult route rather than a long-term settlement pathway on its own, though many people use it as a foothold before transitioning to a skilled visa.

What it costs to live day to day

Housing is where Australia's cost of living bites hardest for newcomers. In Sydney, the country's most expensive city, one-bedroom apartments commonly rent for AUD 2,800 to 3,800 a month, a range that puts it among the priciest cities in the English-speaking world. Brisbane offers meaningfully more breathing room, with comparable one-bedrooms typically running AUD 2,000 to 2,800 a month — a gap wide enough that it's shifted a noticeable share of the post-Olympics relocation conversation toward Queensland rather than New South Wales. On wages, Australia's national minimum wage has historically sat around AUD 23.23 an hour, though Fair Work Australia adjusts this figure through periodic reviews, so anyone budgeting against a minimum-wage job should check the current Fair Work Commission rate directly rather than relying on a fixed historical number.

Healthcare and the practical mechanics of settling in

Medicare, Australia's public healthcare system, is generally tied to permanent residency status rather than being available from day one on a temporary visa — most people on skilled or working holiday visas need private health cover to bridge that gap, and some visa categories (like certain 482 holders) are required to carry it as a condition of the visa itself. Once permanent residency is granted, Medicare access typically follows relatively quickly, which is one of the more attractive long-term benefits of successfully converting a temporary visa into PR. Between the points test's occupation-specific thresholds, the employer-sponsorship route's dependency on landing a job first, and the working holiday visa's age caps, the practical advice for most prospective movers is the same: figure out which of the three routes your actual circumstances realistically support before optimizing anything else in the plan.

Plan it on Relova: See Australia's visa options, tax rates, and cost of living → for a structured breakdown you can compare against other destinations.

See real salaries: What people actually earn in Australia →

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