Relocating to Australia does in fact leave a sizeable dent in your finances.
When moving recently from the UK to Australia, I tracked my spending to show how much it actually costs for someone in their mid-twenties, taking a career break and living out of a backpack.
Flights and visa costs
As you would imagine, a one-way flight would set you back a lot. 700 British Pounds in my case, for a flight booked five months before its departure.
There are cheaper ways to make this journey less damaging to your bank account, for example by flying with budget airlines such as Air China, Scoot or Air India. These journeys often involve several layovers and usually attract the hardiest of long-haul budget travellers.
I’m not a migration agent, but usually you need a visa in order to stay in the country for a notable length of time. In my case, I used the Australian working holiday visa, granted within minutes, and costing £337 allowed me into the country. (Note that the price for this first-year visa increased in July 2026 to around £440, and that processing times have also since gone up.)
Buying and filling my backpack
Preparation for the trip started with selecting a trusty backpack. For this trip I travelled as light as possible, causing major concern for family members who saw the size of my forty-litre backpack.
A standard Osprey Farpoint 40L, was just enough to hold a week’s worth of clothes and set me back £100.
Durable and lightweight, I needed a bag that ticked these boxes, and three months into my trip this shell-like backpack has not let me down, even if I do look like a teenage-mutant ninja turtle.
Still in full prep-mode, I set about buying items that I deemed essential and small enough to take with me.
A sleeping mask, ear-plugs, charging adaptor, padlocks, laundry bags, and a microfibre towel all set me back a combined fifty pounds.
The costs of leaving home
As the countdown timer ticks down to the flight to Australia, final costs tend to creep up. Living in Jersey, in the Channel Islands, another expense was getting myself across the English Channel to London – a flight set back one hundred pounds.
In the weekends that came before my flight, I indulged in leaving drinks and dinners with friends. While the costs of these at the time felt hazy and unimportant, looking back I spent roughly £500 in those weekends. Sometimes splitting the ‘G’ a few too many times and having a good chin-wag with mates is more important.
You also need some additional savings
When applying for an Australian working holiday visa, keep in mind that it’s also a visa requirement (and a good idea) to have at least AUD5,000 (approx. £2,650) in savings for your initial time in Australia. You must also have enough money for a flight home. That’s on top of the cost of getting to Australia.
Summary: Total cost of relocating from UK to Australia
- Flight (one-way with Qatar Airways) : £700
- Visa: £336
- Flight to London: £100
- Backpack: £100
- Misc travel items: £50
Subtotal: £1,286*
*Good times with mates before I left: We don’t talk about how much (but £500)
Grand total: 1,786 GBP (approx. AUD3,360)
Jack Lister is a British writer currently exploring Australia on a working holiday visa. Originally from Jersey, he has a background in journalism and communications and writes about the realities of travelling, working and spending money on the other side of the world.
