Australia · Oceania
Moving to Canberra
Canberra quick facts
Australia at a glance
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World Bank · 2025Religion
% of populationCIA World Factbook / national censuses
Cost of living in Canberra
Can you move to Australia?
Pick your passport to see whether you can enter Australia — and what it takes to stay.
Entry rules come from github.com/imorte/passport-index-data, updated 17 February 2026. They change without notice — confirm with the official immigration service before booking.
Getting set up in Australia
Skilled migration to the ACT — 482, the Canberra Matrix and the clearance wall
The Skills in Demand visa (subclass 482) replaced the Temporary Skill Shortage visa in December 2024 and is the standard employer-sponsored route. Alongside it the ACT nominates candidates for the permanent subclass 190 and the provisional subclass 491 through the Canberra Matrix, a territory-run ranking that scores ACT residence, ACT study, English above the minimum, a spouse's skills and a job in your nominated occupation. Because Canberra is Category 2 designated regional Australia, a 491 nomination here carries 15 points that Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane cannot offer. The thing to understand before you commit is that security clearances require citizenship, so a large part of the local job market is closed until several years after you arrive.
Read the full step-by-step guideConverting an overseas licence to an ACT licence
You have three months from taking up residence in the ACT to hold an ACT licence, and conversion is done in person at an Access Canberra service centre. Whether you sit tests depends on two things rather than one: which country issued the licence, and how old you are. A full licence from an approved country converts with no test if you are over 25 — but a driver under 25 from the same approved country must still pass a road rules knowledge test and a practical assessment. That age wrinkle is specific to the ACT and catches people who have read another state's guidance.
Read the full step-by-step guideOpening an Australian bank account, and the ACT's rates-not-duty bargain
Australian banks verify identity against a '100-point' scale, and new arrivals get a real concession — for a short window after landing a foreign passport alone satisfies the whole requirement. All four majors accept applications from overseas before you fly and you complete verification in a branch. Once you are here, the ACT-specific money fact is that the territory has been progressively abolishing conveyance duty and recovering the revenue through general rates: purchase costs are low by Australian standards and the annual rates notice is high, which inverts the usual arithmetic on whether to buy.
Read the full step-by-step guideMedicare, ACT ambulance charges and seeing a doctor
Medicare works the same in Canberra as anywhere in Australia — enrol through myGov or Services Australia, then attend any GP. What the ACT adds is a charged ambulance service with no government subscription scheme: an emergency ambulance costs well over AUD 900 unless you hold a concession card, and cover comes through private health insurance rather than a state membership. Usefully, the ACT collects an ambulance levy through hospital-cover premiums, so if you already hold hospital cover you are generally covered without buying anything extra. Canberra Hospital and Calvary Bruce are the two public hospitals and they serve a large slice of south-eastern New South Wales as well as the territory.
Read the full step-by-step guideGetting an Australian mobile number in Canberra
Every Australian SIM must be identity-verified before activation — a regulatory requirement, not a carrier preference. A foreign passport plus an Australian address is enough for prepaid, but you must be physically in Australia to activate online with one. Three networks carry everything: Telstra, Optus and TPG Telecom (Vodafone), with dozens of resellers on the same towers for much less. All three are fine across the built-up ACT. The moment you drive into Namadgi, the Brindabellas or the Monaro, they are not — and that gap matters more here than in most capitals because the bush starts at the suburb boundary.
Read the full step-by-step guideTax file number, super, and the ACT's unusual property tax bargain
Get a Tax File Number in your first week: free, twenty minutes online, and without it your employer must withhold at the top marginal rate. Superannuation, now 12% of ordinary earnings, is money you own and temporary residents can reclaim on departure. The ACT layer matters most if you intend to buy. The territory is two-thirds of the way through a twenty-year programme replacing conveyance duty with general rates; from 1 July 2026 the Home Buyer Concession Scheme reportedly dropped both its income threshold and its property price cap, making eligible first home buyers duty-free at any price. And unlike every other mainland state, the ACT charges foreign purchasers no duty surcharge — it charges them an annual land tax surcharge of 0.75% of Average Unimproved Value instead.
Read the full step-by-step guideEach guide has verified costs, timelines, required documents, and the non-obvious gotchas — sourced from official government pages. Last verified August 2026.
Essential English phrases
Reading a list isn’t learning it. Globe Quest turns these into a trainer — hear each phrase spoken, drill them with spaced repetition, and get scored as you say them out loud.
What to know before you go
Most Commonwealth jobs need a security clearance, and every clearance needs citizenship
CriticalThis is the fact that decides whether Canberra works for you. Baseline, Negative Vetting 1 and Negative Vetting 2 clearances all require Australian citizenship — permanent residency is not enough, and a very large share of Australian Public Service and defence-industry roles are advertised as clearance-required. A citizenship eligibility waiver exists but it is genuinely exceptional: the role must be critical, undesignable, unable to be filled by a citizen, free of any conflict with your country of allegiance, and you must already be a permanent resident actively completing citizenship. In practice a skilled migrant arrives in Canberra and finds the largest employer in town closed until the four-year residence-to-citizenship path is finished. Plan the first years around the parts of the economy that do not require it: the universities, health, construction, and the consultancies' unclassified work.
You cannot buy freehold land in Canberra — nobody can
CriticalEvery block in the ACT is held under a Crown lease, almost always 99 years, granted by the government. You buy the dwelling and the remainder of the lease. In day-to-day terms it behaves like freehold: all the major banks lend on it without special conditions, you are not evicted, and there is no ground rent on a standard residential lease. Two things genuinely differ. First, the lease has a purpose clause and development conditions, and breaching them is a compliance matter — a lease that says 'residential' cannot quietly become a short-stay business. Second, at expiry a new lease is granted to the existing lessee without payment beyond administrative fees, provided the land is not required by the ACT or the Commonwealth. Read the lease, not just the contract.
The ACT charges foreign buyers no stamp duty surcharge — the only mainland jurisdiction that does not
ImportantNew South Wales charges foreign purchasers a 9% surcharge on top of ordinary duty, Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania 8%, South Australia and Western Australia 7%. The ACT charges nothing. On a AUD 900,000 home that is between AUD 63,000 and AUD 81,000 not paid, which is a serious number when you are choosing between Canberra and Sydney. Two caveats keep it honest. The ACT instead levies an annual foreign ownership land tax surcharge of 0.75% of Average Unimproved Value on residential land, and a foreign citizen who lives in the home can claim the principal-place-of-residence exemption. And the federal ban on foreign persons buying established dwellings, in force from 1 April 2025, means for most temporary residents the choice is a new dwelling or nothing.
Canberra is a designated regional area, so the 491's 15 points are on the table
ImportantOnly Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are excluded from designated regional Australia. Canberra is Category 2, alongside Perth, Adelaide, the Gold Coast, Hobart, Newcastle and Wollongong. That is 15 extra points toward the provisional subclass 491 and access to ACT nomination streams — run through the ACT's own Canberra Matrix, which scores things the federal points test does not, including how long you have already lived in Canberra, ACT study, English above the minimum, and a spouse's skills. The Matrix rewards being here, so the sequence for most people is: get to Canberra on something, then nominate.
Your rent cannot rise more than 110% of Canberra's CPI rents index without a tribunal
ImportantThe ACT has the strongest rent regulation in the country and almost nobody arriving knows it. A rent increase is only automatically permitted up to 110% of the change in the rents component of the Canberra CPI since the rent was last set. Above that, the landlord needs either your written agreement or prior approval from the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal. No-cause evictions and rent bidding have both been unlawful here since 1 April 2023. Coming from Sydney or Melbourne this is a genuinely different market — the protection is real, it is automatic, and you do not have to negotiate for it.
It gets properly cold, and the summer brings smoke
Good to knowCanberra sits at about 580 metres inland with the Brindabellas on the western skyline, and it is the coldest Australian capital. Winter mornings run below zero, frost is routine, and older Canberra housing is famously badly insulated and expensively heated — ask about insulation, double glazing and the energy efficiency rating, which the ACT uniquely requires sellers and landlords to disclose. Summer runs the other way: dry heat, high fire danger in the surrounding reserves, and the 2019–20 season when Canberra recorded some of the worst air quality in the world for weeks. A decent air purifier and a P2 mask are not paranoia here.
Top industries & employers
Commonwealth government & policy
Departments of Treasury, Defence, Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs and Trade, Services Australia, the ATO
The Australian Public Service is the city's economy. Salaries are banded and transparent, conditions are excellent, and most substantive roles are gated behind a security clearance that requires citizenship — which is why the sequence for a migrant is usually contract or industry work first, APS later.
Defence industry & national security
BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin Australia, Thales, Northrop Grumman, ASD and the intelligence agencies
A large defence-primes cluster grew up around the Department of Defence at Russell and the Australian Signals Directorate. It pays well and it is the most clearance-locked part of the market — treat citizenship as the entry ticket, not a nice-to-have.
Higher education & research
Australian National University, University of Canberra, UNSW Canberra at ADFA, CSIRO
The ANU is consistently Australia's highest-ranked university and, crucially for a newcomer, universities do not require citizenship. Academic and professional-staff roles are the most realistic first landing for a skilled migrant in Canberra.
Professional services & consulting
Accenture, KPMG, Deloitte, EY, Nous Group, Synergy Group
A very large consulting market exists purely to sell to government. Unclassified programme, change and data work is open to non-citizens; anything touching classified material is not, and the split runs straight through most firms' Canberra practices.
Health & aged care
Canberra Health Services, Canberra Hospital, Calvary Bruce, ACT Health
The new Canberra Hospital critical services building opened in 2024 and the territory draws patients from a large slice of south-eastern NSW. Health is the other citizenship-free part of the labour market and sits on almost every skilled occupation list.
Space, cyber & deep tech
Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex (Tidbinbilla), Skykraft, Seeing Machines, Quintessence Labs, Instaclustr
Tidbinbilla is one of only three complexes in NASA's Deep Space Network worldwide, and the ANU and UNSW Canberra spin out a steady stream of space and cyber companies. Small by Sydney standards, but unusually deep for a city of half a million.
Where to go in Canberra
Lake Burley Griffin & the Parliamentary Triangle
Landmark · Central Canberra
A 1963 artificial lake with the National Gallery, the National Library, Questacon, Old Parliament House and Parliament House arranged around it on Walter Burley Griffin's geometry.
Local tip: The 5km Central Basin loop over Kings and Commonwealth Avenue bridges is the walk locals actually do. Go at dawn in autumn when the fog sits on the water, and finish on the grass roof of Parliament House — it is the only national parliament in the world you can legally walk over the top of, and it is free.
Mount Ainslie summit
Nature · Braddon / Campbell, 3km from Civic
The lookout that explains the city — the whole Griffin axis lines up from the War Memorial through Anzac Parade to Parliament House in one sightline.
Local tip: Walk up from the War Memorial car park rather than driving; it is 45 minutes and a genuine climb. Do it once in your first week and the city's layout stops being confusing. Kangaroos on the lower track at dusk are a certainty, not a possibility.
Namadgi National Park & the Brindabellas
Nature · 45–60 minutes south-west
Nearly half the ACT's land area — granite tors, sub-alpine grasslands, Aboriginal rock art at Yankee Hat and a night sky with no city glow.
Local tip: The Yankee Hat rock art walk is a flat 6km round trip and one of the most accessible rock-art sites in south-eastern Australia. Check the ACT Parks fire and closure notices before you drive out — the park closes on Extreme fire danger days and there is no signal past the visitor centre.
The Braddon strip & Lonsdale Street
Nightlife · Immediately north of Civic
A former light-industrial block turned into Canberra's densest run of bars, restaurants, roasters and independent shops.
Local tip: Braddon is where Canberra stopped being a joke about roundabouts. Come on a Thursday — Friday belongs to whichever department has just finished a budget cycle. The laneways behind Lonsdale hide the better small bars, and almost none of them have signage.
Capital Region wineries & Murrumbateman
Food · 35 minutes north
A cool-climate riesling and shiraz district on the NSW side of the border, with about forty cellar doors inside an hour of the city.
Local tip: Clonakilla's shiraz viognier is the wine that made the region's name, but the quieter Sunday plan is Murrumbateman's smaller doors plus the farmers' market. Note you cross into NSW to get there — different speed camera rules, different police force, same drive.
The Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex
Hidden gemCulture · Tidbinbilla, 40 minutes south-west
One of three tracking stations in NASA's Deep Space Network, with a free visitor centre, a piece of Moon rock, and 70-metre dishes talking to Voyager.
Local tip: Free, open most days, and almost nobody who lives in Canberra has been. The best time is when a spacecraft is actually being tracked — the live status display in the visitor centre tells you what each dish is pointed at, and combining it with the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve next door makes a full day.
Emergency numbers in Canberra
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