How much does it cost to relocate to Australia as a GP?

How to think about the cost

There is no single number, and anyone who hands you one is guessing: the charges turn on your route and scale with how many of you are coming. Budget by four buckets, set out below: one-off regulatory costs (verification and registration), visa costs for you and your family, the physical move (flights, shipping, somewhere to land), and ongoing costs once you are practising, such as indemnity and registration renewal.

If you are still deciding whether the move is on for you, start with the complete relocation guide and the eligibility self-assessment, because your pathway shapes nearly every figure below.

Every amount above is indicative and changes, often each financial year; confirm the current figure on the linked official page before you budget.

Verification and registration costs

The regulatory bucket comes first, and breaks into separate charges paid to different bodies, so it is easy to under-budget from the AHPRA fee alone. The starting point is primary source verification: your qualifications are confirmed directly with the bodies that issued them, through the Australian Medical Council using the EPIC (Electronic Portfolio of International Credentials) service operated by Intealth. It is a cost in its own right, separate from registration, and worth budgeting early because it is also the longest single wait. The mechanics are in primary source verification and EPIC explained.

Next comes registration with AHPRA and the Medical Board: an application fee when you lodge, then an annual registration fee once you hold registration (the step-by-step application guide walks the form). Then there are possible college costs: on the expedited specialist pathway you apply to the Medical Board rather than sitting a fellowship exam, so the cost shape differs from the older college assessment route, where the RACGP or ACRRM assesses your comparability. The trade-offs are set out in GP registration pathways and RACGP vs ACRRM.

Visa costs

The visa bucket is easily under-budgeted, because the headline charge is only part of it and the total grows with your family. General practitioner sits on the skilled occupation list, so the routes are the employer-sponsored subclass 482 (Skills in Demand) and 186 (employer nomination, permanent residency), and the points-tested 189, 190 and 491 family. Each has its own charge, so the figure depends on which you pursue; the visa options overview sets out which fits whom.

Watch the per-person loading: charges rise with each family member, so a partner and children shift the number well beyond the base fee (see bringing your family). Around the visa sit smaller but unavoidable costs, a skills assessment where required, health checks with a panel physician, and police certificates from each country you have lived in, repeating per adult. Immigration advice is regulated, so use a migration agent registered with MARA and confirm charges with Home Affairs.

The English test most GPs do not pay for

For most UK and Irish-trained GPs, no English test such as IELTS or OET is required: AHPRA's standard can be met through medical education taught and assessed in English in a recognised country, and both the UK and Ireland are recognised. It is criteria-based, not automatic by nationality, so confirm you meet the current standard before ruling the cost out (a test is around AUD 490-590 if you do need one). The detail is in our English language requirement guide.

The physical move

No bucket varies more widely, because it depends almost entirely on you: a single GP with two suitcases and a job lined up spends a fraction of what a family of five with a house of furniture and a pet will. The main lines are flights (roughly GBP 500-1,200 each one-way), shipping or excess baggage (a container commonly GBP 2,000-6,000 or more), initial accommodation, and the setting-up costs of a new home, from a rental bond to a car to a phone plan. List the lines that apply to your household rather than chase a number that fits everyone.

Cost of living in Australia vs the UK frames the ongoing spend you are moving into, and the relocation checklist and timeline shows when it lands.

Ongoing professional costs

The costs that begin once you are working recur for as long as you practise. The big one is medical indemnity insurance: mandatory cover whose annual premium, commonly in the low thousands of AUD, depends on your scope, hours and provider. Our guide to medical indemnity insurance for GPs explains what drives it.

Alongside it sit CPD and college membership and the recurring annual registration fee of around AUD 1,000. Even on the expedited pathway you maintain CPD through a college CPD home, which carries its own cost. None of this is unique to overseas GPs, but factor it in once the move itself is paid for.

Who pays what

You do not always pay all of this yourself, and that reshapes the budget more than anything else. Many practices contribute to relocation, sponsorship or registration costs, and what is covered is negotiable: a sponsoring practice carries the nomination side, and some also contribute to flights, registration, indemnity or initial accommodation. None of it is guaranteed, so clarify any contribution in writing before you accept.

Rural and harder-to-fill roles often come with stronger support, both from the practice and through workforce incentives, which can shift a meaningful share off your own ledger; our guides to rural incentives and choosing a state or territory explain how location changes it. When you judge a role, negotiating your first contract covers how relocation support sits alongside your billing percentage, and what you can expect to earn weighs an offer against its costs.

Next steps

Walk the buckets in the table above, attach the official page to each, and add up live figures for your own circumstances. From there, the timeline guide shows when each cost lands, the eligibility self-assessment locks in your route, and the complete relocation guide holds the full picture.

Sources

Every cost above traces to an official page that carries the current figure.

Frequently asked questions