Your Australian Working Holiday Visa: Everything You Need to Sort Before You Fly

Peak WHV season is creeping up again, which means the time for doing your visa is now or never. Every year we watch and talk to people who leave this stuff to the last minute and then spend their first week in a country stressed instead of enjoying it, so we’ve put together a list of everything you need to tick off – from the visa right through to what happens when you finally leave. Make sure to keep this handy, you’ll be coming back to it.

The rough timeline, if you want the short version

• Weeks before you fly: visa application, flights, temporary accommodation, travel insurance
• First few days on the ground: bank account, SIM, Medicare, TFN
• Once you’ve got a job: superannuation, understanding your pay
• Ongoing: deciding city vs. regional, staying safe, keeping on top of your visa conditions
• Before you leave the country: tax return, superannuation reclaim

Now let’s go through it properly.

1. Actually apply for the visa

Obvious starting point, but worth saying clearly: do this first, because everything else hinges on it. As of the latest fee update, here’s what you’re looking at:

• First year visa: AUD $840
• Second year visa: AUD $1,000
• Third year visa: AUD $1,000

Yes, the second and third year visas now cost more than your first – that caught a lot of people off guard this year, so budget for it rather than assuming it’ll match last time’s price. Apply directly here once you’ve got your documents ready (valid passport, proof of funds, and depending on your nationality, possibly a health check).

If you want to extend beyond your first 12 months, you’ll usually need to complete “specified work” – genuine, paid employment in an approved industry (think fruit picking, farming, fishing, forestry, mining, construction, or hospitality in the far north) carried out in an eligible regional postcode. A second-year visa needs 88 days of this, a third-year visa needs a further 179 days done during your second year. The days don’t need to be consecutive and can be spread across different employers, but cash-in-hand work doesn’t count – you need official payslips. If you’re a UK passport holder, good news: under the Australia-UK trade agreement you’re exempt from this requirement entirely and can apply for your second and third year without doing any regional work. Worth double-checking your own nationality’s rules before you plan your year around a farm job that you don’t actually have to do.

2. Book your flight and plan your first few weeks

You don’t need your whole trip planned out, but you do need somewhere to land and settle after a long flight. Book a flight and at least the first couple of weeks of accommodation – a hostel, short-term let, or even a serviced apartment is fine, it just needs to be booked before you go so you can focus on job hunting. Unless, you have already landed a job before arriving.

Here’s the bit people forget: you’ll need a postal address to receive your setup documents (bank cards, tax paperwork, that kind of thing), so make sure wherever you’re staying can actually take mail. Most decent hostels are used to this and will hold post for WHV guests, but it’s worth asking before you book rather than assuming. We posted ours to our place of work as we got a job upon landing. If you’ve got a friend, relative, or a hostel with a good reputation for this, that works too – just get it sorted as it will save you a lot of stress when you arrive at the bank without an address. 

We relied on our travel cards for the first few days which worked perfectly. 99% of places take card. Cash machines do have a huge withdrawal fee if you do need cash out on a foreign card.

A tip most people don’t think about until it’s too late: keep your first booking flexible enough to extend by a few days. Almost everyone underestimates how long the “settling in” admin actually takes.

3. Sort your bank account

You’ll want an Australian bank account set up as soon as you land so your pay doesn’t get stuck in limbo waiting on international transfers. We’ve had good experiences with Commbank – the app is solid, ATMs are everywhere, and the setup process for newly arrived WHV holders is genuinely painless. You can actually start the application online before you land using your passport and visa details, which saves you a queue on day one and means you can walk in, verify your identity, and walk out with a working account. This process literally took us 45 minutes to set up both our accounts.

You’ll typically need your passport and your Australian address (see point 2 – another reason to have that sorted first) to open the account, Australian mobile number and most banks will let you do this without a TFN yet, though you’ll want to add that as soon as it comes through (see point 5) so you’re not taxed at the top rate.

4. Get yourself a Phone number

Felix has consistently come out as the best value SIM/eSIM option for WHV arrivals when we’ve compared plans – decent data, no lock-in contracts, and easy to set up. If your phone supports eSIM, you can activate it before you land and have signal the moment you step off the plane, which takes a surprising amount of stress out of day one.

Having a local number sorted early matters more than people expect. You’ll need one for the bank, for Medicare, for job applications, and for pretty much every “please provide a contact number” form you’ll fill in over the next few weeks.

5. Medicare and your TFN

If you’re from a country with a Reciprocal Health Care Agreement with Australia: the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Finland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, and Sweden are among them – get yourself down to a Medicare office or do it online and get registered. It covers a decent chunk of basic and emergency healthcare while you’re here, but it is not a substitute for proper travel insurance, and the gaps matter (more on that below).

At the same time, apply for your Tax File Number (TFN) as soon as you can – it’s a free, straightforward online application through the ATO, and it usually takes around two to three weeks to arrive by post (yes, send to your postal address again). Do this early, because without a TFN your employer is legally required to tax you at the highest emergency rate, which on a WHV wage adds up to a genuinely painful chunk of your pay disappearing until you sort it out. A good tip is to see if your employer will hold your pay until you receive this.

6. Superannuation – but only once you’re working

You don’t need to think about super until you’ve actually got a job. Once you do, your employer is legally required to pay a percentage of your wage into a super account on top of your pay – this isn’t deducted from your wage, it’s extra, so it’s worth checking your payslips to make sure it’s actually being paid. Most employers will default you into a fund, but you’re allowed to choose your own if you’d rather consolidate everything into one account, especially if you end up working multiple jobs across your WHV.

Keep hold of your super account details, because this becomes relevant again right at the end of your trip: when you permanently leave Australia, you’re entitled to claim back your super as a DASP (Departing Australia Superannuation Payment). It’s taxed on the way out, but it’s still your money, and a lot of people either forget to claim it or lose track of which fund it’s sitting in. Save the login details somewhere safe now and you’ll thank yourself in a year or two.

7. Casual vs. contracted work – know the difference

Most WHV jobs fall into one of two buckets:

• Casual work – no guaranteed hours, and you can be let go without notice, but you’re paid a casual loading on top of the base rate to make up for the lack of security (usually an extra 25%). Great for flexibility, less great for predictability. Most hospitality, retail, and farm work on a WHV is casual.
• Contracted/permanent work – guaranteed hours and entitlements like paid annual leave and sick leave, but a lower hourly rate since you’re not getting that casual loading.

Neither is “better” – it depends whether you want flexibility to travel at short notice or a steadier income for a stretch of your trip.

What’s “Award Rate”?

You’ll see this term everywhere and it trips a lot of people up. The Award Rate is the legal minimum pay set by the Fair Work Commission for a specific industry and role – it’s not one flat number, it varies by job type, and it’s higher for casual roles because of that loading we just mentioned. Hospitality, retail, and agriculture each have their own Award covering different roles and experience levels. If a job is offering you below Award Rate, that’s not a “backpacker discount,” that’s underpayment, and it’s worth checking your industry’s Award on the Fair Work website before you agree to a rate, especially for farm work where underpayment is unfortunately common.

Where to actually find work

Facebook groups (search “[city name] backpacker jobs”), Gumtree, Workaway, hostel noticeboards, and dedicated backpacker job boards are all worth checking regularly – a lot of casual and farm work never makes it onto mainstream job sites. Recruitment agencies that specialise in hospitality and labour hire are also worth registering with in bigger cities, since they’ll often place you faster than applying cold.

Print off your CV and hand it into everywhere. You never know who might be needing staff at that moment.

8. City life or remote life?

This shapes your whole experience, so give it real thought instead of just picking the cheapest flight

• City life (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth) means an easier social scene, more casual hospitality and retail work, better transport, and more people your age around but higher rent and more competition for jobs, especially at peak season when everyone else has the same idea.
• Remote/regional life (farm work, outback towns, agriculture, far north hospitality) usually pays better once you factor in isolation and the fact that accommodation is often provided or subsidised, and it’s often the route to your second-year visa specified work if your nationality needs it – but it’s a genuinely different pace of life, and not everyone loves the isolation, the early starts, or the physical work.

A lot of the best WHV years mix both: a stint in the city to socialise and settle in, then a stint remote to earn well and bank your regional days, before heading back to the coast to actually enjoy the money you’ve made.

9. Staying safe day-to-day

A few practical things that don’t make it into most checklists but matter:

• Sun safety is not optional here – the UV index gets extreme, and getting burnt turns into a hospital trip more often than people expect. Sunscreen, a hat, and make sure to reapply.
• If you’re planning to drive, most visitors can use their home country’s driving licence alongside an International Driving Permit for a set period, but check the exact rules for the state you’re in, as they differ.
• Wildlife is mostly overhyped by relatives back home, but do learn the basics – what to do for a snake or spider bite (pressure immobilisation bandage, stay still, call 000), and don’t go swimming in croc country.

10. Don’t skip travel insurance

This is the one people are most tempted to cut corners on, and it’s the one that’ll actually ruin your trip if something goes wrong. Medicare (if you’re eligible) covers some things, but it does not cover everything – ambulance call-outs, for example, are not included under Medicare, and an ambulance ride in Australia can run into the hundreds of dollars on its own, sometimes well over a thousand for anything involving a longer transfer or air ambulance in a regional area.

It’s not a nice thing to think about, but Medicare also won’t get you home if something goes seriously wrong. If you’re badly injured or fall seriously ill and need to be medically evacuated or flown back to your home country, that’s a repatriation, and it’s arranged and paid for through your travel insurance, not Medicare. A medical flight home, potentially with a nurse or doctor accompanying you, isn’t cheap. It could be tens of thousands, well beyond what most people could cover themselves. It’s an unlikely scenario for most of you, but it’s exactly the kind of thing insurance exists for: the stuff you hope you’ll never need but really don’t want to be without if you do.

Add in the fact that Medicare doesn’t touch things like lost baggage, cancelled flights, gear stolen from a hostel, or cover for injuries picked up doing the adventure activities half of you will inevitably end up doing, this is why insurance cover matters.

This is exactly why we work with True Traveller – they’ve built cover specifically with backpackers and WHV travellers in mind, so you’re not paying for stuff you don’t need or missing the stuff you do. Standard cover includes non-manual and clerical work like bar work, office work, teaching, and childminding, and if farm or other manual work is part of your plan, that’s covered by adding their Adventure Pack, they provide lots of helpful information on their website. Get a quote here before you fly, not after something’s already happened – and definitely always double check that any farm or manual labour you’re planning is actually covered under your policy, since not all insurers include it as standard.

11. A quick word on money

Australia isn’t a cheap country to live in, and it’s easy to burn through savings faster than expected in your first few weeks before your first pay day. A rough rule of thumb a lot of past travellers swear by: arrive with enough to cover a month of rent, food, and transport without relying on income, so you’re not making desperate decisions about the first job offer that comes along. Beyond that, get a budgeting app or even just a simple spreadsheet going from day one – it’ll make your life a lot easier and keep you on track.

12. Next Steps When Your Visa Expires

When your WHV comes to an end (or you decide to head home), there are two bits of admin worth doing properly:

• Lodge a tax return. As a WHV holder you’re taxed differently to residents, and depending on how much you earned and when, you may be owed money back – it’s worth doing properly through the ATO or a tax agent who specialises in backpacker returns. You may have money to claim.
• Claim your super (DASP). As mentioned above, once you’ve left Australia for good and your visa has expired, you can apply to have your superannuation paid out to you. It’s taxed at a fairly high rate of 65% on exit, but it’s still money that’s yours, and plenty of people leave it sitting in an account for years because they forgot it existed. You have 3 months to claim this after leaving.

That’s the full checklist. None of it is complicated on its own, it’s just a lot to remember at once – so save this, work through it roughly in order, and you’ll land with everything sorted instead of running around in week one. And whatever else you leave until the last minute, don’t make it the insurance.

FAQs