Cost of living in Australian capitals, 2026

For a Family household, Adelaide is the cheapest Australian capital we cover, at A$10,770 a month. Sydney is the dearest, at A$13,730. These are the same city baselines the Cost of Living Calculator uses. Rank 1 is the cheapest Family total among our eight capitals in Australia.

Key takeaways

1. 01

   Adelaide is the cheapest Family baseline. Sydney is the dearest. Hobart is second.

2. 02

   Housing is the largest dollar gap between Sydney and Adelaide.

3. 03

   Rest of basket is full household consumption (food, bills, transport, recreation, alcohol, clothing), not groceries and utilities alone.

4. 04

   Melbourne and Canberra sit close together. Treat that as a tie until you type your rent.

5. 05

   City totals are from the July 2026 cube. Rent rows use the state quarters listed in Sources.

6. 06

   Open the calculator and type your rent. The baseline is a comparison, not a prefilled budget.

Eight capitals, Family, AUD / month

The eight-city average is A$12,299. Hobart is second at A$11,160. Melbourne (A$12,840) and Canberra (A$12,880) sit close together. The Sydney to Adelaide gap is A$2,960. Rent rows come from different state and territory quarters (2025-Q2 through 2026-04), so treat a close rank as a tie.

Rank 1 is the cheapest Family total among our eight capitals in Australia. Rest of basket is full household consumption after housing: food, utilities, transport, insurance, health, family and education, plus recreation, alcohol, tobacco, and clothing. It is not groceries and bills alone. City names open the calculator for that capital, Family household.

What drives the gap

Housing is the largest dollar gap. Sydney Family housing is A$3,660. Adelaide is A$2,740. That A$920 difference is most of the A$2,960 spread in the total.

The rest of the basket still moves. Food is A$2,280 in Sydney and A$1,820 in Adelaide, a A$460 gap. ABS publishes capital-city expenditure, so food can differ by city. Rest of basket also includes recreation, alcohol, tobacco, and clothing, which is why that column is larger than a lean weekly grocery-and-bills budget.

If you are comparing Melbourne and Canberra, the two-row gap is small. Your actual rent and commute will decide it. If you are comparing Sydney and Adelaide, start with housing.

How we calculated this

Housing is a rent-style occupancy cost from the state or territory rent table for that capital. Family uses the three-bed default band. Non-housing starts from the ABS CPI 17th series capital-city expenditure (opens the source page), then CPI (opens the source page) and the Monthly Household Spending Indicator, May 2026 (opens the source page).

City totals in this file are from July 2026. Rent tables in the sources list run from 2025-Q2 through early 2026. The full notebook is How Justools estimates cost of living.

Sources

Every row is a deep permalink we could open when this page was drafted. Method is carry-forward: city totals in file 2026-09 were copied from July 2026. The Period column is the rent or survey vintage for that row.

When this number is wrong for you

• Suburbs. Inner Sydney and outer Sydney can differ more than Adelaide and Hobart in this table. Type your rent.
• Mortgage versus rent. The housing line is a rent-style occupancy cost. If you own outright, your housing cost may be lower.
• Tax, benefits, and visa costs. We do not model them. Do not use a rank on an application.
• A new lease in a tight market. Published medians lag. Your asking rent may sit above the housing line.

Try it with your numbers

Empty cost fields in the calculator start as your inputs, not as a prefilled budget. Compare against the city baseline, then change the lines that do not match your life.

Related reports

How Justools estimates cost of living. That page is the method. This page is the Australian rank table.