Oceania for Digital Nomads

Monthly costs are what one person spends living comfortably: a one-bedroom flat on a monthly lease, eating out often, a coworking desk, transport and a social life.

• Big cities with everything: Sydney for the harbour and beaches, Melbourne for coffee, food and culture.
• Sun and surf: Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Byron Bay.
• Working Asian hours: Perth, on the same clock as Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
• Outdoors and adventure: Queenstown, Christchurch and Hobart.
• Compact and creative: Wellington and Adelaide.
• New Zealand’s main hub: Auckland, with the most flights and coworking spaces.

• New Zealand: most Western visitors get up to three months (six for UK citizens) with an NZeTA. Since January 2025, visitors may work remotely for an overseas employer or overseas clients while they are in New Zealand, as long as they don’t work for New Zealand businesses.
• Australia: US, Canadian, Japanese and some other citizens apply for an ETA; UK and EU citizens for a free eVisitor. Both allow stays of up to three months per visit. There is no nomad visa, and Australia’s visitor rules do not clearly cover long periods of remote work, so check the Department of Home Affairs’ current guidance.
• Working holiday visas: both countries offer working holiday visas to young people from many countries, usually aged 18 to 30 (35 for some nationalities, including UK, Canadian, French and Irish citizens in Australia). They allow a year or more of stay and local work.

A comfortable month costs about $3,000 to $3,600 in Christchurch, Wellington, Adelaide, Hobart, Perth, Brisbane and the Gold Coast, about $3,500 to $4,000 in Auckland, Melbourne, Queenstown and Byron Bay, and $4,300 or more in Sydney. These are ballpark figures, and rent is the biggest part. Furnished monthly rentals are scarce and expensive, so many nomads use house-sitting, room rentals or coliving, which can cut costs a lot. Eating out is expensive, but supermarket food, public parks, beaches and hiking are excellent value.

Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart and Brisbane are on UTC+10 (Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart move to UTC+11 for daylight saving from October to April; Brisbane does not). Adelaide is half an hour behind, Perth is on UTC+8, and New Zealand is on UTC+12 (UTC+13 in its summer).

That is great for Asia and for local work, and hard for everything else. A 9am New York meeting is at 11pm to 1am in Sydney, and the European working day falls overnight. Europeans and North Americans often work early mornings and late evenings here, or work asynchronously.

Australia’s NBN fibre and fixed wireless is reliable but slower than in Asia, with typical home plans of 100 Mbps or less unless you pay for a higher tier. New Zealand’s fibre is faster and widely available in the cities. Mobile coverage is excellent in cities but thin in the outback and in New Zealand’s mountains, where Starlink is common.

• December to March (southern summer) is beach season in Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart and New Zealand, and the busiest and most expensive time.
• April to October suits Queensland and Perth: warm and dry, while summers there are hot and humid with storms.
• June to September is ski season in Queenstown and the Southern Alps.
• Spring and autumn (September to November, March to May) are mild almost everywhere and cheaper.

Both countries are among the safest in the world. The risks are natural ones: strong sun (use high-factor sunscreen), rip currents on surf beaches (swim between the flags), bushfire smoke in Australian summers, and fast-changing mountain weather in New Zealand. Healthcare is excellent, but visitors pay full price unless covered by a reciprocal agreement (the UK and some EU countries have one with Australia), so carry health insurance.