Australia's Departure Tax Rises to A$80: What It Means If You've Already Booked
Key Highlights
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+3 more in the takeaways below
You booked eight months out. Flights to Auckland for March 2027, locked in early because every travel forum told you fares only go up from here. Then a headline landed in your feed last month: Australia's departure tax is jumping by A$10 a head from 1 January 2027. Your first thought was probably relief. You already paid, so surely you're covered.
That's not quite how it works, and the actual mechanism is stranger than either "you're safe" or "you're not."
The Passenger Movement Charge, Australia's exit fee for anyone flying or sailing out of the country, rises from A$70 to A$80 from 1 January 2027, under the Passenger Movement Charge Amendment Bill 2026. The charge is calculated by departure date, not the date you bought your ticket, which is the government's own framing. But the bill also carries a transitional carve-out for tickets sold before it becomes law, so whether you land on the old rate or the new one depends on exactly when you bought, not just when you fly. How long that carve-out runs is genuinely unsettled - published summaries of the bill contradict each other, and the bill's own text is not yet public. Travellers 11 or younger are exempt. As of September 2026, the bill is still before Parliament, and the increase is forecast to raise about A$755 million over five years.
What's actually changing on 1 January 2027
The Passenger Movement Charge, or PMC, is the fee Home Affairs collects from almost everyone who leaves Australia by air or sea. It's usually baked into your ticket price, which is exactly why most travellers have never noticed it. It's rising by A$10, and it's the second increase in three years: the last one, from A$60 to A$70, took effect on 1 July 2024.
The mechanism is the Passenger Movement Charge Amendment Bill 2026, a Home Affairs bill introduced to the House of Representatives on 12 August 2026, with its second reading debate on 19 August, per the bill's own record on the Parliament of Australia website. As of September 2026 it's still before Parliament, not yet law. Airlines have publicly complained that they legally can't collect the higher rate until the bill actually passes, which is a genuinely odd position for a fee that's supposed to start applying from 1 January.
Does buying your ticket early actually protect you?
Here's the part worth reading twice if you've already got 2027 flights booked. According to the government's own explanation, reported by SBS News, "the changes will apply to anyone departing the country after that date, irrespective of when the ticket for travel was booked." Departure date decides your rate. Purchase date doesn't, as a general rule.
But the bill also builds in a grace period, and this is the bit that gets left out of most headlines. The principle is agreed: if your ticket was sold or issued before the amendment becomes law, you keep paying the old rate for a period after 1 January 2027. Buy your ticket after Royal Assent, even for a departure inside that same period, and you're paying the new one.
What nobody can currently tell you is how long the grace period lasts. Published summaries of the bill flatly disagree: a migration law firm's summary describes an 18-month arrangement running to 30 June 2028, other summaries put it at roughly six months, and SBS's explainer doesn't mention a carve-out at all. We tried to settle it against the bill's own text and couldn't: the Parliament House document endpoints sit behind a bot challenge, and Hansard wouldn't serve us either. So treat the window as unknown until the bill passes and the text is published. The principle you can plan around is the ticket issue date; the deadline you can't.
| When you bought your ticket | When you depart | Rate that applies |
|---|---|---|
| Before the bill's Royal Assent | Before 1 Jan 2027 | A$70 (current rate) |
| Before the bill's Royal Assent | On or after 1 Jan 2027, inside the grace period | A$70 (transitional rate) |
| Before the bill's Royal Assent | After the grace period ends | A$80 (new rate) |
| After the bill's Royal Assent | Any date from 1 Jan 2027 | A$80 (new rate) |
Two dates decide your fee, not one: when the bill receives Royal Assent, and when you leave. A ticket bought now, before the bill passes, for a March 2027 departure should still sit on the old rate under the transitional rule - March is early enough to fall inside the grace period on any of the competing readings. The same route booked after the bill has passed would attract the new one. Neither date is something the airline shows you at checkout, so don't assume either way, and query the airline directly if a charge on your invoice looks wrong.
We'd stop short of calling this reassuring. A ten-dollar difference either way isn't going to sink a trip, but it's a genuinely confusing way to run a tax change, and it's exactly why industry bodies pushed back on being left out of the consultation, per reporting from Australian Frequent Flyer.
Who actually has to pay it
Almost every departing passenger over a certain age does. The current exemption list, published by the Australian Border Force, hasn't changed with this bill, only the dollar figure has:
- You're 11 years of age or younger at the date of departure
- You're crew, operational or positioning, including medical attendants
- You're transiting and don't go through Customs or Immigration processing
- You hold a diplomatic or consular passport (visa subclass 995 or 403)
- You're a foreign defence force member on a military aircraft or ship, or their spouse or child
- You landed in Australia because of a genuine emergency, such as illness or a mechanical fault
- You're on a multi-port cruise and this isn't your first departure of the same journey (you only pay once)
Everyone else pays, once, per departure. A family of four flying out together where the kids are 12 and 15 is looking at four full charges under the new rate, not two adult charges and a discount for the teens.
Why the government is doing this now
Money, mostly. The PMC has existed since 1995, when it started at A$27, and it brought in A$1.38 billion in the 2024/25 financial year alone, per SBS's reporting. This latest increase is forecast to add roughly A$755 million in revenue over the five years from 2025-26. That's not pocket change for a fee most travellers don't consciously budget for.
It's also become a reliable lever. Getting from A$27 to A$60 took nearly three decades. Getting from A$60 to today's rate has taken three years. If that pace holds, don't be surprised to see another rise discussed again before the decade's out.
It's not the only fee climbing at once
The PMC increase lands on top of a passport fee rise that already hit at the start of this year. From 1 January 2026, a standard 10-year adult passport costs A$422, up from A$412, according to fee schedules reported by This Is Australia. A child passport, five-year validity, runs A$213. Neither figure is new information to anyone who's renewed recently, but stack it against the exit charge and a family of four heading overseas for the first time in a decade, needing four fresh passports plus the departure fee, is carrying several hundred dollars more in pure government charges than the same trip cost two years ago. That's before flights, accommodation, or anything resembling a holiday.
And none of this is unique to leisure travel, either. If airfares themselves are already stretching budgets, a flat fee that adds the same amount regardless of the ticket price hits hardest on routes where the base fare is already cheap, like short Pacific hops. Indonesia is Australia's top international destination by trip volume, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and anyone sorting Bali entry paperwork alongside a departure-tax budget is now juggling three separate government fees before the flight even leaves the ground.
What to actually do before you fly
Check your booking confirmation for the ticket issue date, not just the departure date. If you bought before the bill's Royal Assent, the old rate should still apply for departures inside the grace period, and an extra charge added later is worth querying with the airline. Because the length of that period is disputed, the further into 2028 you fly, the less safe that assumption is. If you're booking new travel for 2027 or 2028 from here on, budget on the higher A$80 per person, per departure, and don't rely on an old fare screenshot to settle a dispute at check-in.
This is also a decent prompt to sort passport renewals before you need to book anything urgently. A 10-year adult passport at A$422 is cheaper to plan for than to panic-pay for priority processing a fortnight before a flight. If you're organising a family trip out of Perth, Brisbane, or regional Queensland, juggling several passports, a departure charge and everyone's booking confirmations, keeping the receipts and confirmations in one place rather than scattered across email threads makes the eventual "wait, when did we actually book this" conversation a lot shorter. That's the kind of thing a trip document checklist, whether that's a physical wallet or something like TripProf's document storage, earns its keep on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to pay the difference if I already booked and paid the old rate?
Not automatically, and not directly to Home Affairs. The PMC is collected by the airline as part of your ticket, so any adjustment would come from the airline, not from a separate government bill landing in your inbox. Under the transitional rule, tickets sold before the bill becomes law are meant to keep the old rate for departures inside the grace period - though how long that period runs is disputed and won't be settled until the bill's text is published.
Does the charge apply to trips to New Zealand?
Yes. The PMC applies to any departure from Australia by air or sea to another country, and New Zealand isn't exempt just because it's a short hop. The only exemptions are the specific categories the Australian Border Force sets out above.
Is my 11 year old exempt, or does the exemption apply to under 12s?
The official wording from the Australian Border Force is "11 years of age or younger at the date of departure." So a child who is still 11, even the day before their 12th birthday, is exempt. Once they turn 12, they pay.
When does the higher rate actually start being collected?
Legally, not until the bill passes Parliament and receives Royal Assent, even though the policy is framed around a 1 January 2027 departure date. Airlines have said they can't collect the higher amount before then, which means enforcement is still catching up to the announced date as of September 2026. If you're planning around this, check for updates closer to your departure rather than assuming the current status holds.
Does it matter which airport I fly out of, like Perth or Brisbane instead of Sydney?
No. The Passenger Movement Charge is the same national rate regardless of which Australian airport or port you depart from. A family flying out of Perth to London pays exactly the same charge as one leaving Sydney, and the same transition rule about ticket-purchase timing applies everywhere.
Key Takeaways
- The exit charge rises from A$70 to A$80 on 1 January 2027, under the Passenger Movement Charge Amendment Bill 2026, still before Parliament as of September 2026.
- Departure date sets your rate, not purchase date, as the general rule. But a transitional carve-out means a ticket bought before the bill passes can still lock in the old rate for a while. Sources disagree on how long - anywhere from about six months to 30 June 2028 - so don't bank on a specific deadline.
- Check your ticket issue date against the bill's passage, not just your departure date, before assuming which rate applies to you.
- Travellers 11 and younger are exempt, along with crew, transit passengers, diplomats, and a short list of other categories set by the Australian Border Force.
- It's stacking with other fee rises, including the adult passport fee climbing to A$422 from 1 January 2026, so budget the whole picture, not just the airfare.
- Keep your booking confirmations and passport details together. Apps like TripProf that store trip documents in one place make it faster to prove exactly when you booked if an airline ever gets the charge wrong.
Sources
- Parliament of Australia, Passenger Movement Charge Amendment Bill 2026, bill status and timeline: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r7523
- Australian Border Force, Passenger Movement Charge (PMC) exemptions and current rate: https://www.abf.gov.au/entering-and-leaving-australia/crossing-the-border/passenger-movement/passenger-movement-charge-(pmc)
- SBS News, "A travel charge most Australians don't know they pay is rising again," departure-date mechanic and revenue estimate: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/passenger-movement-charge-increase-explained/knu62ll5a
- Australian Frequent Flyer, "Australia's Departure Tax Will Increase to $80," industry consultation and collection timing: https://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/australia-departure-tax-increase-2027/
- This Is Australia, Australian passport fee schedule from 1 January 2026: https://www.thisisaustralia.com/news/australian-passport-fee-increase-in-january-2026/
- Australian Bureau of Statistics, Indonesia as Australia's top international destination: https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/indonesia-overtakes-new-zealand-top-destination-australian-travellers
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