What It Really Costs to Leave Australia: Passport Fee Plus Departure Charge, Added Up

You dig the passport out of the bottom drawer and the expiry date is eighteen months gone. Renewing it before your flight out of Perth is going to cost more than it did last time, and that's before you've even looked at what the airline adds on for simply letting you leave the country.

What It Actually Costs to Leave Australia Right Now

A solo traveller who needs a fresh 10-year passport pays A$492 in pure government fees before a single flight is booked. That's A$422 for the passport, plus A$70 for the Passenger Movement Charge.

Neither figure is a guess. The passport fee comes straight from the Australian Passport Office's own fee schedule, effective from 1 January 2026, and the exit charge is what the Australian Border Force collects from almost everyone who leaves by air or sea today.

That's the honest maths, and it's two numbers, not one. A$502 is the figure a few headlines have already rounded to, and it's not wrong, exactly. It's early. The bill's own record on the Parliament of Australia website shows it introduced and read a first time on 12 August 2026, with its second reading debate on 19 August and a referral to the Federation Chamber the same day. There's no Senate passage listed, no royal assent, and the site's own status field reads "Before Reps" as of this week. Until that changes, A$492 is what leaving the country actually costs a passport-renewing traveller. A$502 is what it will cost, on a date that hasn't happened yet. Our companion piece on the Passenger Movement Charge increase covers the transitional rules for anyone who's already booked a 2027 flight, so read that one for the timing question. This one is about the total.

The Breakdown: Passport Fee Plus Exit Charge, Line by Line

Two government charges, two different departments, two different reasons they exist. The table below shows what each traveller type actually pays today, and what changes once the higher PMC rate applies.

*The PMC figure only applies once the Passenger Movement Charge Amendment Bill 2026 passes and its 1 January 2027 start date has arrived. †The passport fee is unrelated to that bill, but it's on its own annual CPI indexation cycle that also lands around 1 January, so it will very likely move again too. DFAT hasn't published the next figure yet, so A$422 here is today's confirmed rate, not a number locked in through 2027.

The Passport Fee: A$422, and It Climbs Every January

A standard 10-year adult passport costs A$422 as of 1 January 2026, up from A$412 the year before. That's the figure from the Australian Passport Office's own current fee schedule, not a secondary write-up.

That distinction matters here, because a lot of what circulates online traces back to secondary reporting rather than the department's own numbers. The schedule states plainly that fees "apply to passport and travel document applications, are subject to annual indexation".

That indexation is why the fee only ever moves in one direction. The Canberra Times reports that a passport fee for anyone 16 and over cost A$250 back in January 2015, meaning it's risen by A$172 in eleven years, with a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) spokesperson confirming fees are "adjusted annually on January 1 'in line with the Consumer Price Index'". No legislation has to pass for this one to go up again next January. It just does, which means the A$422 figure in the tables below is today's confirmed rate, not one locked in through 2027. DFAT hasn't published the next indexed figure yet.

The Passenger Movement Charge: A$70 Today, A$80 Once the Law Changes

The Passenger Movement Charge is currently A$70 per departure. Almost everyone leaving Australia by air or sea pays it, usually folded invisibly into the ticket price.

That figure is confirmed directly on the Australian Border Force's own PMC page, which states an officer collecting the charge manually "will collect AUD70 directly from each passenger". It's not new. It's been A$70 since 1 July 2024, when it last rose from A$60.

What's coming is a A$10 rise to A$80, sitting inside the Passenger Movement Charge Amendment Bill 2026. According to SBS News, the government expects the change to bring in "an additional $755 million over the next five years", on top of the A$1.38 billion the charge already raised in 2024/25 alone. The government's own framing, per that same reporting, is that the higher rate "will apply to anyone departing the country after that date, irrespective of when the ticket for travel was booked." Departure date sets the fee. Purchase date generally doesn't. Australian Frequent Flyer reports that airline and travel industry bodies "have complained that the government did not consult them about this change," on top of their separate complaint that they can't legally collect the higher rate before the bill actually passes.

Some travellers are exempt outright. Anyone 11 years of age or younger at the date of departure pays nothing, and neither do crew, transiting passengers who never clear Customs, diplomatic staff, and a short list of other categories the Border Force sets out on that same page. Everyone else pays it, once, per departure. Our full breakdown of the PMC increase covers the transitional rate for tickets bought before the bill passes, which matters if you've already locked in 2027 flights. Here, the point is simpler: A$70 today, A$80 later, no passport required either way.

What This Actually Costs a Household

A solo traveller and a family of four aren't paying the same trip. Multiply the two fees by however many people in your household actually need a fresh passport this year, and the number stops being an abstract policy line and starts being a line in your own budget.

Data: hcmc.consulate.gov.au, abf.gov.au, aph.gov.au

*The PMC part of these totals only rises once the amendment bill passes and 1 January 2027 has arrived. The passport figures are held flat here because DFAT hasn't published its 2027 indexed rate yet, not because the passport fee is exempt from rising too.

That family-of-four total assumes both parents and both teenagers need a brand-new book, which is the worst case and the one worth planning around if it's ever hit you before. It's four full passport fees plus four PMC charges, not two adult fees and a discount for the kids. If only the parents need renewals and the teenagers' passports still have a few years left, the same household drops to A$844 for the two adult passports plus A$280 for four PMC charges, or A$1,124 today.

What Moves the Number Most

Three things decide whether your household lands near the cheap end of this or the expensive end, and only one of them is fully in your control.

Second: which side of 1 January 2027 your departure date falls on, and whether the bill has actually passed by then. A ticket bought today for a March 2027 departure is a different case again, and that's the transitional question our PMC increase guide walks through in detail, because the answer depends on exactly when you bought, not just when you fly.

Third, and easy to miss: a child's age on the day they actually depart. The PMC exemption cuts off at 11, sharply, not gradually. A family flying out the week after the youngest turns 12 pays a PMC charge that wasn't there the week before, on top of whatever passport renewal is already due.

One thing that doesn't move the number at all: which Australian airport you're flying from. A family departing Brisbane or Adelaide pays exactly the same PMC and passport fees as one leaving from Sydney or Perth. The charge is national, not port-specific.

Photo: User:Orderinchaos · CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Cheap Version and the Expensive Version of the Same Trip

Same household, same destination, two very different bills, and the gap between them is entirely about timing.

We'd rather say this plainly than hedge it: leaving passport renewals until the month before a booked flight is how people end up scrambling, and the fee doesn't care how much notice you gave yourself. Renew on a normal timeline, not a panicked one. There's no cheaper option available once you're already at the departure gate wondering if your book has enough blank pages left.

Keeping the renewal date, the receipt and the PMC line all in one place, rather than scattered across email confirmations and a drawer, is exactly the kind of thing a trip document checklist earns its keep on. TripProf's own document storage and multi-currency expense tracking exist for precisely this: log the passport fee and the PMC as a single line item against the trip, so the total is visible before you've spent a dollar on the actual holiday.

How This Compares to Other Government Charges Australians Pay to Travel

The exit fee alone doesn't make Australia's departure the world's most expensive. It doesn't even crack the top eight.

According to IATA data reported in April 2026, from a report the association released in November 2025, Argentina charges the highest average departure tax in the world at roughly US$138 per passenger (about A$242 at April 2026 conversion rates), followed by Mauritius, Mexico, the UK, the Dominican Republic, the US, Egypt and Kenya. Australia's A$70 PMC converts to roughly US$40 at the time of that report, well outside the top eight. Rankings on the passport fee itself are murkier than the exit-fee ones, and we couldn't find one uncontested comparison worth printing here, so we're not making a "world's most expensive passport" claim in this piece. The combination of a real passport fee and a real exit charge is what makes this expensive for an Australian specifically, not a single record-breaking number.

It's also not the only fee stacking up around the same trip. Anyone heading to Europe or the UK is looking at the UK ETA and, eventually, ETIAS on top of this. Anyone routing through China should check when the current visa-free window actually ends before assuming last year's rules still apply. None of those are Australian government charges, but they land on the same trip and the same credit card statement.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is A$502 the current cost to leave Australia?

No. A$502 is the passport fee plus the higher A$80 exit charge, and that higher charge only applies once the Passenger Movement Charge Amendment Bill 2026 has passed and its 1 January 2027 start date has arrived. As of this week, the bill is still before the House of Representatives, so today's honest figure for a solo traveller needing a new passport is A$492.

Do I have to renew my passport just because I'm travelling internationally?

Only if it's expiring soon, damaged, or already out of date. Most countries require at least six months of validity remaining, so check your expiry date against your travel dates before assuming you need a new book. If your passport is valid for the whole trip, you only pay the Passenger Movement Charge, not the passport fee.

Does the Passenger Movement Charge apply to every international departure?

Yes, with specific exemptions. Anyone 11 or younger at the date of departure is exempt, along with crew, transiting passengers who don't clear Customs, diplomats, and a short list of other categories the Australian Border Force sets out on its own PMC page. Everyone else pays it once, per departure, regardless of destination, including short hops to New Zealand.

Why does the passport fee keep rising every January?

Because it's indexed to the Consumer Price Index every year by law, unlike the exit charge, which only changes when Parliament passes new legislation. A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) spokesperson has confirmed the fee is adjusted annually "in line with the Consumer Price Index," which is why it moved from A$412 to A$422 this year and will move again around 1 January 2027 regardless of what happens with the PMC bill. DFAT hasn't published that 2027 figure yet, so treat A$422 as today's rate, not next year's.

What happens if I've already booked a flight for after 1 January 2027?

It depends on when you bought the ticket relative to the bill passing, and the rules are genuinely more complicated than a single date. Our dedicated guide to the PMC increase walks through the transitional arrangements in full, because they matter more for that specific question than they do for the total-cost maths in this piece.

Does a 16 or 17-year-old get the cheaper child passport?

No. The five-year, A$213 passport is only for children under 16, per the Australian Passport Office's own fee categories. A 16 or 17-year-old pays the full A$422 adult rate for a 10-year passport, the same as anyone 18 or over.

Key Takeaways

Sources

• Australian Passport Office (DFAT): official passport application fee schedule, effective 1 January 2026
• Australian Consulate-General, Ho Chi Minh City: passport fee schedule corroborating the domestic 2026 rates
• Australian Border Force: current Passenger Movement Charge rate and exemption categories
• Parliament of Australia: Passenger Movement Charge Amendment Bill 2026, status and progress
• SBS News: Passenger Movement Charge increase, revenue figures and government framing
• Australian Frequent Flyer: industry reaction to the departure charge increase
• The Canberra Times: passport fee history and CPI indexation confirmation
• CNN Style, via ABC17 News: global departure tax comparison, citing IATA's November 2025 report
• Wikipedia: Passenger Movement Charge background and legislative history