Rent Affordability Calculator Australia

How much rent can you afford in Australia?

The quickest test is a share of your gross income, the amount you earn before tax. Keep rent at or under 30% of that figure and aim closer to 25% where you can. Twenty-five per cent is the comfortable end, where rent leaves room for bills, food and saving. Thirty per cent is the ceiling, the point Australian housing bodies call rental stress, where rent starts to crowd out everything else.

On a gross income of $90,000 a year, that puts your rent between about $433 and $519 a week. The calculator above shows both ends of the band in weekly and monthly terms, since listings quote rent per week but rent is often charged per calendar month. It also marks the 30% line so you can see whether a place you like would tip you into rental stress.

The 30% rule and rental stress explained

The 30% rule is the long-standing benchmark for affordable rent in Australia. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare describes rental stress as lower-income households spending more than 30% of their gross income on housing costs. Stay under that mark and the rest of your income stretches to cover the cost of living with something left to put by. Cross it and budgets get tight.

One thing to watch: rent is only part of the cost of a home. Electricity, gas, water, internet and contents insurance all sit on top. The 25% to 30% band is rent alone, so leave headroom for those bills when you decide where in the range to land. The rule uses gross income, so a rent that looks fine against your salary can still feel tight once tax comes out of your take-home pay.

Weekly or monthly rent, and how to convert

Australian rental listings usually quote a weekly figure, but rent is often charged per calendar month. The two are not a simple multiply by four, because an average month is longer than four weeks. To turn a weekly rent into a monthly one, multiply by 52 and divide by 12. So $500 a week is about $2,167 a month, not $2,000. To go the other way, multiply the monthly rent by 12 and divide by 52.

The calculator lets you enter or view rent either way, so the numbers line up with how a place is advertised and how you would pay. If you receive a Centrelink payment, it is worth checking whether you qualify for Commonwealth Rent Assistance through Services Australia, which can lift the rent you can carry.

Worked example: income needed for $650 a week rent

Say you have your eye on a place advertised at $650 a week. Over a year that is $650 times 52, or $33,800. For that rent to sit on the 30% line rather than push you into rental stress, you divide the annual rent by 0.30. That points to a gross income of about $112,667 a year, which is roughly $2,167 a week or $9,389 a month before tax.

Earn less than that and $650 a week would take up more than 30% of your income, so you would be in rental stress on the standard measure. Switch the calculator to income mode, enter any weekly or monthly rent, and it works out the gross income the rent needs to stay under the line.

How to use this calculator

1. Leave it on "How much rent can I afford" to work out a rent range from your income.
2. Choose whether to show rent per week or per month. Weekly matches most AU listings.
3. Enter your gross income and set whether the figure is a year, a month or a week.
4. Read your comfortable rent at 25% and the rental stress line at 30%.
5. Switch to "Income needed for a rent" to see the gross income a given rent needs.

Frequently asked questions