Moving to United Kingdom from Australia

To be safe, more than 42,000 pounds a year, or the job's going rate if higher: GOV.UK says the Skilled Worker minimum salary is whichever is highest of a set figure and the going rate for the job. To be safe, have a job offer paying more than 42,000 pounds a year, which is about A$80,500 at the ECB-derived rate of 15 October 2026. Lower floors apply in set cases (a relevant PhD, a job on the Immigration Salary List, a new entrant at the start of a career, or some healthcare and education jobs on national pay scales), and across them the floors run about 25,000 to 37,500 pounds a year; if you rely on one of those cases, to be safe, have a job paying more than 38,000 pounds a year. You also need a job offer from a Home Office approved employer before you apply, and the figures can change, so confirm them on GOV.UK when you apply. Two routes need no job offer and set no salary test: the Youth Mobility Scheme needs a set minimum in savings (to be safe, hold more than 2,600 pounds), and the Ancestry visa sets no fixed money figure (see the routes).

Only Hong Kong and Taiwan passports go through a ballot, so there is none for Australia, and no sponsor or job offer is needed. Australia's Department of Home Affairs lists the UK scheme among its working holiday arrangements and sends Australians to the British High Commission. It gives up to 24 months, and Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders can extend once for a further year, so up to 3 years in all. The application fee is 340 pounds (about A$650), and the immigration health surcharge is 776 pounds a year, which is 1,552 pounds for 2 years (about A$2,970). You need a set minimum in your bank account for 28 days in a row (to be safe, hold more than 2,600 pounds, about A$5,000), and day 28 must be within 31 days of applying. You cannot apply if you have a child under 18 who lives with you or who you are financially responsible for, or if you have already been in the UK under the scheme. You can apply up to 6 months before you travel, and a decision usually comes within 3 weeks. You can work in most jobs and study, but not as a professional sportsperson. You can be self-employed only on set terms: GOV.UK says your premises must be rented, and the Immigration Rules say you may own no premises other than your home, your business equipment may be worth no more than 5,000 pounds, and you may have no employees. We found nothing saying how the scheme treats remote work for an overseas employer or overseas freelance clients, so that is unknown. It is not a route to settlement, you cannot claim public funds, and a partner or child must apply separately. The Rules cap the places for each nationality each year (38,500 for Australia in 2026); we found no statement that the Australian places have run out. The UK Ancestry visa is for Commonwealth citizens (Schedule 3 to the British Nationality Act 1981 lists Australia) aged 17 or over who can prove a grandparent was born in the UK, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man; a grandparent born before 31 March 1922 in what is now Ireland, or on a UK-registered ship or aircraft, also counts. Adoption and unmarried parents are accepted, but a step-parent does not count. No job offer is needed, but you must be able to work and plan to. GOV.UK states no upper age limit. The fee is 726 pounds (about A$1,390), plus the health surcharge of 1,035 pounds a year; for the 5 years granted that comes to 5,175 pounds (about A$9,920), by our arithmetic from GOV.UK's yearly rate. The Rules ask only that you can maintain and accommodate yourself and any dependants without public funds, and say credible promises of support from a relative or friend can count; they set no fixed amount for this route, so the figure is unknown. Bank statements must be dated within 31 days of your application. You can work (including self-employment), study and bring a partner and children, but you cannot switch into the visa from another UK visa, so you apply from outside the UK, up to 3 months before you travel, with a decision usually within 3 weeks. After 5 continuous years on the visa (no more than 180 days outside the UK in any 12 months) you can apply for indefinite leave to remain for 3,226 pounds (about A$6,180), with an English test and the Life in the UK test if you are 18 to 64; or you can extend for another 5 years for 1,407 pounds plus the surcharge. GOV.UK shows 5 years today, but the Government has consulted on raising the default qualifying period for settlement from 5 to 10 years; the consultation closed on 12 February 2026, no outcome is published, and these are proposals, not rules in force. A third route is right of abode: a Commonwealth citizen with a parent who was born in the UK and was a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies when you were born or adopted, who was a Commonwealth citizen on 31 December 1982 and never stopped being one, has the right to live and work in the UK with no visa and no time limit, proved with a certificate of entitlement that costs 589 pounds (about A$1,130). If one of your parents is a British citizen, GOV.UK says you might already be a British citizen, so check that first.

From outside the UK the application fee is 819 pounds for up to 3 years or 1,618 pounds for more than 3 years (628 and 1,235 pounds for jobs on the Immigration Salary List), plus the immigration health surcharge of 1,035 pounds for each year. You also need a minimum balance in your bank account for 28 days in a row (to be safe, hold more than 1,300 pounds), unless your employer certifies it will cover your first month. Australia is on GOV.UK's list of nationalities that need not prove English. A decision usually comes within 3 weeks from outside the UK. The Global Talent visa needs no job offer: it is for leaders or potential leaders in academia or research, arts and culture or digital technology, with an endorsement from a Home Office approved body (or a named prize). It costs 766 pounds (561 for the endorsement and 205 for the visa) plus the health surcharge, lasts up to 5 years at a time, and the Immigration Rules allow self-employment. The High Potential Individual visa is for people awarded a degree in the last 5 years by a university on the Home Office list for that year, which includes six Australian universities (Australian National University, Monash, Melbourne, UNSW, Queensland and Sydney). It needs no job offer, lasts 2 years (3 for a doctorate), cannot be extended, has a yearly limit on applications, and costs 880 pounds plus 252 pounds for the Ecctis qualification check and the health surcharge, with a minimum amount in savings (to be safe, hold more than 1,300 pounds). The Innovator Founder visa is for a new, innovative and scalable business endorsed by an approved body: 1,357 pounds from outside the UK, 1,000 pounds for the endorsement, a minimum bank balance (to be safe, hold more than 1,300 pounds), and 3 years' permission. None of these pages states an upper age limit; Global Talent and Innovator Founder require you to be at least 18. Work visa holders usually need 5 years in the UK before applying to settle, and Global Talent and Innovator Founder holders can need 3. Rules for settlement are separate from these visas, so check the Home Office page when you apply. To visit, an Australian passport needs an electronic travel authorisation (ETA), which Smartraveller and GOV.UK both state. It costs 20 pounds (about A$38), lasts 2 years or until your passport expires, whichever is sooner, and lets you stay up to 6 months at a time for tourism, visiting family, a business trip or short-term study. You usually get a decision by email within a day, and it can take up to 3 working days. An ETA does not guarantee entry. The Atlas Visa Map holds no Australia-specific entry record and records the ETA at an old conversion of about 25 US dollars; GOV.UK says 20 pounds, and we follow GOV.UK. As a visitor you cannot do paid or unpaid work for a UK company or as a self-employed person, and you cannot live in the UK through frequent or successive visits. The Immigration Rules do let a visitor carry out activities relating to their employment overseas remotely from within the UK, if that is not the primary purpose of the visit. That rule names employment overseas; we found nothing saying how it treats a freelancer's overseas clients, so that is unknown. An Australian-British dual citizen cannot get an ETA and must enter on a British passport or a certificate of entitlement. The Common Travel Area lets British and Irish citizens move and live freely in either country, and it gives an Australian citizen no right to live in the UK. There is no digital nomad, remote-worker or retirement visa: GOV.UK's list of work visas has none.

For a Skilled Worker application you provide your certificate of sponsorship reference number, a valid passport, your job title and salary, the occupation code, and the employer's name and sponsor licence number, with bank statements for the minimum balance (to be safe, hold more than 1,300 pounds) unless the certificate shows your employer will cover your costs. You prove your identity with the UK Immigration: ID Check app or by giving fingerprints and a photo at a visa application centre. A Global Talent application starts with the endorsement letter and must be made within 3 months of getting it; a High Potential Individual application needs the Ecctis certificate for your degree and proof of savings. A tuberculosis test is needed only if you have lived 6 months or more in a listed country and are coming for 6 months or more, and Australia is not on the list. We found no official page listing which Australian police check any of these visas accept, and the pages we read ask for none for the Youth Mobility Scheme or the Ancestry visa. GOV.UK says you can apply for a Youth Mobility Scheme visa up to 6 months before you travel, an Ancestry visa up to 3 months before you travel, and a Skilled Worker visa up to 3 months before the start date on your certificate of sponsorship. The decision usually comes within 3 weeks for each, and within 3 weeks for Global Talent. A High Potential Individual visa can be applied for up to 3 months before you travel. An ETA decision usually comes within a day. An Ancestry or Youth Mobility Scheme extension from inside the UK is decided within 8 weeks. Whether you can switch from visitor status to a work visa from inside the UK is not something we researched; GOV.UK says you cannot switch into the Ancestry visa from another visa.

Whether you are UK resident depends on how many days you spend in the UK in the tax year, which runs from 6 April to 5 April. You are resident if you meet an automatic UK test or the sufficient ties test and no automatic overseas test. The automatic UK tests include 183 or more days in the UK, having your only home in the UK for 91 days or more in a row with at least 30 days spent there in the year, and working full-time in the UK for any 365 days that overlap the year. You are usually non-resident if you spend fewer than 16 days in the UK (46 if you were not UK resident in the 3 previous tax years), or work full-time abroad, spend fewer than 91 days in the UK and work no more than 30 of them. Between 16 and 182 days the test counts ties such as family, accommodation and work. UK residents normally pay UK tax on income from the UK and abroad. When you move in, the year is usually split into a non-resident and a resident part. The statutory residence test is in Schedule 45 to the Finance Act 2013. A stay of 183 days or more in one tax year meets the first automatic UK test, so a full 6 months as a visitor can make you UK resident. Australian law treats you as resident if you reside in Australia in the ordinary sense, if your domicile is in Australia (unless the Commissioner is satisfied your permanent place of abode is outside it), or if you were in Australia more than half the income year (unless your usual place of abode is outside Australia and you do not intend to take up residence there); a fourth test covers some government superannuation members. Citizenship is not one of the tests, and the ATO says it does not use the Home Affairs rules. An ATO example says a teacher who goes to Japan on a one-year contract, rents out her home and plans to return stays an Australian resident, so leaving Australia does not by itself end residence. If both countries count you as resident, Article 4 of the 2003 Australia-UK convention treats you as resident only of the country where you have a permanent home; if you have one in both or neither, of the country where your personal and economic relations are closer; and only then of the country of which you are a national.

Employees pay Class 1 National Insurance of 8% on weekly earnings between 242.01 and 967 pounds and 2% above. Self-employed people pay Class 4 of 6% on profits from 12,570 to 50,270 pounds and 2% above, and no Class 2 contributions where profit is 7,105 pounds or more. Capital gains are taxed at 18% and 24% for individuals, with a 3,000 pound annual exempt amount. We have not worked out any person's bill.

It covers eligible foreign income and gains such as foreign interest, dividends from non-UK companies and profits of a trade carried on wholly outside the UK, but foreign earnings are not eligible. If you claim, you lose the tax-free allowances for Income Tax and Capital Gains Tax. Overseas Workday Relief covers employment income for duties you perform outside the UK in those years, up to the lower of 30% of the qualifying employment income or 300,000 pounds, and electing for it also loses the Personal Allowance and annual exempt amount for the year. Work you do while physically in the UK is not covered, so an Australian employee working remotely from the UK for an Australian employer gains little from it. Australia keeps taxing you on everything while you stay an Australian resident, and UK relief does not reduce that, so ask an adviser whether either regime changes your total.

For employment, Article 14 says pay is taxable only in the country where you are resident unless the work is done in the other country, in which case that country may tax it; a 183-day exemption in any twelve-month period also needs the employer to be a non-resident of that country and the pay not to be deducted in profits of a permanent establishment there. Pensions and annuities paid to a resident of one country are taxable only in that country (Article 17); whether Australian superannuation payments count as pensions under it is not stated in the text we read. Dividends can be taxed at source up to 15% (5% for a company holding 10% or more of the voting power), interest up to 10% and royalties up to 5%, and each country gives a credit for the other's tax within the limits of its own law. How these rules apply to a person who lives in the UK and works for an Australian employer or Australian clients, or draws superannuation, is not set out in the pages we read, so get a dated opinion before you rely on either country's view. If you do stop being an Australian resident, assets other than taxable Australian property, such as listed shares, are treated as sold at market value on the day you stop, unless you choose to disregard those gains and losses, in which case they stay taxable Australian property until sold or until you become resident again. Article 13(5) of the convention addresses an individual who elects under their own country's law to defer tax on ceasing to be resident there: if they are resident in the other country, the later sale is taxable only in that other country. Ask an adviser how it would apply to you. The departing Australia superannuation payment is for temporary residents who are not Australian citizens or permanent residents, so it is not a way for you to take super out.

Without an agreement, GOV.UK's employer guidance gives one exemption: an employee sent to the UK for a time by a foreign employer, who keeps working for that employer here and is not ordinarily resident in the UK, is exempt from UK National Insurance for the first 52 weeks. We found no page that works through the position of someone who takes a UK job or works for themselves, so the National Insurance rates above are what to expect until you ask HMRC. The Department of Social Services says some of Australia's agreements avoid double coverage for workers seconded between countries; with the UK there is none, and we did not research Australian superannuation rules for people working abroad, so that is unknown. An Age Pension can be paid for more than 26 weeks outside Australia to a customer not paid under an agreement, but long-term it is generally paid at a rate based on your years of working-life residence in Australia (usually out of 420 months). The UK State Pension has the opposite problem: GOV.UK says it rises each year only in the European Economic Area, Gibraltar, Switzerland and countries with an agreement, and the Department of Social Services says the UK does not index UK pensions in Australia. If you have a study or training support loan, the ATO says to give an overseas travel notification within 7 days of leaving if you will live abroad for 183 days or more in any 12 months, and to report your worldwide income or lodge a non-lodgment advice each year.

If you are UK resident with foreign income or gains you usually report them on a Self Assessment return; if you have not filed before, tell HMRC by 5 October after the tax year in which you had the income. We found no official figure for how long HMRC registration takes.

While you remain an Australian tax resident you must declare foreign income in your Australian return, so keep records in pounds and Australian dollars. If you have a study or training support loan you have separate reporting duties to the ATO whether or not you owe a repayment.