How we calculate the numbers

Official, 2026-27 The figure comes from the council, utility or agency that sets it, for the year shown: council rates from each council's budget or revenue statement, and water from the utility's tariff.

Modelled, 2026-27 We calculate the figure from official inputs: the commute is a modelled distance priced at the ATO's 2026-27 rate of 91 cents a kilometre, or the published public transport fare.

Estimated There is no official figure, so we estimate one: home insurance is estimated from ACCC premium rates, contents insurance for units and body corporate are AI estimates, and water is estimated for New South Wales suburbs outside the Sydney Water and Hunter Water tariffs. Estimates carry no year.

Totals on suburb pages, comparisons, council calculators and reports exclude electricity, which is estimated separately from AER benchmarks. The cost of living calculator is the exception: its total includes electricity, and says so.

In Queensland we use the minimum general rate for a residential owner-occupied property (principal place of residence), taken from each council's published rates schedule. For Brisbane suburbs that is the Brisbane City Council minimum general rate. In New South Wales, where councils don't publish a single minimum, we use the average residential rate each council reports to the Office of Local Government (2024–25), uplifted by that council's IPART rate peg for 2026–27.

We use each water utility's published pricing to calculate a typical annual residential water and sewerage bill, assuming household consumption of 200 kilolitres per year.

The bill includes: water service fixed charge, water usage charges (Tier 1), bulk water charge (passed through at cost from SEQWater), and sewerage service fixed charge.

Provider by area:

• Brisbane City and Ipswich: Queensland Urban Utilities (QUU)
• Moreton Bay: Unitywater
• Logan: Logan City Council
• Redland City: Redland City Council
• Greater Sydney, Illawarra and Blue Mountains: Sydney Water (typical annual bill, 2026–27)
• Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Maitland and Port Stephens: Hunter Water (2026–27)
• Other regional NSW councils: an estimate, labelled on the page as a regional NSW estimate

Your actual bill will vary based on household size, water usage habits, and meter size.

We measure each suburb's distance to the CBD, then cost the round-trip commute at the ATO's published rate for the 2026-27 financial year (91 cents/km), which covers fuel, tyres, registration, insurance and depreciation.

Commute frequency tapers with distance, because residents further from the CBD tend to work from home more often, or work locally rather than commute in:

• Close to the CBD: 4 return trips per week
• ~15km: about 3.25 return trips per week
• ~30km: about 2.5 return trips per week
• ~45km: about 1.75 return trips per week
• ~60km: about 1 return trip per week
• 70km and beyond: half a return trip per week (floor)

Annual driving cost = distance to the CBD × 2 (return) × return trips per week × 48 working weeks × $0.91/km. This is the CBD commute specifically, not total household driving. Suburbs beyond 100km, where a daily CBD commute is not realistic, use a flat regional allowance of $18,200 instead. That allowance represents general household driving of about 20,000km a year, so it is not derived from the per-kilometre taper above and is not expected to match it.

Choosing your own commute days. In the report and the cost of living calculator you set how many days a week you commute. SuburbCost does not assume anyone drives more than 60km to work several times a week, so from 40km your days ease down to one a week at 60km, and beyond 60km they follow the same taper as the suburb pages above. A workplace you enter in the report is costed on the days you choose.

Which CBD the distance is measured to. For a suburb in or near a regional city, distance is measured to that city rather than to the state capital. In New South Wales those centres are Newcastle, Wollongong, Coffs Harbour, Wagga Wagga, Albury, Tamworth, Orange, Dubbo, Port Macquarie and Bathurst. In Queensland they are Cairns, Townsville, Toowoomba, Mackay, Maroochydore, Gold Coast, Ipswich, Warwick and Gympie. In Victoria, suburbs in Greater Melbourne are measured to the Melbourne CBD, and regional suburbs to the nearer of Melbourne and 15 regional centres: Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Shepparton, Traralgon, Wodonga, Warrnambool, Mildura, Horsham, Wangaratta, Sale, Bairnsdale, Hamilton, Swan Hill and Echuca. So inner Newcastle is costed on the trip into Newcastle, not on the 118km to Sydney. Suburbs outside those catchments are measured to the state capital.

Minimum trip distance. The taper reaches zero where a suburb's centre point coincides with the city centre, which would price the commute at $0. A suburb covers an area and its workplaces are spread across it, so the cost is calculated on a minimum trip of 1.5km, or $514 a year. The distance shown on the page is always the measured one, not the minimum.

Queensland's Translink network charges a flat fare of 50 cents per trip regardless of distance or zone. That is one of the lowest public transport fares in Australia.

We calculate annual PT commute cost as:

$0.50 × 2 trips per day × 192 days per year = $192

The 192 days reflects an average of 4 commute days per week across 48 working weeks, accounting for leave, public holidays, and the reality that most workers now commute fewer than 5 days per week.

This figure is the same for every suburb in Brisbane, because Queensland public transport fares do not vary by distance under the current flat-fare system.

New South Wales: NSW uses Opal, where fares rise with distance and are capped daily and weekly. For Sydney-metro suburbs we apply the Opal adult fare for the suburb's distance band across 46 commuting weeks. Outside the Sydney network we show driving as the practical mode, since regional services are limited and are not modelled fare by fare.

Where a public transport commute is assumed. Only where a daily network runs. In New South Wales that is the Opal network councils: Greater Sydney, the Central Coast, Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Maitland, Cessnock, Port Stephens, Wollongong, Shellharbour, Kiama and Wingecarribee. In Queensland it is the Translink go card councils (Brisbane, Gold Coast, Ipswich, Logan, Moreton Bay, Redland, Sunshine Coast, Noosa and Toowoomba) and the Cairns, Townsville and Mackay town bus networks. In Victoria it is Greater Melbourne. Everywhere else, and anywhere 100km or more from its centre, no daily public transport commute is assumed and the public transport line shows the driving cost. The rule is by council, so a rural locality inside a network council can still show a fare it may not be able to use.

Electricity is an estimate, not a bill. Annual usage comes from the Australian Energy Regulator's residential electricity benchmarks, which give typical consumption by household size for each climate zone. Each suburb is matched to its climate zone by postcode, and a unit is taken as using 75% of what a house uses.

That usage is priced at the 2026-27 regulated flat rate for the suburb's own electricity distribution network, including GST. In south-east Queensland (Energex) and across New South Wales (Ausgrid, Endeavour Energy and Essential Energy) that is the Default Market Offer set by the Australian Energy Regulator. Regional Queensland (Ergon Energy) is outside the Default Market Offer, so it uses the Queensland Competition Authority's regulated Tariff 11 price, with GST added because that price is published without it.

The daily supply charge is included, and it is a large part of the bill: it is paid before any power is used. Networks are assigned by council, so a suburb near the boundary of two networks can be priced on its neighbour's. Sydney's two networks differ by roughly $100 a year at typical use.

The Default Market Offer is a ceiling rather than a typical price, and many retail plans cost less, so a household that compares offers will usually pay below this figure. Solar, batteries, controlled load hot water and gas are not modelled.

Home insurance is an estimate of the yearly building premium for the same standard house in every suburb, insured for $600,000. Pricing one house everywhere keeps the comparison about the suburb, not about how much the homes there are worth. It is not a quote.

The starting point is what households actually pay. The ACCC insurance monitoring report (June 2026) gives the average premium per $100,000 insured by cyclone risk: $306 where there is no cyclone risk, $359 where it is low and $606 where it is medium to high. Each suburb takes the rate for its area's cyclone risk, using the bands in the cyclone reinsurance pool premium assessment (May 2025): medium to high around Cairns, Townsville and Mackay, low across the rest of Queensland and the New South Wales North and Mid-North Coast, and none elsewhere in New South Wales or in Victoria.

Within each area, a suburb with higher flood or fire risk is priced above its neighbours and a safer one below them, using the spread from our earlier suburb estimates. No suburb's building-only figure is allowed above what the ACCC reports households in that area pay for building and contents combined.

This method replaced AI estimates on 6 November 2026, after a check against the ACCC's figures found that the earlier estimates ran high in far north Queensland and did not follow the regulator's regional pattern. House insurance figures fell in most of Queensland and New South Wales and rose slightly in Victoria. Some older articles still show the earlier figures and say so at the top.

The ACCC rates are for combined home and contents policies, applied here to a building-only figure, and areas are grouped by cyclone risk region rather than suburb by suburb. Read the dollar figure as indicative and the comparison between suburbs as the point.

The flood and fire ratings we display have three levels, which is coarser than the estimate behind them. Two suburbs can both read "high" flood and carry very different premiums, because severity within that band varies more than three levels can express. Read the rating as a direction and the dollar figure as indicative.

These are estimates only. Actual premiums vary significantly based on your specific property, chosen insurer, coverage level, claims history, and construction type.

Use these figures to compare suburbs rather than to budget for a policy. For how home insurance works and what to check before buying cover, see Moneysmart's home insurance guidance.

For unit owners, building insurance is typically covered by the body corporate levy. We estimate contents insurance separately using AI analysis based on suburb location and property type.

These estimates cover a typical contents policy for a unit owner. Actual premiums vary by insurer, coverage level, and the value of your possessions.

Body corporate (strata) levies are estimated using AI analysis based on suburb characteristics and typical levy ranges for each property type.

Typical ranges used as calibration:

• Inner-city high-rise, post-2000: $4,500–$7,000/year
• Inner-city low-rise or older buildings: $2,500–$4,000/year
• Middle-ring apartments: $2,000–$3,500/year
• Outer suburb newer developments: $1,500–$2,500/year

Actual levies vary significantly based on your building's age, size, facilities, maintenance history, and management. Always confirm the actual levy with the body corporate secretary before purchasing.

School scores (displayed on a 1–10 scale) are derived from ACARA ICSEA (Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage) data. We show the catchment school for each suburb, the state school your child would automatically enrol in based on your address.

The ICSEA score reflects the socio-educational advantage of the student community, not teaching quality directly. It is one useful indicator but does not capture teaching culture, specialist programs, or extracurricular activities.

Rates. The ACT has no councils. The ACT Revenue Office charges each property a fixed charge ($884 for a house, $943 for a unit in 2026-27) and a valuation charge set by marginal rates on the property's average unimproved value, the average of its land value over five years. Every residential property also pays the $458 Police, Fire and Emergency Services Levy and the $70 Safer Families Levy. The ACT publishes no land value or average rates figure by suburb, so ACT suburb pages show the part every owner pays ($1,412 for a house, $1,471 for a unit) and the ACT rates calculator works out the rest from a property's own value. The calculator gives the same result as the ACT Revenue Office's calculator. Totals on ACT pages are before rates.

Water. Icon Water's 2026-27 bill for its typical household using 200 kL a year: the water and sewerage supply charges plus usage, $1,506 in every suburb.

Commute. Driving uses the same model as every other state: the straight-line distance to the Canberra City centre at 91 cents a kilometre, with fewer office days the further out you live. Public transport is four return trips a week at the MyWay+ adult peak fare ($3.41), $1,309 a year, under the 40-trip monthly cap. We have not yet checked bus frequency suburb by suburb, and service in rural localities such as Tharwa and Uriarra Village is limited.

Insurance. The same standard $600,000 house at the ACCC's 2026 rate for areas with no cyclone risk, $1,850 everywhere in the ACT. We have no suburb-level flood or fire adjustment for the ACT yet. Unit contents insurance and body corporate levies are not estimated for the ACT.

Electricity. Australian Energy Regulator usage benchmarks for ACT households (published for climate zone 7 only, so they apply to every ACT suburb), priced at the ActewAGL standard plan from 1 July 2026. A unit is taken as using 75% of a house's usage.

Which suburbs. ACT Government suburb boundaries, keeping suburbs with residential zoning or at least 200 residents at the 2021 Census. Hume is left out because its residents are the correctional centre. Crime ratings and school catchments are not yet shown for the ACT.

Flood risk classifications (Low / Medium / High) in Queensland are derived from Queensland Globe flood mapping data and cross-referenced with Climate Council risk mapping.

New South Wales: NSW has no single statewide flood layer (councils hold their own mapping), so we model flood risk from a 30 m elevation model. Each suburb is scored on its low-lying ground and its height above the nearest drainage, then rated Low / Medium / High. This is a modelled indicator, labelled as modelled on every NSW page, not official flood mapping.

Classifications were updated in June 2026 using the Queensland Government's adopted February 2022 Brisbane River and Creek Flood awareness dataset (updated May 2025). Suburb boundaries from the ABS 2021 Statistical Area Level dataset were intersected with the 2022 flood polygons. Suburbs where more than 20% of the suburb area was inundated were classified High; suburbs with 5–20% coverage were classified Medium. This reclassified 93 suburbs across Greater Brisbane, including Bulimba, New Farm, Morningside, East Brisbane, Graceville, Chelmer, Boondall, and Fitzgibbon.

Classifications represent the general flood risk profile for the suburb. Individual properties within a suburb may have different risk profiles depending on their specific location and elevation. Always check your specific property's flood designation before purchasing.

Fire risk classifications in Queensland are derived from Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES) bushfire prone land mapping. In New South Wales we use the NSW Rural Fire Service Bush Fire Prone Land layer, rating each suburb by the share of its area that is high-hazard (Category 1) vegetation.

As with flood risk, suburb-level classifications are a general guide. Always check your specific property's designation before purchasing.