Healthcare in Australia 2026: Medicare, the levy & private cover

Healthcare in Australia: the public system

Australia's public health system, Medicare, provides universal coverage to citizens and permanent residents. It pays for free treatment as a public patient in public hospitals, subsidises out-of-hospital medical services such as GP and specialist consultations, and makes prescription medicines cheaper through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). Medicare is administered nationally by Services Australia; you enrol once, receive a Medicare card, and show it to access subsidised care.

Medicare is funded partly by a 2% Medicare Levy charged on most residents' taxable income through the tax system, on top of general revenue. When a doctor "bulk bills", they accept the Medicare rebate as full payment and you pay nothing; otherwise you pay the difference between the fee and the rebate — the "gap". Quality of care is high, but waiting times for elective procedures and some specialists in the public system can be long, which is one reason many residents also carry private cover.

Who is eligible for Medicare

Australian citizens and permanent residents can enrol in Medicare. New Zealand citizens living in Australia are also eligible, and some people who have applied for a permanent residency visa can enrol before the visa is decided. Beyond that, Australia has Reciprocal Health Care Agreements (RHCA) with 11 countries — the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Italy, Belgium, Malta, Slovenia and the Netherlands — whose citizens can access Medicare for medically necessary treatment while visiting Australia. Most temporary visa holders are not eligible and must arrange their own health cover.

Temporary visa holders: OSHC and OVHC

Most temporary visas carry a condition (commonly 8501) requiring you to maintain adequate health insurance for your whole stay. International students on the subclass 500 visa must hold Overseas Student Health Cover (OSHC) — it is the only cover that satisfies the student visa condition. Holders and applicants of skilled and graduate visas such as the subclass 482 (Skills in Demand) and 485 (Temporary Graduate) generally need Overseas Visitors Health Cover (OVHC) that meets Department of Home Affairs requirements. Letting a policy lapse can breach your visa condition, so temporary residents should treat private cover as non-optional. Australia does not offer a golden visa or citizenship by investment, so there is no investor route that comes bundled with Medicare access — eligibility follows your visa status.

The Medicare Levy Surcharge and private cover

On top of the 2% Medicare Levy, higher earners who do not hold an adequate level of private hospital cover pay an additional Medicare Levy Surcharge (MLS) of 1% to 1.5% of income. For 2025–26 the surcharge starts above roughly A$101,000 for singles and A$202,000 for families (with the family threshold rising for each dependent child after the first). Only registered private patient hospital cover counts — "extras" cover for dental, optical and physio does not exempt you. Private hospital insurance also lets you choose your doctor, get a private room where available and skip public-hospital waiting lists, which is why a large share of Australians hold it. Medicare itself does not cover most dental, most optical, ambulance in many states, or private hospital costs, so private extras cover fills those gaps.

At a glance

Where it fits in a borderless plan

Australia pairs strong universal hospital and physician care with a tax levy to fund it and clear incentives — the surcharge — for higher earners to also buy private hospital cover. If you move on a temporary visa, budget for OSHC or OVHC from day one. Healthcare is one of the practical pillars of actually living somewhere. Weigh it with schooling, banking, and where you are tax-resident. Compare systems in our healthcare-abroad guide.