Student Start-up Loan and Grants for Moving to Uni

Study costs can arrive before your student payment does, whether you're buying a laptop or moving away for uni. A Student Start-up Loan can help, but it becomes a debt. If you're moving away, two grants are worth checking first.

Check the grants before the loan

The grants mainly depend on where your family home and course are.

Whether your area counts as regional or remote comes from Services Australia's Student Regional Area Search, which checks an address. A town can feel regional and still be counted as part of a major city, so it's worth looking up both your family home and your campus.

The Relocation Scholarship helps you live away from home

The Relocation Scholarship is a yearly payment for students who need to live away from home to study. It's for students on Youth Allowance as a student, or ABSTUDY, who are dependent, meaning Centrelink still assesses them with their parents' income, or independent for a special reason. Our guide to independent Youth Allowance explains which one you are. Most people won't qualify after they turn 22.

You need to be moving to or from a regional or remote area. If your family home and your course are both in major cities when you start, you can't get it, even if they're in different cities.

The amount depends on where home is and how long you've been away. In 2026 it was $5,707 in the first year you need to live away from home, with smaller amounts in later years, and it's paid once a year.

Centrelink usually assesses it automatically. If you're moving from a city to a regional campus, check your myGov inbox for a Verification of Campus form for you and your uni to complete.

The Tertiary Access Payment is a one-off for regional students

The Tertiary Access Payment is a one-off payment for school leavers moving away from a regional or remote home to study. Unlike the Relocation Scholarship, you have to claim it, at any time in the calendar year you start.

You need to be 22 or younger, have finished Year 12 or equivalent and start your first tertiary year in a certificate IV or higher course lasting at least an academic year. The campus must be at least 90 minutes from home by public transport, with at least a 75% study load. Study delivery rules apply; if you're dependent, your parents' combined income must be under $250,000.

Students from inner regional areas get $3,000 in the first half of the year. Outer regional and remote students get $3,000 first, then $2,000 in September, or March after a second-half start, if still studying full time. It's paid after you confirm your study details, it isn't taxed and it doesn't normally count as income for Youth Allowance.

The Student Start-up Loan is a loan

The Student Start-up Loan is $1,349 in 2026, and you can take it up to twice a year: once between January and June, and once between July and December. You can get it if you're receiving at least $1 of Youth Allowance as a student, Austudy or ABSTUDY Living Allowance, you're in a course approved for the loan, and Centrelink has your tax file number. You need to apply at least 35 days before your course ends. If you're not sure which payment you'll be on, our guide to Austudy or Youth Allowance sets out the difference.

You can apply while you claim your student payment, or later in myGov under Payments and claims, then Update Circumstances and Apply for/Manage Student Start-up Loan. You can apply for future loan periods too.

Repayments start above $69,528 in 2026–27, based on taxable income plus certain additions. Indexation, an annual adjustment for price or wage changes, can increase the debt. Our HECS-HELP guide explains both. Services Australia itself suggests a No Interest Loan may suit a smaller item better, such as a laptop.

What Ella's first year could look like

Ella is made up. She's 18 and starts uni in February 2026, moving from an inner regional home to a capital city on dependent Youth Allowance.

The two grants come to $8,707, and they arrive as lump sums rather than every fortnight. If Ella takes both loans, the extra $2,698 is a debt she'll start repaying once she earns enough, so she can choose to apply only for the half-years she needs it.

Make the lump sums last the year

A lump sum feels like a lot on the day it lands, and the move takes a big share straight away. Our guide to moving out of home lists those first costs, and how rental bonds work explains the biggest one. Once they're paid, what's left of the grants can sit aside and top up the fortnights when Youth Allowance alone doesn't stretch.

Your fortnightly payment will have rent, food and bills to cover, which our guide to living on Youth Allowance works through. If you pay rent, Rent Assistance may be added to it too, and our student budget covers the textbooks and other costs that come on top.

Clova, our budgeting app, lets you track progress towards a goal for the move and semester. Each pay or payment gets its own plan.

You don't need every payment worked out before you go. Look up your two addresses, claim what you're eligible for, and borrow only for what's still missing.

A note from us

Moving away to study is a big step. We are building Clova to help plan one-off payments alongside rent and each fortnight's income.