Interactive explainer
Redirect and notify planner
Pick how long you want Australia Post to forward your mail to see the indicative cost, then tick off the senders you have notified to track the job that actually matters. The redirection is the timer; the checklist is the fix.
Plan your redirection and your notifications
Indicative Australia Post prices for 2026. Concession cardholders pay roughly 40% less; international redirection costs about double.
Indicative domestic cost
The cost is what you pay Australia Post up front for the chosen window. It does not update any record: when the window closes, your mail reverts to your old letterbox unless you have notified the senders below.
Who to notify
A starter list, not exhaustive. Always update your bank, the ATO, Medicare and the electoral roll directly, even if Australia Post offers to notify some organisations for you.
| Redirection period | Domestic | Concession | International | What it buys you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 1 month | $33 | $19.80 | $66 | The shortest, dearest-per-day option; only sensible if you are nearly done notifying senders. |
| Up to 3 months | $66 | $39.60 | $132 | A common starter window for a straightforward local move. |
| Up to 6 months | $99 | $59.40 | $198 | Better value per month; room to catch annually-mailed senders. |
| Up to 12 months | $165 | $99 | $330 | The longest window, the lowest cost per month, and the best odds of catching everything. |
The short answer
What a mail redirection actually does
Most people treat an Australia Post mail redirection as the way to change their address when they move. It is not. A redirection does not tell anyone you have moved, it simply forwards post addressed to your old home to your new one for a fixed period you pay for, then it stops. Think of it as a paid safety net, not a solution: you buy 1, 3, 6 or 12 months of cover, and that clock starts ticking the day your redirection begins. The job the redirection cannot do for you is updating the people who actually send the mail, your bank, the ATO, Medicare, the electoral roll, your insurer and your employer. If you have not worked through that list by the time the redirection lapses, your post starts landing in the new occupant's letterbox. This page explains what a redirection really buys you, what it costs by duration, and how to use the window it gives you so nothing important goes astray.
Here is the core takeaway in one line: an Australia Post mail redirection is a paid safety net that forwards your post for a set period and then stops, so it buys you time to update the people who send your mail, it never updates them for you. That reframes the whole task. The redirection is the countdown; the real work is the notification list. Pay for the window, then spend it telling your bank, the ATO, Medicare, the electoral roll, your insurer and your employer where you now live, so that when the forwarding ends there is nothing left to forward.
Reframe the assumption: a redirection is not a change of address, it is a grace period. The clock starts the day it begins and runs out in 1, 3, 6 or 12 months. Use that time to update the senders, because the day the forwarding stops, anything you have not updated goes straight to whoever lives at your old address now.
The blind spot
Where treating the redirect as the solution leaves mail behind
Most "how to change your address when moving" advice does one of three unhelpful things, and each one quietly leaves post going to the wrong letterbox.
First, it presents the redirection as the answer. Set up Australia Post forwarding and you are sorted, the thinking goes. You are not, because no sender has been told you moved; the post is only being bounced along, and only until the window you paid for expires.
Second, it ignores the clock. A redirection is sold by duration, and the day it lapses is rarely top of mind months later. Plenty of people pick three months, forget about it, and discover the gap when a renewal notice, a rates bill or a bank statement turns up at their old place a year after they left.
Third, it treats "update your address" as a single step. In reality it is dozens of separate senders across government, finance, insurance, utilities and subscriptions, each with its own process. The redirection hides that complexity for a while, which is exactly why people underestimate it and run out of road.
How the system actually works, piece by piece
Expert analysis: what you are really paying Australia Post for
You are buying a window of time, priced by duration
Australia Post sells redirection by the period, not the volume of mail, so the only variable in the price is how long you want forwarding to run: roughly $33 for one month, $66 for three, $99 for six and $165 for twelve domestically, with a concession discount of about 40% and international redirection at roughly double. You pay the whole period up front. Because the cost per month falls as the window lengthens, the cheapest-per-day option (one month) is the most expensive way to buy time, and the twelve-month plan is the best value precisely because it catches the senders who only mail you once a year.
It forwards, it does not notify
A redirection sits at the sorting end of the postal system: it intercepts mail addressed to your old home and re-routes it to your new one. It never reaches back to the sender, so your bank, the ATO, Medicare and every other organisation still hold your old address the entire time forwarding is active. Australia Post can offer to pass your new address to a limited list of participating organisations when you apply, which can include some insurers, government agencies, energy retailers and telcos, but that is a partial head start, not the full job, and it never covers everyone.
The lapse is the risk, not the move
The dangerous moment is not moving day, it is the day the redirection ends. From that point, any sender you did not update posts to your old address, which now belongs to someone else. That can mean a stranger receiving your bank correspondence, a renewal you never see, or a fine that goes unanswered because the notice never reached you. The redirection masks the problem for its paid window and then removes the mask all at once, which is why the end date matters as much as the start date.
Who must hear it from you directly
Some records are too important to leave to a forwarding service or a partial notify list. The Australian Electoral Commission (the electoral roll), the ATO, Medicare and Centrelink, your driver licence with the state road authority, and your bank and super fund should all be updated by you, at the source. These drive your tax, your voting enrolment, your payments and your identity documents, and a redirection does nothing to change what they have on file.
What this looks like in real moves
How the countdown catches Australians out
The mechanics above are not theory. They are exactly how a forgotten redirection turns into a problem months after the boxes are unpacked:
The three-month plan that ran out
A renter buys three months of forwarding to save money, then gets busy and never works through the sender list. In month four the redirection lapses, and bank statements and an insurance renewal start landing at the old unit, read by whoever moved in. The cheap window was the trap, not the saving.
The renewal nobody saw
A family redirects mail but never updates their car insurer or the road authority. The "do not redirect" registration notice is returned to the sender rather than forwarded, the renewal is missed, and they are driving unregistered without realising until they are pulled over.
The half-done notify list
A mover relies on Australia Post to notify organisations on their behalf, assuming it covers everyone. It only reached the participating list, so the electoral roll and the ATO were never told. A tax correspondence and an election mailout both go astray, and the enrolment update is months late.
The name that slipped through
A redirection is set up under one spelling of a name, but post arrives addressed to a maiden name and a nickname too. Those items are not forwarded because the variations were not listed, so they sit in the old letterbox while everything else is redirected, hiding the gap until it matters.
The insider insight
The redirection is a timer you set against yourself
Here is the part most guides never put plainly. When you buy a redirection, you are not solving the address problem, you are setting a deadline for solving it. The clever move is to treat the period you choose as a project timeline: pick a window long enough to catch even your annual senders, write down the date it ends, and work the notification list backwards from there. Government and finance first, because they drive everything else; then insurance and utilities; then the long tail of subscriptions and loyalty programs that matter least if one slips. The redirection should be quietly catching a shrinking trickle of mail by the time it lapses, not still doing all the work.
The non-obvious truth: a redirection is most valuable when you barely need it. If you have updated every sender, the forwarding catches almost nothing and lapses harmlessly. If you have updated no one, the day it ends is the day your mail problem begins. So buy the window, but measure your progress by how little is being forwarded, not by the fact that forwarding is switched on.
The practical consequence: do not let the redirection lull you. The moment it is active, start the notify list and put the end date in your calendar, because the service is buying you exactly one finite amount of time and no more.
Grounded in the analysis
What you should actually do about your mail
Specific moves that follow from how a redirection really works, not generic advice.
Buy the window, then diarise its end
Choose a redirection period long enough to catch annual senders, six or twelve months for most moves, and pay it up front. The moment it starts, put the end date in your calendar so the lapse never takes you by surprise.
Notify the sources, top down
Update the electoral roll, the ATO, Medicare, Centrelink, your driver licence, bank and super fund yourself and first, because they drive your tax, payments and identity. Then work through insurers, utilities, telco, employer, school and subscriptions.
Close the gaps the redirect leaves
List every variation of your name on the application, expect "do not redirect" items like registration to bounce back to the sender, and use any Australia Post notify-on-your-behalf option as a head start, not the whole job.
Sorting the wider move? Run through our moving checklist, line up your utility connections, and see the rest of our organise your move guides.
Current figures, last updated 2026-06-16
Indicative Australia Post mail redirection figures for 2026. Source: Australia Post mail redirection pricing and service terms. Prices and eligibility can change, so confirm the current fee with Australia Post before you apply.
The bottom line
Why the redirection is the start of the job, not the end
An Australia Post mail redirection is genuinely useful, but only for what it is: a paid window during which your post is forwarded while you do the real work. It changes no record, notifies no one beyond a partial opt-in list, and ends on a date you set. So buy a window long enough to catch your annual senders, diarise the day it lapses, and spend the months in between updating the people who send your mail, government and finance first. With identity, tax, payments and even vehicle registration riding on those records being right, the households who avoid trouble in 2026 are the ones who treat the redirect as a countdown to finish the notify list, not as the finish line itself.
Common questions
A Selectra expert answers your mail redirection questions
For a domestic redirection, indicative Australia Post prices are about $33 for one month, $66 for three months, $99 for six months and $165 for twelve months. Concession cardholders pay roughly 40% less, so around $19.80, $39.60, $59.40 and $99 for the same periods. International redirection costs about double the domestic price, so up to roughly $330 for twelve months. You pay for the whole period up front, and the longer the window the lower the cost per month. Treat the fee as the price of buying yourself time to notify everyone who sends you mail, not as the cost of changing your address.
No, and this is the most common misunderstanding. A redirection does not notify anyone or update any record. It only forwards post addressed to your old home to your new one, and only for the period you paid for. The people who send your mail, your bank, the ATO, Medicare, the electoral roll, your insurer, still have your old address on file the whole time. When the redirection lapses, their letters go to your old letterbox, which is now someone else's. So a redirection buys time to update those senders; it never replaces the job of updating them.
The senders that matter most fall into a few groups. Government and identity: the Australian Electoral Commission (electoral roll), the ATO, Medicare and Centrelink, your driver licence with the state road authority, and Medicare or private health. Finance: your bank, super fund, credit cards and any lenders. Insurance: home, contents, car and life policies. Utilities and telco: electricity, gas, water and internet at the new place. Then the long tail: your employer, the kids' school, subscriptions, loyalty programs and online stores. Work top-down, government and finance first, because those records drive licences, tax, voting and payments.
Partly. When you set up a redirection, Australia Post can pass your new address to a limited list of participating organisations on your behalf, which can include some insurers, government agencies, energy retailers and telcos. It is a helpful head start, but it is not the whole list and it is not guaranteed for every sender, so you cannot rely on it to clear your notification job. Use it for the senders it covers, then update everyone else yourself, especially your bank, the ATO, Medicare and the electoral roll, which you should always update directly.
Australia Post offers free redirection in specific circumstances rather than as a discount you can ask for. It can apply to people affected by a natural disaster that has disrupted mail delivery, to the executors or family managing a deceased estate, and to people experiencing domestic and family violence, which can also include a free PO Box option for a period. These are eligibility-based and usually arranged through Australia Post directly. For an ordinary house move there is no free tier; concession cardholders get a reduced rate, not a waiver.
Some mail is excluded by design. Items the sender has marked "Do not redirect", which often includes vehicle registration and some licence correspondence, are returned to the sender rather than forwarded. Mail where the redirection cannot clearly be applied, for example an item addressed to several people when not all of them are on your redirection, may also not be forwarded. And anything addressed to a name or spelling you did not list on the application can slip through, which is why you should include every variation of your name. The lesson is the same: the redirection has gaps, so notify the senders directly.
