Moving to Chile from Australia

Australian passport holders need an e-visa or eTA before a visit to Chile, but living there takes a residence permit. The self-funded residency routes we track start at an income of about $1,000 a month or an investment of about $500k, and our residency index rates Chile 70/100 for Australian citizens (comparatively open). We estimate €2,483 a month for a couple living centrally in Punta Arenas and €2,868 in Santiago. Chile is in our low to medium tax tier. Check the official requirements before you apply.

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Short stays
e-Visa / eTA
Australian passport
Residency
70/100
Comparatively open, our index
Tax tier
Low to medium
Moderate personal income tax
Est. cost for two
From €2,483/mo
Punta Arenas, our estimate

Living there long term

Our residency index: 70/100, comparatively open. It is our own rating of how realistic long-term residency in Chile is for Australian citizens, based on the routes Chile publishes. Chile grants temporary residence to self-funded applicants through passive-income (rentista) and pension (jubilado) routes, an investor route, and flexible employer-changeable work visas, with permanent residency reachable in 12 to 24 months.

The cheapest self-funded routes we track:

  • Income: about $1,000 a month (Chile Rentista/Jubilado temporary-residence visa; SERMIG publishes no fixed minimum and defers to Ministry of Social Development basic-needs parameters, with the consistent practical single-applicant benchmark being USD 1,000-1,500/mo of passive income or pension (figures quoted natively in USD); as of June 2026)
  • Investment: about $500k (Chile Inversionista (investor) temporary-residence visa, USD 500,000 minimum in productive goods or services (stated by SERMIG as USD 500,000 or equivalent); as of June 2026)

Check the official requirements before you apply: amounts, conditions and exchange rates change, and what a couple needs can differ from a single applicant's threshold.

For short visits, Australian passport holders need an e-visa or eTA before a visit, according to the passport-index dataset. Short-stay entry covers visits; living there takes a residence permit.

Source: OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed approximations researched against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. Not legal advice: check the official source before you apply. Short-stay entry from the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT).

Where in Chile to start

Ranked by our match model for a typical couple who both hold Australian passports, using the preset answers of our best places to live list. Your own answers would change the order. We pick the cities, up to five, by how often English Wikipedia readers looked them up over the past year.

  1. 1. Santiago

    87% match
    Est. cost
    €2,868/mo
    Avg temp
    16°C
    Safety index
    58/100

  2. 2. Valparaíso

    84% match
    Est. cost
    €2,646/mo
    Avg temp
    15°C
    Safety index
    58/100

  3. 3. Antofagasta

    71% match
    Est. cost
    €2,603/mo
    Avg temp
    17°C
    Safety index
    58/100

  4. 4. Punta Arenas

    69% match
    Est. cost
    €2,483/mo
    Avg temp
    7°C
    Safety index
    58/100

Cost of living for two

Our estimate for a couple living centrally runs from €2,483 a month in Punta Arenas to €2,868 in Santiago. For comparison, we estimate €4,094 a month in Melbourne. Use these figures to compare places rather than to set a budget.

Source: our cost model: a country-level cost-of-living index scaled for city size, from our city dataset (last rebuilt June 2026). An estimate, not a survey of current prices.

Taxes

Chile is in our low to medium tax tier (moderate personal income tax); Australia is in our high tax tier (high personal income tax). Tiers describe each country's own income tax. They do not cover tax you may still owe in Australia after you leave, or the treaty between the two countries, so check both with a tax adviser before you move.

Source: OurNextCity tax tiers, assigned by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation, with no fixed rate cut-offs. Coarse by design; not tax advice.

Lists with cities in Chile

Moving to Chile from elsewhere

Every country and origin we cover

How we built this page

Every figure here comes from the datasets behind our city and country pages:

  • Short-stay entry: the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT license), which records the entry rule for short visits on each passport.
  • Residency index, routes and thresholds: the OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. It is a summary, not legal advice.
  • City ranking: our match model, the one behind the quiz, run with a typical couple's preset answers and both partners holding Australian passports. It ranks up to five of the country's best-known cities: of the cities in our quiz (100,000 people or more, capitals and a few towns movers seek out, such as Faro), the five most read about on English Wikipedia over the past year. It folds suburbs into their main city and leaves out countries with a residency index under 40 and areas under a US State Department Level 4 advisory, as our best-cities lists do.
  • Costs: our cost model, a country-level cost-of-living index scaled for city size, from our city dataset (last rebuilt June 2026).
  • Tax tiers: three coarse bands we assign by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation.