Departure & Arrival Information (Australia Awards Recipients only)

Our Student Contact Officers are available to answer any question you have from Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm (AEST).

Contact us

We are located in the John Goodsell Building, ground floor (map ref: F20).

Our office is closed on the weekends and public holidays and only limited services are available.

For Term 1 2024, we recommend you arrive on Monday 8 January 2024. You must be in the country before the compulsory Introductory Academic Program (IAP) that starts at 10:00am on Monday 15 January 2024. 

We know that booking flights and travel for certain days is not always possible - but we suggest doing your best to arrive close to our suggested date.

As soon as your flight is booked, you need to:

1. Send us your itinerary
2. Confirm if you require UNSW to arrange airport pick-up (flight details and destination address are required to make a reservation)
3. Confirm if you need UNSW to arrange temporary accommodation or notify us of the address if you booked it yourself. 

Please note: The Airport Pick-Up Service can only take you to accommodation in the Randwick area. If you have arranged your own accommodation, and that accommodation is not in the local Randwick area, you will have to make your own way, at your own cost, to your accommodation. 

We highly recommend that before you leave your country, you check how far away the accommodation you have arranged is from UNSW and how much it will approximately cost for you to travel there. 

When arranging your own accommodation, please do consider its location and how long it will take you to travel to campus; your Introductory Academic Program (IAP) classes will be daily, and your attendance is compulsory. 

Following the AAS Policy, we can organise temporary accommodation either on or near the UNSW Campus for you for the first 7 nights. Please note that we will book accommodation subject to availability and the rates may vary. The expectation is that you stay a minimum of 5 nights. 

Your Student Contact Officer (SCO) will welcome you in person on your day of arrival at 12pm (weekdays only). 

If you arrive in Sydney after 12pm, or on a weekend or public holiday, your SCO will greet you on the next business day. We will communicate with you to arrange a meeting ahead of time. 

Your SCO is here to help you and can give you information on a wide range of topics, including on your accommodation, financial & medical cover under your AA Scholarship.

You can find our opening/service hours at the top of this page.

UNSW can only arrange up to 1 week (7 nights) of temporary accommodation. Please reach out to our Student Contact Officers as soon as possible if you are having problems finding a permanent place to stay - you can also use our tips on how to find permanent accommodation.

To help you get settled in your first Term at UNSW, you will receive a one-time Establishment Allowance of $5,000 AUD when you arrive in Sydney.

We also recommend that you bring up to $500 AUD for your first few weeks in Australia, and refer to our Cost of Living page for more information on how much money to bring to Australia.

You will also be setup with a stipend for your Contribution to Living Expenses.

You need an Australian Bank Account while you stay in Sydney to receive your Contribution to Living Expenses and Establishment Allowance. We will process the payment of your establishment allowance into your bank account only once you have arrived in Australia and provided us with your bank details. Please ensure you arrive in Australia will enough funds to cover your expenses for the first few days. 

If you would like to open a Commonwealth Bank account before you arrive, please follow this link to apply for an account online.

When completing your online account application, you must enter an arrival date within 3 months. You cannot open an account if you put in a date outside of 3 months.

If your arrival is delayed, the account will remain open for up to 6 months. If you do not arrive within 6 months, the account will be closed automatically.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) Common Reporting Standard (CRS) requires that foreign nationals provide their Tax ID number (TIN) when they open new bank accounts.

This affects all international students, so please make sure you bring your TIN confirmation. CRS is a regulatory requirement and all financial institutions in Australia will collect this information. Every customer has to provide their tax residency information.

All banks must be compliant regarding collecting tax residency details from customers. They must collect this information face-to-face along with sighting your identification during your first visit to the bank. Once the account is active, you will have access to transact in this account, including receiving deposits.

If you need to make a deposit before your arrival in Australia, you must contact the bank to arrange a phone call to advise the TIN numbers from your country. Once set up, you can deposit money into the account - however, you can only withdraw the funds after you arrive in Australia.

Overseas Student Health Cover

Before you get to Sydney, we will apply for Overseas Student Health Cover (OSHC) for the length of your student visa with Medibank, the UNSW preferred provider. It is a requirement of your visa that you have sufficient health cover, from the day you arrive in Australia.

Your SCO can help you activate your membership and update your details when you arrive.

Visit our website for more information on your OSHC.

If you require any medical assistance in Australia before you meet your SCO, please call Medibank on 132 331. You will need to provide them with the exact name and birth date you have provided the University in order to use your policy. If you wish to bring family with you, you will need to upgrade your single cover to family cover at your own cost. Under no circumstances are you to make any changes to the start or end date of your single cover period.