Living in a caravan, full time
Your local council sets the rules.
More people are choosing to live in a caravan full time, on family land, on their own block or in a park.
The rest of it is mail, registration, insurance and what it costs to live this way long term.
Updated . 9 min read • Lifestyle
It depends on where the van sits. Each council sets its own rule and no national rule exists.
Parking a van and living in it are usually two separate questions, often answered by two different teams at the same council.
- Who decides - your local council's planning team (not the same team that handles street parking)
- Common settings - family or private land, or a park (each carries its own conditions)
The legality question sits with your council
No national rule covers living in a caravan full time. Each council decides, under its planning and land-use rules, whether a van can stand as a permanent home on a piece of land.
Councils treat living in a van and parking one as separate questions. A council can be relaxed about a van sitting on a driveway for years and strict about anyone sleeping in it, or the other way around.
People land in this life in a few common ways: an arrangement on family or private land, an approved rural or semi-rural property, or a long-stay or permanent arrangement inside a caravan park. Each of those settings carries its own conditions, and none of them is a shortcut around the planning question.
The council-by-council detail lives on its own page
We have already done the deep dive on how councils write these rules, with real examples read from council material state by state, including a section specifically on occupying a caravan. Read where can I park my caravan for that detail, then come back here for the rest of what full-time living involves.
What this page is
This is general information about how full-time caravan living usually works in Australia. It is not advice about your own block, your own council or your own circumstances. Confirm the current position with your own council and your own insurer before you commit to anything.
Mail and registration, kept current
Full-time van life removes a fixed street address, and quite a few everyday things are built around having one. None of this is unique to caravanning, it is the same list anyone sorts out when they stop living at a fixed address, and it is worth doing before you set off rather than after.
A mail redirection or a private mailing address keeps letters and parcels reaching you while you are moving around. Set it up before you leave your last fixed address.
Registration and licensing
Your caravan and your tow vehicle still need to stay registered wherever they are registered, and renewal notices go to the address on file. Your driver's licence works the same way. Keep the address current with each transport authority so a renewal notice never goes to a house you have left.
Medicare, the electoral roll and banking
Medicare, the electoral roll and your bank all ask for a current address at some point. A mailing address usually covers this, but check directly with each service what they will accept - the answer is theirs to give.
Anything address-dependent
Anything else tied to a street address, from a GP you see regularly to a gym membership, is worth a short list before you go. It is worth sorting before you go.
What full-time living actually costs
Full-time costs come from the same list as any other caravan ownership, plus wherever you choose to stay each night. Registration, insurance, servicing and tyres do not change because you live in the van rather than holiday in it.
What changes is how often site fees land, because a full-time traveller is paying for somewhere to stay most nights of the year instead of a handful of trips. A long-stay or permanent site in a caravan park, a private-land arrangement, and free or low-cost camping all sit at very different points on that scale, and which mix you use is the single biggest lever on the total.
We have already built the method for working out your own annual figure in caravan running costs. Use it as the base, then add your own site-fee pattern on top.
The lever most full-timers reach for
The more nights a van can spend off-grid rather than on a paid powered site, the more the site-fee side of the budget shrinks. That is exactly what the rest of this cluster is about: what a van needs to genuinely cover water and power for stretches at a time, covered in off-grid caravan capability.
What to look for in a van, if it is going to be home
A van used as a holiday-a-few-times-a-year proposition and a van used as a home run their power and water very differently. Full-time living puts real, daily demand on both, which is a different sizing question from a weekend away, and it is worth weighing payload margin, water capacity and power capacity together rather than one at a time. A washing machine or larger water tanks are worth checking for too if laundry and refill trips are a daily concern rather than an occasional one.
Insurance is worth a direct call rather than an assumption. Some caravan insurance policies set different conditions for a van used as a permanent residence rather than for travel and holidays, and the only answer that matters is the one your own insurer gives you for your own policy and your own arrangement. Our caravan insurance guide covers how to read a policy and the questions worth asking; the residence question is one to add to that list.
Full-time living questions, answered
Is it legal to live in a caravan full time in Australia?
There is no single national rule. Whether a caravan can be lived in permanently on a given piece of land is generally a planning and land-use question, decided council by council and sometimes block by block. A council can be relaxed about a van parked on a driveway for years and strict about anyone sleeping in it, or the other way around, so the parking answer and the living answer have to be checked separately with your own council.
Do I need to change my address if I live in a caravan full time?
Most services that write to you need a current postal address, the same as if you moved house. That usually means a mail redirection or a private mailing address while you are between fixed addresses, and updating your address with the relevant transport authority, Medicare and the electoral roll as you would after any move. What address is acceptable for each of those is a question for that service, not for us.
Does my caravan need to stay registered if I am living in it?
Yes. Registration is a requirement of the vehicle, not of how it is being used, so a caravan being lived in full time still needs to be registered and renewed in the normal way, in whichever state it is registered. Renewal notices go to the address on the registration, which is another reason to keep that address current.
Will my caravan insurance still cover me if I live in the van full time?
Ask your insurer directly before you commit to it. Some caravan insurance policies set different conditions or exclusions for a van used as a permanent residence rather than for travel and holidays, and the only reliable answer is the one your own policy document and your insurer give you for your situation.
Can I live in a caravan on a family member's property?
It is a common arrangement, and it still sits inside the same planning question as any other block: whether a council allows a caravan to be occupied on that land, for how long, and under what conditions. Check with the local council before you rely on the arrangement being open-ended.
Choosing a van built for the long haul
Water, power and payload matter more when a van is a home rather than a holiday. Start with what actually decides how long a van can stay off-grid.