What a caravan costs to keep for a year
Registration, towing fuel, insurance, servicing, storage and site fees
The total depends on the state you register in, how far you tow it, and what you insure and store it for.
Registration comes off your state or territory's published schedule, towing fuel from the van's weight and shape, and the rest off your own paperwork.
Step 1
The van
Pick a van to fill in its weights, or type your own figures straight in.
Everything stays editable, so you can use the figures from the van you are actually looking at.
Sets the registration fee.
Sets the towing fuel. The car burns fuel hauling the loaded van.
Step 2
Where the van is registered
Every state and territory charges differently, and most of them charge on tare weight.
The figure below is worked out from that authority's own published schedule, read on 1 August 2026.
Every state and territory table sits on the registration cost guide.
Step 3
How far you tow it
This counts only the fuel the van adds.
The car burns its own fuel whether the van is behind it or not, so charging the whole tank to the caravan would overstate what the van costs you.
Towing kilometres only, not everyday driving.
We do not publish a fuel price. Use the one you actually pay.
For a single trip rather than a year, and for the arithmetic on a consumption figure you have measured yourself, use the towing fuel calculator.
Step 4
The bills that are yours
Insurance, servicing, storage and site fees are priced on you rather than on the van.
A premium depends on the driver, the address and the cover chosen. A service depends on the workshop. So the calculator asks for your figures and does the arithmetic on them.
The annual premium on your renewal notice, or the figure on a quote.
What your last service invoice came to, plus anything you know is due.
Twelve months of whatever you pay to park it. Leave blank if it lives at home.
Nights away multiplied by what you pay a night, plus any park memberships.
Leave any of them blank and it is left out of the total rather than counted as nothing.
What each of these covers, and what moves it, is set out in the running costs guide and the insurance guide.
The year
What the van costs to keep
Fill in anything above and the year builds up here, line by line.
Where each number comes from
Registration comes off the published schedule
Every figure comes from the state or territory authority's own schedule, read on 1 August 2026, and composed against the van's tare weight.
Schedules usually move on 1 July, so check the authority's page before you rely on it.
The towing fuel figure is an estimate, and these are its assumptions
- Rolling resistance coefficient of 0.01, sealed road.
- Air density of 1.2 kg per cubic metre.
- A steady 90km/h. Faster than that and drag climbs sharply, so the estimate reads low.
- 30% of the fuel's energy reaching the wheels.
- 38.6 megajoules per litre of diesel, 34.2 for petrol.
- Extra drag area by shape: full-height tourer 1.9, pop top or hybrid 1.2, small or teardrop 0.7 square metres. Yours is set to full-height tourer.
- A band of plus or minus 20% around the result.
No hills, headwinds, roof racks or stop-start driving are modelled.
Each of those increases what you use.
Insurance, servicing, storage and site fees are yours
The calculator holds no figure for any of them and does not invent one.
Whatever you type is what gets added.
Read the total as a planning figure
It is a year built out of the lines you filled in. Nothing on this page is a price anybody has offered you.
Check the registration figure against your own renewal, and check the fuel estimate against your own fills.
Common questions
What does it cost to run a caravan for a year in Australia?
It depends on where the van is registered, how far you tow it, and what you insure and store it for. There is no single figure, so this calculator builds the year up line by line. Registration is worked out from your state or territory's own published schedule against the van's tare weight. Towing fuel is estimated from the van's weight and shape and the fuel price you pay. Insurance, servicing, storage and site fees are the figures off your own paperwork, because those are quoted to you and not to us.
Why does the calculator ask for my own insurance and servicing figures?
Because a premium is priced on the van, the driver, the address and the cover chosen, and a service is priced on the van and the workshop. A market average typed into a calculator would be a confident-looking number with nothing behind it. The figures you already have on your renewal notice and your last invoice are the accurate ones, and the calculator does the arithmetic on them.
Is the towing fuel figure a measurement?
No. It is a theoretical estimate of the extra fuel the van adds, calculated from its weight and how much air it pushes, and shown as a band. It counts only what the van adds, not the fuel the car would use anyway. Every assumption behind it is published on the page.