Brisbane Private and Catholic School Fees in 2026

Brisbane's well-known independent schools charge between about $8,000 and $38,000 a year for Year 7 once compulsory levies are counted, and two Catholic colleges we checked come in well under that at $4,360 and $7,044. Every figure below was read from the school's own 2026 fee schedule in late September and early October 2026 — and every one of the twelve schools we checked against our own database's stored figure turned out to be out of date, some by less than ten per cent, one by close to a third. If you have seen a lower number for one of these schools anywhere else online, including on this site until this week, it is very likely last year's fee.

Key takeaways

• Twelve Brisbane-area schools publish a Year 7 fee we could verify at each school's own site — from $4,360 (St Francis' College, Catholic) to $37,960 (Brisbane Grammar School).
• A clear top tier, then a cliff. Six schools run $17,400 to just under $38,000; the next six are $4,400 to $9,800 — a gap of more than $7,500 between them.
• Sector shapes the fee more than postcode does. Mary MacKillop College, 8.1km from the CBD, costs less than every independent school we checked, including ones twice as far from the city.
• Brisbane Grammar School's $37,960 is higher than the costliest school we have verified in Perth, Canberra or Adelaide — trailing only Sydney.
• Two well-known schools — St Aidan's Anglican Girls School and St Peters Lutheran College, Indooroopilly — publish no fee figure we could read. Both route to a parent-portal login; we name them honestly below rather than guess.

The verified numbers: what twelve Brisbane schools charge in 2026

These are the schools whose 2026 schedules we could read at the school's own site between late September and early October 2026. Where a school separates tuition from compulsory levies, we show both — the gap is real money, and in Brisbane it is often a four-figure sum.

\*Ipswich Grammar School's all-in figure excludes a separate per-family Capital Levy billed over three terms, which is not a flat per-student amount.

A few of these are worth a sentence each. Brisbane Girls Grammar School and Clayfield College both run an "all-inclusive" tuition policy that bundles most curricular and co-curricular costs into one number, so there is no separate "tuition-only" figure to quote — a different basis from a school that lists tuition and levies as two lines, not a sign either school is more or less expensive than it looks. Mary MacKillop College's compulsory total (tuition plus a Recurrent Cost Levy, a per-family Capital Levy and a small P&F levy) is $7,044, with a further voluntary Building Fund donation not included in that figure, because it is optional.

Sector shapes the fee more than distance does

Every Brisbane fee guide assumes schools get cheaper the further you live from the city. Our twelve verified schools say that is only half the story.

Mary MacKillop College sits 8.1km from the CBD — closer than nine of the ten independent schools we checked — and still costs less than every one of them, including Westside Christian College and Faith Lutheran College, both more than 20km further out. St Francis' College, 25.5km from the centre, is the cheapest school on this list at any distance. Among the ten independent schools, the broad pattern holds: Brisbane Grammar and Brisbane Girls Grammar (both under 1.5km) anchor the top of the market, Clayfield (6.1km) and Moreton Bay College (12.6km) sit in the upper-middle, and the furthest schools — Ipswich Grammar aside — cluster under $10,000. Ipswich Grammar School is the clearest exception: at 31.4km it is the furthest school on the list, yet its $17,396 all-in fee is the sixth-highest, because Ipswich has its own 19th-century grammar-school tradition independent of Brisbane's.

Two schools where you'll need to ask directly

St Aidan's Anglican Girls School and St Peters Lutheran College, Indooroopilly are both well-known Brisbane schools, and both publish their 2026 fee schedule only behind a parent-portal login (a JavaScript-gated page at secure.ermonline.com.au) that does not return a readable figure to a direct check — in a browser or otherwise. Numbers for both circulate on third-party comparison sites, but neither school's own gated page returned a readable figure to check them against, so we have left both out rather than show a secondhand figure next to a named school. Ask either school directly for its current schedule.

How Brisbane compares to the four capitals we have already measured

AroundSchools has independently verified private-school fees in Adelaide, Sydney, Perth and Canberra. Here is how Brisbane's highest verified fee sits alongside them.

Sydney remains in a league of its own — Sydney Grammar School's $52,410 is more than a third higher than anything verified elsewhere. But Brisbane Grammar School's $37,960 is higher than the costliest verified school in Perth ($37,491, St Hilda's Anglican School for Girls), Canberra ($33,705, Canberra Grammar School) or Adelaide ($32,970, St Peter's College). Every one of these figures was read from the named school's own current schedule, so the comparison is apples-to-apples: a compulsory annual total, not an advertised tuition rate.

What AroundSchools already knows about these suburbs

Three of the suburbs in the table above are also among Brisbane's most active for kids' activities in our own directory: Indooroopilly (home to St Peters Lutheran College) lists 9 kids' activities, Toowong (near Brisbane Boys' College) lists 9, and South Brisbane (Somerville House) lists 9 — all inside our top 15 Brisbane suburbs by activity count, out of 1,579 Queensland activities across 555 suburbs in total. If a school on this list is on your shortlist, our suburb activity hubs show what else is nearby for after the school day ends, and our Kids' Activity Index has the full state-by-state breakdown.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most expensive private school in Brisbane? Of the schools we could verify, Brisbane Grammar School, at $37,960 a year for Year 7 in 2026 (tuition $36,300 plus a $1,660 technology levy). St Aidan's Anglican Girls School may be more expensive, but it does not publish a figure we could confirm.

How much do Catholic schools cost in Brisbane compared with independent schools? Among the schools we checked, the two Catholic colleges — Mary MacKillop College ($7,044) and St Francis' College ($4,360) — cost roughly a third to a fifth of the highest-fee independent schools on this list. That is a small sample of two, not a claim about every Catholic school in Brisbane, but it matches the pattern in every other capital we have checked.

Are the fees cheaper further from the city? Mostly, but not reliably. Independent schools do get cheaper moving out from the CBD, with Ipswich Grammar School the clear exception. Sector matters more than distance: both Catholic colleges we verified cost less than every independent school, regardless of how far from the city they are.

Why is the fee I found elsewhere different from the one here? Most likely it is last year's figure. Every one of the twelve schools we checked against a previously stored figure had moved for 2026 — most by 10–20%, Mueller College by close to a third. Schools typically publish the following year's schedule in the second half of the year, so a number without a stated year attached to it should be treated as unreliable.

Does this cover boarding fees? No — every figure above is a day-school Year 7 tuition and compulsory levy figure. Several of these schools also offer boarding at a substantially higher annual cost; check the school's own schedule for boarding rates.

Related reading

• ACER vs Edutest vs AAS: Scholarship Tests Compared — the entry tests independent schools use to award scholarship places, if a scholarship is part of your plan
• Catholic vs Independent School Fees in Australia — the sector gap in every capital we have measured, not just Brisbane
• How Families Pay for Private School Fees — payment plans, discounts and what to ask a school's bursar
• Adelaide, Sydney, Perth and Canberra private school fees compared — the other capitals in this series

Every fee in this article was read from the named school's own 2026 fee schedule between 29 September and 3 October 2026, and states whether it is tuition-only or includes compulsory levies. Two well-known schools publish no fee we could confirm and are named rather than estimated. Schools typically set the following year's fees in the second half of the year — always confirm the current figure directly with the school before enrolling.