How to Start a Personal Training Business in Australia

To start a personal training business in Australia you need a Certificate IV in Fitness, current first aid and CPR, an ABN and insurance — there's no government licence and no compulsory registration. Most people get going for $5,500 to $18,000, and more than half of that is the qualification plus a cash buffer. The hard part isn't the paperwork; it's filling a book fast enough to cover gym rent that falls due whether clients show up or not.

Qualifications and the registration question

The two nationally recognised qualifications are SIS30321 Certificate III in Fitness (gym and group instructor) and SIS40221 Certificate IV in Fitness (personal trainer). You have to finish the Cert III before starting the Cert IV, and most providers sell them as one combined program.

On top of that you need HLTAID011 Provide First Aid, which lasts three years, and HLTAID009 Provide CPR, which needs renewing every 12 months. Gyms and insurers check both.

Registration with AUSactive — the industry peak body, formerly Fitness Australia — is voluntary. It costs $160 for 12 months or $280 for 24 months and requires 20 continuing education credits every two years (as at September 2026). Nobody will stop you trading without it, but some gyms, councils and insurers treat it as proof you're current, so it's cheap credibility.

If you'll train anyone under 18, you need a Working with Children Check (or your state's equivalent — the schemes and names differ) before the first session. Working with children without one is a criminal offence in every state and territory.

What it costs to get started

Insurance is the line you don't trim. Public liability covers someone getting hurt on your watch; professional indemnity covers the program you wrote being blamed for the injury. You need both, and most councils won't issue a park permit without evidence of them. Some set the bar high — the City of Melbourne requires $20 million public liability for commercial training on its land.

Pick your model before you sign anything

Gym rent is the standard starting point because the foot traffic does some of your selling. Read the agreement closely: many run for 12 months, and a common structure is free rent in month one and half rent in month two in exchange for minimum floor hours, then full rent from month three. Ask what happens if you leave early, whether the clients are yours or the gym's, and whether you're allowed to train them elsewhere.

That last point matters legally as well as commercially. Gyms usually engage trainers as contractors, but if the gym sets your hours, dictates your rates and hands you its clients, the relationship may actually be employment regardless of what the agreement says — which changes who owes superannuation, leave and award pay under the Fitness Industry Award. Our guide to employee versus contractor status walks through how the test works.

Training in parks needs a council permit almost everywhere. Councils cap group sizes, restrict hours, ban selling anything on site, and charge an annual fee — and if you train across two council areas, you need two permits.

Do the break-even maths on rent

Say you rent gym space for $350 a week, pay $600 a year for insurance, $60 a month for coaching software and $280 every two years for registration. That's about $378 a week in fixed costs.

At $85 a session, you need four and a half sessions a week — call it five — before you earn a cent. Now look at what happens above that line:

• 10 sessions a week: $850 in, minus $378, leaves $472 before tax and super.
• 25 sessions a week: $2,125 in, minus $378, leaves $1,747 before tax and super.

You did 2.5 times the work and took home nearly four times the money. That's why the first two months on the gym floor matter more than anything else you do — every session past break-even is almost pure income, and every week you sit at eight sessions you're paying for the privilege of working.

What to charge

There's no official national figure, but advertised rates for a standard 60-minute gym session cluster around $80–$100. New Cert IV trainers usually start near the bottom and move up as results and referrals accumulate.

Packages are how the industry manages cash flow: a 10-session pack usually discounts 10–15 per cent and a 20-pack 15–20 per cent. Don't go deeper than that. Discounting your only sellable asset — an hour of your life — by 30 per cent to win a client who was going to buy anyway is the fastest way to be busy and broke.

Watch the GST threshold as you grow. Personal training isn't a GST-free health service, so once turnover hits $75,000 in any 12-month period you must register. At $85 a session over 46 working weeks, 19 sessions a week gets you to $74,290 and 20 sessions takes you to $78,200 — straight over. At 25 sessions a week you'd turn over $97,750, and one-eleventh of that ($8,886) belongs to the ATO. Unless you lift your price to $93.50, you've quietly taken a $7.73 pay cut on every session. Our guide to registering for GST covers the timing and how to handle the changeover.

One more tax point if you're thinking about a company: personal training income is usually personal services income, so setting up a company generally won't let you split profits with a spouse. The PSI tests are explained in our guide to starting a consulting business — they work the same way for trainers.

Contracts, cancellations and refunds

Put your terms in writing before the first session — session length, price, expiry on packs, and your cancellation window (24 hours is standard). Have every client complete a pre-exercise screening form and disclose injuries and conditions, and keep it on file.

Three rules shape what you can enforce:

• Consumer guarantees apply to your sessions. Services must be delivered with due care and skill and fit for purpose. If you cancel, get injured or shut down mid-pack, the client is entitled to a remedy — "no refunds" on a session pack isn't enforceable. See consumer guarantees and refunds for what you must and mustn't put on a receipt.
• Unfair contract terms law covers standard-form contracts with consumers and small businesses. A term letting you change the price mid-term while locking the client in is the classic problem clause.
• State fitness codes add extra rules. Western Australia has a mandatory Fitness Industry Code of Practice — a seven-day cooling-off period on new memberships and a ban on taking more than 12 months of fees in advance — and the ACT has its own mandatory code, which also caps prepaid or periodically billed agreements at 12 months. In NSW the fitness industry code is voluntary and industry-run, though the Australian Consumer Law still applies in full. Check your state's rules before you sell a long-term program.

An expiry date on a session pack is fine if it's reasonable and clearly disclosed up front. Six or 12 months is normal; three months on a 20-pack invites a dispute you'll lose.

Getting your first clients

If you're on a gym floor, your rent buys you access — run free 15-minute assessments, spot for people, learn names. Trainers who fill their book fast are talking to members in month one, not waiting for the gym to send leads.

Beyond that, four things reliably work:

• A Google Business Profile with reviews. Searches for "personal trainer near me" convert hard, and photos, hours, service area and a steady trickle of reviews do most of the job.
• Six-week challenges or small-group intros priced below one-on-one — a low-risk way for someone to try you.
• Referral asks at the right moment, meaning after a client hits a goal, not at signup.
• Allied health relationships. Physios, chiros and GPs constantly discharge people who need supervised exercise but not clinical care. One good physio can be worth a year of social posting.

Our guide to getting your first 10 customers covers the sequence in more detail.

Scaling past your own two hands

There are only so many billable hours in a week, so growth means charging more per hour, putting more people in each hour, or selling something that isn't an hour.

Semi-private training is the easiest win — three clients at $50 each is $150 for the same 60 minutes you'd sell for $85. Online programming is next: a written program with weekly check-ins at $150–$250 a month scales without adding gym hours, but it only works if you already have an audience, and churn is brutal compared with in-person.

Hiring is the real step change. Once you take on employees you're into award rates under the Fitness Industry Award, superannuation at 12 per cent, payslips within one working day of payday and seven years of records. Subcontracting to other trainers looks simpler but carries sham-contracting risk if you control how and when they work.

Whichever way you go, keep records for five years as the ATO requires and separate the business bank account from day one.

Key takeaways

• There's no licence to be a personal trainer in Australia, but you'll need the Cert III and IV in Fitness, current first aid and CPR, and insurance before any gym, council or insurer takes you seriously.
• AUSactive registration is voluntary and cheap ($160 for 12 months or $280 for 24 months) — worth it as shorthand proof you're qualified.
• Gym rent of $200–$600 a week means roughly three to seven sessions a week at $85 just to break even, so treat filling your book in the first two months as the whole job.
• Charge $70–$130 for gym-based sessions and cap package discounts at 10–20 per cent; you're discounting the only thing you can't make more of.
• Turnover of $75,000 triggers GST registration — about 20 sessions a week at $85 — so plan whether you'll lift prices or absorb the hit before you cross it.
• Consumer guarantees, unfair contract terms law and state fitness codes all apply to session packs, so get your terms, expiry dates and cancellation policy in writing early.

Where to get help

Your state or territory's business advisory service runs free or low-cost sessions for new operators. Business.gov.au covers ABN registration and business names; the ATO has the GST, PSI and record-keeping guidance; and the Fair Work Ombudsman publishes the Fitness Industry Award pay guide if you're heading towards employing anyone. AUSactive maintains the national register and publishes industry guidelines, including on working with children checks. For park training, contact the council that manages the land — conditions and fees vary between neighbouring councils. And an accountant who works with sole traders is worth an hour of your money before you choose between sole trader and company.