NSW now offers free PrEP to people without Medicare

South Eastern Sydney sexual health clinics will cover the medication and all required tests for eligible residents.

Told by Claire Lawson · 8 September 2026

People living in New South Wales without Medicare can now get PrEP for free. The HIV prevention medication, along with all required testing, is available at no cost through five sexual health clinics run by South Eastern Sydney Local Health District. ACON announced the programme on 7 September.

The catch — and there is one, because there always is — is eligibility. You need to be living in Australia for more than a short-term stay, which the programme defines as considering Australia your usual place of living or intending to live here for a period of time. Tourists and short-stay visitors are excluded. You also need to meet the medical criteria to take PrEP under the National PrEP Guidelines, which assess your HIV risk and suitability for the medication.

If you tick those boxes, the service covers everything: the medication itself and the blood tests and sexual health screens that go with it. No gap payment, no out-of-pocket, nothing.

The five clinics offering the programme are Sydney Sexual Health Centre at Sydney Hospital, the Albion Centre in Surry Hills, three Kirketon Road Centre sites in Darlinghurst and Surry Hills, and Short Street Centre at St George Hospital in Kogarah. If you are already a client at one of those services, you can access free PrEP there. If you are not, Sexual Health Infolink can help you find the right clinic — call 1800 451 624 and press 5, Monday to Friday between 9am and 5:30pm.

PrEP has been subsidised on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme since 2018 for people with Medicare, which brought the cost down to around $40 for a month's supply, or $6.60 with a concession card. For someone without Medicare, the same medication could cost hundreds of dollars a month — enough to make it unaffordable, and enough to leave people at risk when they did not need to be.

That is what this programme fixes. Not the fact that PrEP exists, or that it works, or that some people can afford it — the fact that cost has been a barrier for people who needed it and could not pay.

The programme is running through South Eastern Sydney Local Health District, which covers a large swathe of Sydney's east and south. It is not yet clear whether other health districts will roll out similar schemes, or whether the state government plans to expand access beyond this region. For now, this is where it is available.

PrEP does not protect against other sexually transmissible infections — condoms and regular STI testing still do that work. But it does reduce the risk of acquiring HIV by more than 99% when taken as prescribed, which makes it one of the most effective prevention tools available.

For someone without Medicare who has been weighing up the cost of PrEP against rent, food, or anything else that month, this is the difference between being able to protect themselves and not being able to. That is not a small thing.