Best Personal Loans in Australia (2026)

How to read the rates in this table

The single most expensive mistake when comparing personal loans in Australia is treating two advertised percentages as if they mean the same thing. They often do not. A flat rate is charged on the full amount you borrowed for the whole term, even though you are paying the balance down every month. A reducing rate is charged only on what you still owe, so it falls as you repay. The same number written two different ways produces very different totals, and the flat one is always the more expensive of the two.

This is why the rate column above reproduces each bank's own sentence instead of reducing it to a single figure. Where a bank says "per month", that is not an annual rate. Where it says "from", that is the best case for its strongest applicants, not an offer to you. Buzdy does not convert between these, because converting requires assumptions the bank has not published and a wrong number here costs real money.

Of the 18 loans listed, 17 publish a rate at all. The rest quote only after an application, which is itself worth knowing before you spend an afternoon on paperwork.

What the banks actually publish

Across the 5 banks on this page, disclosure is uneven. That gap is useful in itself — a bank that will not say what it charges until you have applied is telling you something.

• 17 of 18 state a rate
• 0 of 18 state a minimum salary
• 11 of 18 state a maximum amount
• 17 of 18 state a repayment term

18 of the 18 rows link straight to the bank's own page, so you can check any line here against the source before you act on it.

Before you apply

Every application is usually recorded, and several in a short window can read badly to the next lender. It costs nothing to narrow the list here first, confirm the current terms on the bank's own page, and apply once or twice rather than everywhere.

Ask the bank for the total you will repay over the full term, not the monthly instalment. A longer term makes any instalment look affordable while quietly increasing what the loan costs in total. Processing fees, insurance and early settlement charges sit outside the headline rate and are worth asking about by name.

Common questions