How to Set Up an Office in Australia: A Practical Guide for Small Businesses

Most new offices cost too much.

Picture a founder in a Sydney commercial agent's office, signing a five-year lease on a 120 square metre space in Surry Hills. The space looks right. The rent per square metre sounds manageable. Three months later the outgoings invoice arrives, the fit-out costs have blown past the estimate, and the business is carrying a fixed-cost commitment that will not move regardless of what happens to revenue. This is the most common and most expensive setup mistake Australian small businesses make.

This guide covers the decision that matters before any others: whether you should be signing a commercial lease at all. From there, it moves to what the space actually costs, what your legal obligations are as an employer (most new business owners do not know these until a claim arrives), and how to configure the physical environment correctly. The chair question gets its own section because it is not just a comfort decision. Under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Cth), it is a legal one. And a premium ergonomic office chair for your staff is not an indulgence. It is the minimum standard a Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) is expected to meet.

The Decision Before the Decision: Lease or Flexible Space?

Why most startups should not sign a long lease in year one or two

The traditional commercial lease in Australia requires a minimum commitment of three to five years, a personal guarantee from the director, a bond of three to six months' rent, and a make-good obligation at the end of the term that can cost $500 to $1,000 per square metre to fulfil. For a business with an unproven revenue model, that is a significant fixed liability before operations begin.

The honest answer is that most businesses in their first two years are better served by flexible office space: co-working, serviced offices, or month-to-month arrangements. The reasons are practical. Headcount is uncertain. Revenue is uncertain. The team may grow, shrink, or pivot entirely. A co-working arrangement scales with the business and carries no make-good obligation. The tradeoff is cost per person per month, which is higher than a direct commercial lease at scale, and the absence of brand control over the physical environment.

When the commercial lease does make sense

A commercial lease makes sense when the team size is stable and large enough that the per-person cost of a commercial lease is lower than co-working rates, when a physical brand presence in the space matters (client-facing businesses, design studios, professional services), and when the business has the financial stability to carry a three-to-five year fixed commitment. As a rough guide: below 10 staff in year one or two, co-working is usually the financially rational choice. Above 15 stable staff with proven revenue, a direct lease typically becomes cost-competitive.

What Office Space Actually Costs in Australia in 2025-2026

The advertised rent per square metre is not the number that matters. The number that matters is the total cost of occupancy: rent plus outgoings, plus fit-out, plus make-good at the end of the lease. For co-working, the calculation is simpler and the hidden costs are minimal. The table below uses current market data from Cushman & Wakefield, Rubberdesk, and Knight Frank.

Sources: Knight Frank 2025 (Sydney CBD prime grade rate) · Cushman & Wakefield 2025 Fit-Out Cost Guide ($2,665/sqm Sydney) · Rubberdesk Q1 2026 AU flexible office market report · Servcorp AU 2025 Melbourne office guide. Note: outgoings (council rates, building insurance, maintenance) add 15-30% to base rent in most net commercial leases. Confirm current rates with a commercial tenant advisor before signing.

Your Legal Obligations as an Employer: What Most New Business Owners Do Not Know

The WHS Act 2011 and what it requires from you

From the moment you employ your first staff member in Australia, you become a Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Cth). Section 19 of the Act establishes your primary duty of care: to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers while they are at work.

For an office-based business, this duty extends to the physical work environment including workstation setup, seating, lighting, and monitor position. It is not a recommendation. It is an enforceable legal obligation. A 2024 national survey commissioned by the Australian Chiropractors Association found that 86.7 percent of Australian workers had experienced a musculoskeletal disorder either at work or because of their work environment. Musculoskeletal disorders are the most common basis for workers' compensation claims in Australia. Most of them are preventable.

The WHS Guide published by HSE Direct in 2026, drawing on SafeWork Australia's Model Code of Practice for Hazardous Manual Tasks, specifies the ergonomic standard for office seating: chairs with a five-point base, adjustable lumbar support, seat height range of 400 to 500mm, and width-adjustable armrests. These are not aspirational design features. They are the threshold below which a PCBU is exposed to compliance risk. Understanding what ergonomic features actually address the health risks of desk work is covered in detail in the posture and seating research piece.

WHS obligations for hybrid and home-based workers

The duty of care under the WHS Act extends to home-based workers and hybrid arrangements, not just the physical office. SafeWork Australia's guidance is explicit: a PCBU must ensure the health and safety of workers regardless of whether they are working on-site or from home. For businesses with hybrid arrangements, this means the ergonomic standard for home workstations is a legal obligation, not a nice-to-have. The full obligations for home-based workers are covered in the hybrid working arrangements and employee wellbeing guide.

Setting Up the Physical Space

Layout principles for productivity

The most evidence-backed office layout principle is natural light for all workstations. Positioning desks perpendicular to windows (not facing them directly, which creates screen glare) maximises natural light exposure without compromising screen visibility. Research on office lighting and cognitive performance consistently identifies daylight exposure as the strongest environmental factor in sustained afternoon focus.

Open plans work for collaboration-heavy roles. Dedicated quiet zones or enclosed spaces work for focused deep work. For most small businesses, a mixed layout with one open collaboration area and access to at least one enclosed room for calls and focused work produces better output than either a fully open or fully enclosed setup.

Workstation configuration: the free fixes first

Before any furniture purchase, the configuration of each workstation determines whether the ergonomic brief is met. Screen at eye level: the top of the monitor should sit at approximately eye height when seated. Keyboard at elbow height: forearms roughly parallel to the floor, shoulders relaxed. Two-finger gap between the back of the knee and the front of the seat edge: this prevents circulation restriction from an oversized seat depth.

Monitor arms are the most cost-effective workstation upgrade available: typically $50 to $200, they allow precise screen positioning for any monitor and free up desk depth. External keyboards and mice allow the computer to be positioned independently of the input devices. These two items, combined with a correctly adjusted chair, meet the WHS ergonomic standard without requiring a sit-stand desk.

Seating as a WHS compliance decision

The chair is not the background variable it is often treated as. For an employer setting up an office and taking on PCBU responsibilities under the WHS Act, the chair is a compliance decision as much as a comfort decision. The SafeWork Australia specification (five-point base, adjustable lumbar, 400-500mm height range, width-adjustable armrests) is the legal threshold. A chair that does not meet this specification exposes the employer to workers' compensation risk if a musculoskeletal injury results from desk work.

The SIDIZ T80 is ANSI/BIFMA X5.1 certified and carries GREENGUARD certification for low chemical emissions, relevant in enclosed office environments. It meets the SafeWork Australia ergonomic specification and provides the adjustability range required to correctly fit the majority of the adult Australian workforce. For commercial office environments in Queensland, northern NSW, or open-plan floors with heat build-up, the T50 Air's full mesh seat addresses ventilation that fabric-seat chairs cannot resolve in sustained heat. For businesses equipping multiple workstations, the T50 provides similar ergonomic credentials at a lower per-unit cost.

The tax treatment of ergonomic chairs for businesses is covered in the guide to claiming office chairs for tax in Australia. For sole traders and partnerships, the instant asset write-off provisions may apply. For companies, depreciation at the asset's effective life is the standard treatment. Confirm the applicable method with your accountant.

Technology and Connectivity

What to organise before the team moves in

Internet reliability is the single most important technology decision in a commercial office setup. Business-grade fibre connections with a guaranteed service level agreement (SLA) cost more than residential broadband and are worth every dollar. A 4G or 5G backup connection on a separate provider protects against outages that are not covered by your primary provider's SLA.

Video conferencing hardware, printer/scanner, and cloud backup should all be operational before the first day. Test every system at least two days before the team moves in. The move itself generates enough disruption without discovering on day one that the network drops calls above a certain bandwidth, or that the printer is on a different subnet from the team's laptops.

IT support, whether internal or contracted, should have remote access to all systems before the physical setup is complete. An IT issue on the first day in a new office that requires an in-person visit loses more time and creates more friction than it would have done had remote access been established in advance.

The Office Setup Checklist

Run through this before the team moves in. Every unchecked item is a problem you will solve under pressure.

Space and lease

WHS compliance

Physical setup

Technology

The Setup That Protects Your Business

Setting up an office in Australia involves more than choosing a location and buying furniture. It involves a space decision with significant financial consequences (the lease), a legal compliance framework you become subject to from the first hire (the WHS Act), and a physical environment configuration that determines how your team performs and whether you meet your duty of care.

The flexible space question is worth taking seriously. For most Australian startups in the first two years, a month-to-month co-working arrangement is the financially responsible choice. It preserves capital, avoids make-good obligations, and allows headcount to fluctuate without the weight of a fixed lease. The commercial lease becomes the right decision when team size is stable, revenue is proven, and the cost calculation tips in favour of direct occupancy.

On the seating question: cheap chairs are not a legitimate cost-saving measure for an employer. They are a deferred WHS liability. The WHS Act is clear. The SafeWork Australia ergonomic specification is specific. The workers' compensation system exists to compensate what the specification is designed to prevent.

The right office setup is not the cheapest one at the start. It is the one that does not become expensive later.