Find a cosmetic clinic in Australia you can actually trust.

"Cosmetic surgeon" is not a protected title in Australia

Until 2023, any registered medical practitioner in Australia could advertise themselves as a "cosmetic surgeon" without holding any specific surgical training. The Medical Board of Australia and AHPRA have since tightened the rules: from July 2023, the use of the title "surgeon" by medical practitioners is restricted to specialists registered in surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, or ophthalmology. Existing endorsements remain a separate path. In practice, this means the practitioner offering you a breast augmentation, rhinoplasty or facelift may or may not be a Specialist Plastic Surgeon (FRACS), and the difference matters. Specialist Plastic Surgeons complete a minimum of twelve years of medical and surgical training, including a five-year accredited training program in plastic surgery overseen by the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. Other practitioners performing the same operation may have attended a short cosmetic-surgery fellowship without college accreditation. Always confirm specialist registration directly on the public AHPRA register before proceeding.

What the AHPRA July 2023 advertising rules mean for you

The cosmetic-advertising guidelines that took effect on 1 July 2023 place strict limits on how clinics may promote surgical procedures. Testimonials about clinical care are prohibited, before-and-after imagery must meet specific consent and context requirements, and inducements such as time-limited discounts, finance offers tied to booking deadlines, and competition-style giveaways are banned for surgical work. Patients must receive a mandatory cooling-off period of at least seven days between consent and surgery, and a referral from a GP is required before any consultation for a surgical cosmetic procedure. On this directory, that's why surgical procedure pages do not display reviews, star ratings or marketing imagery — those signals are intentionally suppressed because they would breach the guidelines if presented as advertising. Non-surgical procedure pages are governed by separate, less restrictive rules and may include rating signals where AHPRA permits.

How to compare clinics meaningfully

Most patients begin a clinic comparison with price and visual results. Both are misleading on their own. A meaningful comparison starts with verifying the treating practitioner's AHPRA registration and specialist endorsement, then looking at where surgery is actually performed. Specialist Plastic Surgeons typically operate in licensed day-hospitals or accredited private hospitals with anaesthetists, recovery nurses, and emergency-transfer protocols. Some cosmetic-only practices operate from in-rooms theatres which, while sometimes accredited, may not have the same emergency infrastructure. Ask for the name of the facility, whether the anaesthetist is a Specialist Anaesthetist (FANZCA), and what the clinic's revision policy looks like in writing. Reasonable clinics will quote the entire pathway — consultation, surgical fee, anaesthetist fee, hospital fee, garments, and any standard follow-up — rather than a single headline figure.

What's in this directory

We index three categories of practice: Specialist Plastic Surgeons and FRACS-registered cosmetic surgical practices; dermatology practices with a documented cosmetic offering; and non-surgical cosmetic clinics offering injectables, laser, energy-based devices and skin treatments. Every listing is built from publicly available information — Google Business Profile, the practice's own website, and the AHPRA register. Premium listings are clinics that have verified their practitioner's registration with our editorial team and committed to a 2-business-day enquiry SLA. We do not on-sell enquiries, exchange data with lead-generation networks, or accept paid placement above editorial signal. If a listing on this site is yours and the information is incomplete or out of date, you can claim the profile and submit corrections.

How to use the directory

Most readers arrive looking for a specific procedure in a specific city — for example, rhinoplasty in Sydney or breast augmentation in Melbourne — and the city × procedure index pages are designed for that intent. If you're earlier in the research process, the procedure pages cover typical Australian cost ranges, expected recovery, the questions to ask in a consultation, and the red flags that should send you to a second opinion. The state pages are useful when you're prepared to travel within your home state for the right practitioner. Wherever you start, every clinic page links to the practice's own website and direct contact details: the goal is to put you in touch with the practice, not to sit between you and your care.