Ensuite Renovation Guide (Sydney Apartments): Cost, Size & Waterproofing

This is the ensuite-specific guide: a small second bathroom off the main bedroom, almost always the most compact wet area in the apartment, and almost always internal with no window. If you want the broader apartment bathroom cost breakdown, read our apartment bathroom renovation cost guide. If you own a unit and the room you are pricing is a tight ensuite, stay here. The small size changes the waterproofing, the ventilation and the layout, and those are exactly where ensuites go wrong.

How much does an ensuite renovation cost in Sydney?

A like-for-like ensuite refit in a Sydney apartment starts around $15,000. Most full ensuite renovations land between $25,000 and $35,000, and a high-end reconfigure with relocated plumbing and premium finishes runs $35,000 or more. The number is set by your finishes and the apartment layer cheap quotes leave out, not by the square metres. Here is how it breaks down by tier.

These are our real Fine Touch Group ranges, drawn from 1,000+ Sydney apartment projects. National market guides put a standard ensuite at $16,000 to $23,000 and a premium one at $23,000 to $36,000 (hipages 2026 ensuite cost guide). Our figures sit at the top of that range because an apartment ensuite carries strata and access costs a house ensuite does not.

A small footprint does not make an ensuite cheap. A bathroom is the most labour-heavy room in the home, and labour plus tiling is 40 to 50 percent of the cost no matter the size. A compact ensuite still needs a full strip-out, a fresh membrane across the whole floor, the same waterproofer and plumber, and the same fixtures as a larger bathroom. We cover the full breakdown of where the money goes in our apartment bathroom cost guide.

What you get at each budget

The one thing that matters most: waterproofing a tiny wet area

In an ensuite, waterproofing is the single most important line and one of the cheapest, at around $500 to $750 installed by a licensed waterproofer (hipages). A small room actually makes the membrane more critical, not less. The shower sits closer to the toilet, the vanity and the door, so water spreads across the whole floor rather than staying in a defined shower zone. In a compact ensuite the membrane usually has to cover the entire floor and turn up the walls, with the floor graded to fall toward the waste so water cannot pool against a join.

AS 3740 is the Australian Standard for waterproofing wet areas. In an apartment, your ensuite floor is someone else's ceiling, and there is no sub-floor to catch a leak. That is why the membrane is the line you never cut, even though it is one of the smallest numbers on the quote.

Ventilation: the ensuite trap most quotes miss

Most apartment ensuites are internal, with no window, and that makes ventilation a code requirement rather than a nice-to-have. Under the National Construction Code, a bathroom or sanitary compartment needs either natural ventilation from an openable window or mechanical exhaust. With no window, you need a ducted exhaust fan, and it has to discharge to outside the building, not just into the ceiling or roof cavity, at a flow rate of at least 25 litres per second (NCC Part 10.6).

This matters more in an ensuite than anywhere else in the home. A small, sealed, windowless room holds shower steam, and an exhaust that vents into the ceiling cavity instead of outside just moves the moisture into the building fabric, where it grows mould and rots over time. Getting the ducting routed to an external vent in a unit can mean coordinating through common property, which is one more reason the work needs to be planned, not improvised.

How small can an ensuite be?

There is no NCC-mandated minimum floor area for an ensuite, but fixture clearances set a practical floor. A workable shower, toilet and small vanity needs roughly 1,500mm to 1,600mm of width and about 2,000mm of length, close to three square metres, with around 530mm of clear space in front of the toilet so the room is usable (minimum ensuite size guide). The smallest Sydney apartment ensuites sit around two to three square metres, which is enough for a corner shower, a wall-hung pan and a slimline vanity if the layout is planned carefully.

Layout and design ideas that work in a tight ensuite

In a small ensuite, design is about reclaiming space and light, not adding features. These are the moves that make two or three square metres feel like a proper bathroom, and we use them on real Sydney apartment projects.

• 1. A wall-hung vanity. Lifting the cabinet off the floor shows more tile and makes the room read larger, and it frees space for storage underneath.
• 2. A hobless walk-in shower with a single glass panel. Losing the shower hob and frame removes the visual barrier that chops a tiny room in half.
• 3. A recessed niche instead of a caddy. Building storage into the wall cavity keeps the shower clear and adds nothing to the footprint.
• 4. Large-format tiles in a light colour. Fewer grout lines make the floor and walls feel continuous, and a paler palette bounces what little light there is.
• 5. A wall-hung toilet and a cavity or sliding door. Both buy back the swing space a standard pan and hinged door waste in a tight room.

See these ideas built into real strata bathrooms in our Sydney CBD high-rise case study.

Strata approval, because an ensuite touches waterproofing

Because an ensuite renovation affects waterproofing, it counts as major work under the Strata Schemes Management Act. That needs a special resolution at a general meeting and a registered by-law, which runs around $900 to $1,000 plus GST to draft, plus $175.70 to register with NSW Land Registry Services. Realistically the approval adds 6 to 12 weeks before any work starts, and that holding time is a real cost most quotes never mention. The full process is in our Sydney strata approval guide.

Can you do an ensuite for $10,000?

Not for a real one. At $10,000 you are buying a surface refresh: new tapware, a vanity, a toilet, fresh grout and a paint, with the original waterproofing left untouched. That is fine for a quick tidy-up before a sale. It is the wrong move in an apartment you live in, because the membrane is the one thing that fails quietly and expensively, and a patch-up leaves it in place.

When that old membrane fails behind your new tiles, you are not looking at a $700 fix. You are looking at the unit below, a body corporate dispute, and a full re-do. A done-right ensuite starts around $15,000 because that is what it costs to strip it back, waterproof the whole floor, sort the plumbing and ventilation, and get the strata sign-off properly. The cheap quote is not cheaper, it is just deferred, and in a unit the bill lands on your neighbour's ceiling first.

Frequently asked questions