When can kids sit in the front seat in Australia?

At what age is it safe for your kids to move from the back seat to the front? We explain the safety guidelines in Australia.

Child safety in relation to cars is a top priority for any parent, but sometimes it can feel confusing to navigate the various guidelines in place.

Installing a child seat is complex enough, but what happens when your little one is too big for a child seat or booster seat?

RELATED: Can you put a child seat in the front of a car?

Moving your child from the back seat to the front seat feels like a big step, so if you're not sure what's right for your family, it's best to rely on the official safety guidelines.

Below, we outline the various laws and recommendations in Australia regarding child safety in cars.

While exact laws can vary from state to state, the rules for the safe restraint of children in cars across Australia are age-based.

0–6 months: Children should be in a rear-facing child restraint, such as a capsule or rear-facing child seat.

6 months – 4 years: Children should be in either a forward-facing or rear-facing child car seat.

4–7 years: Children should be seated in either a forward-facing child seat with in-built harness, or a booster seat with seatbelt or safety harness.

7–16 years: Children seven years and above can be restrained with either an adult seatbelt or a booster seat with seatbelt.

When choosing a child restraint, ensure it complies with the Australian/New Zealand Standard, or AS/NZ 1754. This will be evident if it features an AS/NZ 1754 standards label or sticker on both the packaging and the seat itself.

By law, all child restraints and child seats sold in Australia must be fitted to a seat with a top-tether anchorage point – regardless or whether they use ISOFIX or a regular seatbelt.

Booster seats must be used with either a three-point seatbelt or, if they are large and heavier, a three-point seatbelt and a top-tether anchorage point.

Children in Australia are only permitted to sit in the front seat of the car when they are seven years of age or older.

There are a couple of exceptions to this rule – but they come with their own caveats.

Children under the age of seven can sit in the front seat if all the back seats are occupied by other passengers under the age of seven or if the vehicle you're driving doesn't have a back seat, but the child must be in a properly fitted child restraint.

However, regardless of seating location, all kids under seven should be properly restrained according to their age. This can be tricky in the front seat of a car, which is typically not equipped with the top-tether attachment required to safely and legally install a child seat.

As such, "if the vehicle doesn’t have a top tether strap anchorage point to attach the top tether strap, children can use only untethered boosters" in the front seat, according to Raising Children.

Additionally, if the vehicle has a passenger airbag, children can sit in the front row only if they’re old enough to use a forward-facing car seat. You must not use a rear-facing car seat in the front row if there’s a passenger airbag.

Finally, children over seven can sit in the front seat with just a seatbelt properly fastened.

Yes, you are permitted to fit a child seat in the front of your car if your vehicle only has one row of seating, or if you need to put a child under the age of seven in the front because all other seats are occupied by other children under seven.

However, doing so poses some logistical challenges. Legally, all child restraints used in Australia must be installed with a top-tether anchorage point – something that is not typically found in the front seat of a car.

As a result, only boosters that don't require tethering (and only require a regular seatbelt) can legally and safely go in the front seat unless you professionally retrofit a top-tether point.

Even then, booster seats can only be used when a standard three-point seatbelt is available and booster seats heavier than 2kg must be anchored to a top-tether point, which brings us back to the top-tether anchorage point problem.

Additionally, if your car has a passenger airbag then you can't install a rear-facing child seat, meaning only children old enough to go in a forward-facing child seat can safely be seated in the front.

Children aged seven or older can move out of a booster seat.

However, it's recommended to keep them in a booster seat or safety harness if they are under 145cm tall – 145cm or more is the recommended height for using a seatbelt.

There are several checks you can carry out to see whether your child is ready to switch from a booster seat to a regular car seat with seatbelt:

Can they sit with their entire back against the seat back?

Do their knees comfortably bend over the seat edge?

Does the lap belt sit low across the hips and touch the thighs?

Does the shoulder sash of the seatbelt sit across the middle of the shoulder, not on the neck or across the arm?

Will the child stay in this seating position for the duration of the trip?