The 5 Best Free EV Chargers in Perth (Updated for 2026)
Perth has a quirk worth understanding before you go hunting for free charging.
WA built one of the longest EV charging highways in the world, the WA EV Network, stretching from Kununurra to Esperance. It has excellent infrastructure. It is also not free, and it is mostly not in Perth.
What Perth has instead is a scattering of free AC chargers at council offices, suburban centres and cafe strips. No free DC fast charging in the metro at all. Every genuinely free charger in Perth is AC, which means you are planning around hours, not minutes.
The good news: WA has more free chargers where you can actually pay with a normal bank card than the ones that do cost money, which is rarer than it should be in Australia. More on that at the end.
There is a cluster of chargers across the Perth CBD listed in our data as free: Elder Street, 377 Murray Street, 68 Roe Street, 8-10 Roe Street, 87-89 Pier Street and 133 Goderich Street. Elder Street alone lists fifteen charging points.
Fifteen free plugs in the CBD sounds like the best entry on this page. It is not, for two reasons.Most of these use three phase 5-pin AS/NZS 3123 sockets. That is a legacy industrial connector, not the Type 2 plug on your car. Without a specific adaptor you physically cannot use them. A few also offer Type 1 J1772, which is equally dated in the Australian market.
Additionally, these are City of Perth car parks. Elder Street is CPP Elder Street on Murray Street, opposite RAC Arena. Free power, paid parking, and CBD parking rates are not trivial. Our data lists all of these as "public, pay at location", which is exactly what that phrase means.
If you have the right adaptor and you were going to pay for CBD parking anyway, they are a genuine bonus. As a free charging destination, they are not.
We went through every charger in our Perth database, filtered for free, then threw out anything you cannot turn up and use as a member of the public. No staff-only bays. No hotel chargers. No "free for the first 7kWh" marketing.
First, what "free" actually means
Four things get called free in Australia, and only one is the real deal.
Genuinely free. The electricity costs nothing. You still need the operator's app to start the session, because almost no Australian charger lets you just plug in and go. Free power, not free of admin.
Free with a daily quota. Jolt is the usual example, 7kWh a day then you pay. An allowance, not a free charger.
Free power, paid parking. This is Perth's signature catch, and it applies to a whole cluster of City of Perth CBD chargers. See the section below.
Free but you cannot plug into it. Perth has a surprising number of free chargers using three phase 5-pin AS/NZS 3123 sockets, a legacy industrial connector most modern EVs cannot use without an adaptor. Free is meaningless if your car physically cannot connect.
Everything in our top five is genuinely free power on a Type 2 connector your car can actually use.
One tip: buy a single $5 Evie Pass and register it in both the Chargefox and Exploren apps. One card covers most of this list, and it works when your phone is flat or there is no reception in a basement car park.
1. Reynolds Road, Mount Pleasant
Reynolds Road, Mount Pleasant WA 6153 Operator: Chargefox | 4 plugs | 22kW AC
The best free charger in Perth, on the numbers that matter: four plugs, a real charging speed, and a national network behind it.
Four bays at 22kW adds roughly 100km of range an hour, so an hour or two here is a genuine charge rather than a token top up. Four plugs also solves the single biggest problem with free charging, which is arriving to find every bay taken.
It sits in the Mount Pleasant and Applecross area just south of the Canning Bridge interchange, so it is well placed if you are coming off the freeway or heading south. The Canning Bridge precinct, Applecross village and the Swan River foreshore are all close.
Being Chargefox rather than a host-owned unit matters more than people realise. You can check live availability in the app before you drive there, you know exactly how to start the session, and there is a support line if something goes wrong. Most free chargers give you none of that.
How to start a session: Chargefox app with a credit or debit card linked, or tap a Chargefox RFID card (about $9.90 in the app) or a registered Evie Pass. A card must be on file even when using RFID. Type 2 sockets, so bring your own cable.
2. City of Wanneroo Civic Centre
23 Dundebar Road, Wanneroo WA 6065 Operator: site host | 2 plugs | 22kW AC
Two free 22kW plugs at the City of Wanneroo council offices, listed as fully public access with no membership gate and no cost.
Council chargers are the most durable free chargers in the country. Councils install these as a public service rather than a business, which means they are far less likely to quietly flip to paid the moment demand picks up. That has happened to several well known "free" chargers on the east coast in the past two years.
Twenty-two kilowatts across two bays is a solid suburban charger, and Wanneroo town centre with its shops and cafes is right there.
The obvious limitation is that two bays in a growing northern suburb is not many. Worth checking before you commit to the drive.
How to start a session: Host-controlled, so check the signage on the unit or the PlugShare comments. Council chargers are commonly free vend, meaning you plug in and it starts, or QR code activated.
3. Kennedya Drive, Joondalup
Kennedya Drive, Joondalup WA 6027 Operator: Exploren | 2 plugs | 22kW AC
Two free 22kW plugs in Joondalup, listed as fully public with no membership requirement, which is unusual for Exploren and worth taking advantage of.
Joondalup is the major centre for Perth's northern corridor, with Lakeside Joondalup, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup Health Campus and the train station all within a short radius. If you are north of the river, this is probably your most practical free option.
Exploren sets pricing at the individual host level, which is why some of their sites are paid and this one is free. That also means the free status here depends on the site host rather than a network-wide policy, so it is worth a quick check in the app.
How to start a session: Exploren app, started by scanning the QR code on the charger. Or tap a registered RFID card. Exploren lets you add your own RFID tag under the RFID Cards menu, so an Evie Pass or Chargefox card works once registered. Type 2 sockets, bring your own cable.
4. Angelo Street, South Perth
Angelo Street, South Perth WA 6151 Operator: not recorded | 4 plugs | 7kW AC
Four free plugs on one of Perth's better cafe strips, listed as fully public access with no cost.
Be realistic about the speed. Seven kilowatts is roughly 35 to 40km of range an hour, so this is a long lunch charger, not a fast charge. Two hours gets you around 75km.
Where it earns a spot is the combination of four bays and a genuinely good place to spend the time. Angelo Street is lined with cafes and restaurants, and the South Perth foreshore with its Perth city skyline views is a few minutes away. If you are going to sit somewhere for two hours, this is a pleasant place to do it.
How to start a session: Our data does not record who operates these chargers, so we cannot tell you in advance whether they start with an app, a QR code, or just plugging in. Check the signage or PlugShare before you rely on them. Street-side chargers like this are often on free vend.
5. Ernest Clark Road, Canning Vale
Ernest Clark Road, Canning Vale WA 6155 Operator: not recorded | 2 plugs | 22kW AC, tethered
Two free 22kW plugs in Canning Vale, listed as fully public with no cost, and tethered, which means you may not need to bring your own cable.
Tethered cables are a real convenience at an AC site. A surprising number of free chargers on this list are Type 2 sockets only, which means if you have left your cable at home, you are out of luck.
One thing to note in our records: this site lists a Tesla proprietary connector alongside the Type 2 tethered cable. That suggests one of the two bays may be an older Tesla-specific unit rather than universally usable. Assume one genuinely usable plug and treat the second as a bonus.
Canning Vale is a large light industrial and residential area in the south east, close to Livingston Marketplace and the Ranford Road corridor.
How to start a session: Unconfirmed. Check the unit or PlugShare first.
Worth knowing: the near misses
Wellington Road, Morley. Two free 22kW Exploren plugs in the north east, membership required. Solid, and a good backup if Kennedya Drive is busy.
Maffina Parade, Malvern Springs. Two free 22kW Chargefox plugs out in the Ellenbrook growth corridor, where free options are scarce.
18 Brodie-Hall Drive, Bentley. A single free 22kW Chargefox plug at Bentley Technology Park, which is fitting given Horizon Power, one of the builders of the WA EV Network, has an office in the same complex. One bay only.
220 Vincent Street, North Perth. Two free 22kW plugs on the WeVolt network. Listed as free but with an idle time penalty, so move your car promptly once charging stops.
What we deliberately left out
Anything at 2.5kW or below. Albany Highway in Cannington lists ten free plugs, which sounds great until you see the 2.5kW rating. That is around 15km of range an hour. Same story at Balcatta, Yanchep and Bindoon. Technically free, practically pointless.
Murdoch Drive, Murdoch. Free and public, but 4.8kW. Barely better.
Tesla Destination Chargers at Willetton and Claremont. Both are listed in our data as not operational or temporarily unavailable, and both use Tesla's proprietary connector anyway.
The REV Project chargers. These are University of Western Australia research units at Osborne Park, East Perth and Middle Swan. Often free, but access is controlled by the university rather than open to the public.
Anything marked staff, visitor or customer only. If you cannot turn up and use it, it does not belong here.
One thing WA does better than anywhere else
Perth's free charging is thin, but WA's paid charging is the most driver-friendly in the country, and it is worth knowing why.
The WA EV Network, built by Horizon Power and Synergy and managed by Chargefox, puts a standalone EV Charge Payment Kiosk at every location. You can pay with your own credit or debit card, directly, with no app and no account.
Almost no other Australian network offers that. Chargefox, Evie, Exploren, Everty and Jolt all require an app or an RFID card. If your phone dies in regional WA, you can still charge. If your phone dies in regional NSW, you often cannot.
So the honest advice for Perth: use the free AC chargers above opportunistically when you happen to be nearby, charge at home wherever possible, and know that the paid network you will rely on for anything longer is genuinely easy to use.
Before you drive there
Free is a status, not a permanent feature. Councils and centres introduce fees, and hosts switch to paid once demand picks up. Three of the five above are host-owned with no operator recorded, which means the access method is unconfirmed.
Check the Chargefox or Exploren app, or PlugShare, for live pricing and availability before you go.