New South Wales Tide Times

About New South Wales tides

The open coast runs a straightforward twice-daily tide — roughly a metre and a half to two metres between low and high on the springs, and well under a metre around the neaps, top to bottom of the state. What complicates it is everything sitting behind the beaches. Pittwater, the lower Hawkesbury, Brisbane Water, Tuggerah Lake, Lake Macquarie and Lake Illawarra are barrier estuaries breathing through a single narrow entrance, so the water inside turns hours after the ocean does and moves a fraction as far.

For fishing, the tide that counts isn't the height — it's the movement. The harbour walls and ocean beaches generally fish the run-in, the lake and river entrances fish the run-out hardest, and slack water goes quiet everywhere. Each spot page below shows the day's best bite window alongside the next 14 days of tides.

Common tide & swell questions

What is the tidal range in Sydney?

Moderate and reliably twice-daily: roughly a metre and a half to two metres between low and high on the springs, and well under a metre around the neaps. Sydney gets two highs and two lows most days, which is why the harbour walls fish so predictably compared with the mixed tides on the west coast.

Why do the lakes and lagoons run so differently to the harbour?

Tuggerah, Budgewoi, Lake Macquarie and Lake Illawarra are barrier estuaries — big bodies of water breathing through one narrow entrance. The tide inside lags the ocean by hours and moves a fraction as far, so a chart for the heads tells you very little about what the water is doing at the far end of the lake. The entrances themselves run hard in both directions, which is exactly why people fish them.

What is the best tide to fish in NSW?

The moving water, not the height. Beaches, breakwalls and ocean platforms generally fish best on the run-in, when the wash pushes bait up against the structure; the lake and river entrances fish best on the run-out, when everything inside gets flushed past whoever is standing on the wall. Each spot page below shows the day's best bite window alongside the tide times.

How big is too big to fish the rocks?

Watch the period as much as the height — a 2 m swell at 14 seconds arrives with several times the punch of 2 m at 8. Anything much over 1.5 m of open-ocean swell should close an exposed platform, waves come in sets so the tenth one is the problem, and a rising tide turns a dry ledge into a wet one faster than most people expect. Wear the lifejacket.

How accurate are these tide times?

They're modelled (Open-Meteo, ~8 km resolution), so treat them as a guide rather than a train timetable — and expect the biggest divergence well inside the barrier lakes, where the model has the least to work with. The bite windows lean on sun and moon as much as tide, so they hold up even when the tide clock runs a bit early or late.