Balcony cat enclosures
Apartment and unit owners are the most underserved buyers in this category, and the questions they ask are not the ones the sellers answer. Almost nobody wants to know the price first. They want to know whether anything has to go into the wall, whether the balcony will be damaged, and who in the building has to say yes. This page answers those three, and prices what will actually fit afterwards.
Prices and specifications checked 12 September 2026
The market barely acknowledges balconies
Of the 68 Australian products we could source, 2 mention a balcony anywhere in what the seller publishes. That is the whole extent of it. Somerzby Condo Cat Enclosure at $379 is positioned by the seller for patios, balconies and undercover areas. Kmart Cat Enclosure is described as suited to balconies, gardens or living spaces and publishes no price, no dimensions and no mesh specification at all, so there is nothing about it we can put in a table.
Everything else on this page is a general-purpose enclosure that happens to fit, which is what apartment buyers end up doing in practice. It also means nobody has designed for the constraints that actually bite here: a slab you cannot fix into, a balustrade that is not yours, and a wind exposure worse than any back yard.
Drilling, damage and what is published
Start with the good news. Every freestanding enclosure in our data fixes only to itself. The frame bolts or slots together and the mesh or netting attaches to the frame, with cable ties on the cheaper Catnets models and stitched webbing plus Velcro tensioning straps on the Premium ones. None of it touches the building. If your requirement is "no fastener anywhere in this apartment", a freestanding unit meets it on the first try.
Now the part that is usually glossed over. There is no published, priced, tension-fitted balcony kit in Australia that we could find. Not one of the 68 records publishes a pressure-fit rail, a no-drill bracket, a maximum span, or a fixing method for a balustrade. Tensioned balcony netting genuinely exists and is installed here, but it is sold as a measured job quoted per site rather than as a product with a published specification, so there is nothing checkable to compare. If an installer quotes you, ask for the mesh aperture in millimetres, the fixing method at each edge, and what happens to the render or the balustrade when it comes off. Those three answers are the quote.
The two things sellers suggest for stability are both impossible on a balcony. Somerzby tells you to secure the Manor Catio to the ground in windy areas. Catnets warns that its Lite Tower can tip and says to stand it against a wall or peg it down on hard surfaces. A concrete slab takes no pegs. On a balcony the only version of that advice you can follow is standing the unit against the building wall, which is also the wall side with the least wind, so it is worth doing regardless.
Who has to approve it
This is the part people get wrong in both directions, so it is worth stating the general principle carefully and then sending you to your own documents.
- Your lot versus common property. In most strata and community title schemes the interior of your apartment is your lot, while the balcony slab, the balustrade, the external walls and the ceiling above are commonly part of the common property or are subject to the scheme's control even where you have exclusive use of them. Altering common property generally requires the approval of the owners corporation, so a fixing drilled into a balustrade or an external wall is usually an approval question and not a personal one.
- A freestanding item is usually not an alteration. Something standing on the slab that fixes to nothing is far more often treated as an item you have placed on your balcony than as work done to the building. That is the general position, not a guarantee.
- By-laws differ by scheme and by state. The body that approves it is called an owners corporation, a body corporate, a strata company or a community corporation depending on where you are, the approval process differs, and individual schemes register their own by-laws on top of the state model. Some schemes restrict what may be placed on a balcony, what may be visible from outside the building, or keeping a pet at all.
So the only reliable instruction is the boring one: read your own by-laws, and put the question to your strata manager or committee in writing before you order anything. Keep the answer. A scheme two suburbs away allowing it tells you nothing about yours, and neither does anything on this page.
Whether you are required to contain the cat at all is a separate question decided by your council rather than your building, and the register of which councils impose a containment duty is at council cat containment rules. If you own the whole building or are looking at a courtyard rather than a balcony, the approval question becomes a building one instead: see building approval.
What actually fits, and what it costs
A typical apartment balcony is narrow, so depth is usually the binding constraint rather than area. These are the units we could source with a computed floor area of 2.3 square metres or less, which is the range that leaves a person room to walk past. Floor area is ours, computed from each seller's own published dimensions, because not one of the 68 records we collected has a floor area published by its seller.
| Unit | Price | Footprint | Floor area (computed) | Height | Per m2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Somerzby Tower Portable Cat House | $365 | 805 x 810 mm | 0.65 m2 | 1800 mm | $561.54 |
| Samland Outdoor Wooden Cat Enclosure Catio with Wheels, Double Cat Houses and Roof | $349 | 830 x 830 mm | 0.69 m2 | 1710 mm | $505.80 |
| Betta Pet Systems Medium Cat Enclosure | $390 | 900 x 900 mm | 0.81 m2 | 1820 mm | $481.48 |
| Betta Pet Systems Large Cat Enclosure | $465 | 1200 x 900 mm | 1.08 m2 | 1820 mm | $430.56 |
| Coops and Cages Greta Cat Run | $299 | 950 x 1400 mm | 1.33 m2 | 1710 mm | $224.81 |
| Somerzby Condo Cat Enclosure | $379 | 1660 x 805 mm | 1.34 m2 | 1800 mm | $282.84 |
| Catnets Lite Tower Portable Cat Enclosure 2.3m Height | $385 | 1160 x 1160 mm | 1.35 m2 | 2300 mm | $285.19 |
| Catnets Premium Portable Cat Enclosure 1.2m | $459 | 1200 x 1200 mm | 1.44 m2 | 1200 mm | $318.75 |
| Betta Pet Systems Cat Tower | $745 | 1200 x 1200 mm | 1.44 m2 | 2400 mm | $517.36 |
| My Chicken Coop Premium Cat Enclosure | $289 | 750 x 2000 mm | 1.5 m2 | 1030 mm | $192.67 |
| Somerzby Deluxe Mansion Cat Enclosure | $689 | 940 x 2250 mm | 1.57 m2 | 1430 mm | $438.85 |
| Coops and Cages Grey Resort Cat Enclosure | $546 | 940 x 2250 mm | 1.57 m2 | 1430 mm | $347.77 |
| Catnets Trek Portable Cat Enclosure 1.78m | $260 | 900 x 1780 mm | 1.6 m2 | 900 mm | $162.50 |
| Betta Pet Systems Extra Large Cat Enclosure | $545 | 1800 x 900 mm | 1.62 m2 | 1820 mm | $336.42 |
| Betta Pet Systems Overnight Cat Enclosure | $645 | 900 x 1800 mm | 1.62 m2 | 1820 mm | $398.15 |
| Somerzby Estate Cat Enclosure | $715 | 1010 x 2570 mm | 1.64 m2 | 1670 mm | $435.98 |
| Somerzby Majestic Cat Enclosure | $776 | 1010 x 2585 mm | 1.64 m2 | 1780 mm | $473.17 |
| Coops and Cages Connie Cat Enclosure | $596 | 1370 x 2000 mm | 1.64 m2 | 1490 mm | $363.41 |
| My Chicken Coop Cosy Cottage Cat Enclosure | $399 | 820 x 2080 mm | 1.71 m2 | 1030 mm | $233.33 |
| Samland Wooden Cat Cage Walk in Cat Condo House Kitten Ferret Enclosure Cage | $549 | 970 x 1810 mm | 1.76 m2 | 1810 mm | $311.93 |
| My Chicken Coop Manor Deluxe Outdoor Cat Enclosure | $699 | 1100 x 2100 mm | 1.79 m2 | 1300 mm | $390.50 |
| Samland Large Indoor and Outdoor Wooden Cat Enclosure with Sleeping House and Climbing Platforms | $599 | 930 x 1980 mm | 1.84 m2 | 1720 mm | $325.54 |
| My Chicken Coop Hamilton Outdoor Cat Enclosure | $599 | 950 x 1950 mm | 1.85 m2 | 1750 mm | $323.78 |
| Snoozy Pet Hamilton Outdoor Cat Enclosure | $699 | 950 x 1950 mm | 1.85 m2 | 1750 mm | $377.84 |
| Somerzby Stacey Cat Enclosure | $699 | 1110 x 1980 mm | 1.94 m2 | 2200 mm | $360.31 |
| Somerzby Heidi Cat House | $735 | 1030 x 1990 mm | 2.05 m2 | 1750 mm | $358.54 |
| Somerzby Mansion Cat Enclosure | $546 | 940 x 2250 mm | 2.12 m2 | 1430 mm | $257.55 |
| Coops and Cages Resort Cat Run | $249 | 1120 x 2000 mm | 2.24 m2 | 820 mm | $111.16 |
Read the height column as carefully as the price. 2 of the 28 units here stand under a metre tall, which makes a fine sun spot and is not somewhere a cat can stand up and stretch. Those are Catnets Trek Portable Cat Enclosure 1.78m and Coops and Cages Resort Cat Run. Cheaper again, and deliberately left out of the table, is the Anko 8 Panel Pet Enclosure at $29, the cheapest product in the whole dataset. It has no roof and stands 610 millimetres high, so it does not contain a cat that can jump or climb and it has no business on a balcony. At the other end, the Somerzby Condo Cat Enclosure at $379 has the tightest mesh aperture in our data at 10 x 10 millimetres and is the one unit here the seller itself puts on a balcony.
Netting the balcony instead
The other approach is to leave the floor clear and enclose the opening: net from the balustrade to the ceiling so the whole balcony becomes the enclosure. When it works it is the better answer, because the cat gets the entire balcony rather than a box on it, and because nothing takes up floor space you are already short of.
Two honest cautions. The first is that it is the version most likely to need approval, since the edges are fixed to common property in most schemes. The second is the publication gap above: no Australian seller publishes a specification or a price for a balcony netting kit, so you are buying an installer's judgement rather than a product you can check. What you can check is the mesh: only 29 of 68 products in this category publish an aperture at all, and the published range runs from 10 millimetres square up to 50 by 75, which is a fivefold difference in what will hold a small cat. Ask for the number.
Costs, what netting holds and where a framed enclosure is the better buy are set out in cat netting. If the balcony is out of the question, the smallest option is a box in the window instead: window catios. And the general case, including how attaching anything to the dwelling changes the question, is in catios.
Common questions
Can I put a cat enclosure on a balcony without drilling?
Yes, if you choose a unit that stands on the slab and leans on nothing. Every freestanding enclosure in our data fixes only to itself, so none of them needs a fastener in the building. What does not exist, as far as anything published in Australia goes, is a priced tension-fitted balcony kit: not one of the 68 products we could source publishes a no-drill fixing system for a balcony, a pressure-fit rail, or a maximum span. Tensioned balcony netting is sold here, but as an installed service quoted per job rather than as a product with a published price and specification, so we have nothing checkable to put in a table.
Does a balcony cat enclosure need strata or body corporate approval?
In most schemes the balcony itself, or at least its balustrade, exterior wall and ceiling, is common property, and altering common property generally requires the approval of the owners corporation. A freestanding unit that touches nothing is usually treated as an item on your lot rather than an alteration, but by-laws differ from scheme to scheme and the rules differ by state, and some schemes have specific by-laws about what may be placed on a balcony, what may be visible from the street, and whether pets are allowed at all. Read your own by-laws and ask your strata manager in writing before you order. Do not rely on what a scheme in another building or another state allows.
What does a balcony-sized cat enclosure cost?
From $249 for the cheapest unit we could source that would fit a balcony footprint, up past a thousand dollars for the larger framed models. Costed by floor area the same group starts at $111.16 per square metre. Floor area is the figure that matters on a balcony and it is the figure nobody publishes: every area on this page was computed by us from each seller's own published dimensions.
Is a balcony enclosure safe in wind?
Nobody will tell you, which is the honest answer. 0 of 68 products in our data publish a wind rating of any kind: no AS/NZS 1170.2 reference, no wind region, no wind speed. That gap matters more on a balcony than anywhere else, because a balcony above the ground floor sees higher wind speeds than a back yard and because the two mitigations sellers do suggest, pegging into the ground and securing to the ground, are both impossible on a concrete slab. Prefer a low, wide unit over a tall narrow one, keep it out of the corner where wind accelerates, and take anything light inside before a storm.