Stamp duty on each side of ten Australian border town pairs

Ten local illustrations of four rule pairings (New South Wales with Queensland, Victoria and the ACT; South Australia with Victoria). They are not a sample and not a ranking of states. One contract date. Duty only. Each side's own price is a different measure, described in the table notes and the methods.

Stamp duty at $750,000

Eligible first home buyer, established home, owner occupier, one buyer, contract date 2 November 2026, price $750,000 on both sides. Duty only.

The first side is the first town named in the pair. Key: NSW New South Wales, VIC Victoria, QLD Queensland, ACT Australian Capital Territory, SA South Australia. Where a difference is shown, it is a simple difference of the two figures in the row ($40,070 minus $0; $10,925 minus $0; $40,070 minus $35,080). No difference is added across pairs.

A $0 in the first column and a $0 in the second are each the result of that place's own eligibility rules. Pair 10 is a regional border illustration, not a twin town: Nelson is a village, and South Australia gives no first home buyer relief on an established home.

Stamp duty at each side's own government reference price

Each price is a government figure for the place named, at the geography, measure and period shown. They are different measures and are not a comparison of the two housing markets.

Nelson has no locality median in the Victorian workbook, so there is no price for the Nelson side.

• Owner occupier, no relief: the duty an eligible owner occupier pays with no first home buyer relief on that side (the New South Wales general scale, the Victorian principal place of residence scale to $550,000 and the general scale above it, the Queensland home concession scale, the ACT eligible owner occupier scale, and the single South Australian scale). It is context, not a second result.
• Where the first home buyer duty equals the owner occupier figure, no first home buyer relief applies at that price on that side.
• The Victorian figures are median house sale prices for a locality. The New South Wales figures are non strata residential sales, which usually means separate houses but, in the department's own notes, can include a multi unit dwelling on a Torrens title, so we do not call them house prices. The Gold Coast and Goondiwindi figures cover all residential dwellings, houses and units together; the Gold Coast is not a house price.

The rules behind the numbers

What each place gives an eligible first home buyer on an established home, contracts on 2 November 2026.

Pair by pair

Four pairs show $0 on both sides at both of their government reference prices. They still differ for an eligible owner occupier without first home buyer relief, as the lines above show. None of these figures is a measured cost to any buyer.

How we did it

What we compared

We compared ten pairs of Australian towns that sit on opposite sides of a state or territory border, or within one urban area that a border divides: Tweed Heads (New South Wales) and Coolangatta (Queensland); Albury (New South Wales) and Wodonga (Victoria); Queanbeyan (New South Wales) and Canberra (ACT); Moama (New South Wales) and Echuca (Victoria); Gol Gol and Buronga (New South Wales) and Mildura (Victoria); Corowa (New South Wales) and Wahgunyah (Victoria); Mulwala (New South Wales) and Yarrawonga (Victoria); Barooga (New South Wales) and Cobram (Victoria); Boggabilla (New South Wales) and Goondiwindi (Queensland); and Mount Gambier (South Australia) and Nelson (Victoria). The pairs are four rule pairings: New South Wales with Victoria six times, New South Wales with Queensland twice, New South Wales with the ACT once, and South Australia with Victoria once. We chose the pairs ourselves. We worked out twelve and publish ten. The two held back were Mungindi, one town split by the New South Wales and Queensland border, because we did not obtain a Queensland side price figure for it, and Murray Downs with Swan Hill, which repeats the shape of three pairs already shown. We make no claim about distance, commuting or where buyers live.

What we assumed about the buyer and the purchase

A contract and transfer on 2 November 2026, under the rules in force that day. An eligible first home buyer under the scheme of the state or territory where the home is, buying an established home to live in, as the only buyer, with a price equal to the dutiable value (an ordinary arm's length purchase). No foreign purchaser surcharge, no pensioner or other concession, no investor rates, no new home, off the plan or house and land concession, and no shared equity. Duty only: no grant, no mortgage fee, no legal or inspection cost. Where a line says “an eligible owner occupier without first home buyer relief”, it means the same purchase with no first home buyer relief.

The two kinds of price

Common price: $750,000 on both sides of every pair, so that the duty rules are compared without the housing markets.

Government reference price: one price for each side where a government source gave a figure, shown with its geography, measure, period and sample flag. The prices are different measures and are never compared across the line as measures of two markets. The table below lists each.

Local reference price measures

For New South Wales we used the smallest area that contains the town and has more than 30 non strata sales: the postcode where it qualifies, otherwise the local government area. Where neither qualifies (Wentworth) we used the local government area and flag it. For the Gold Coast, the same Queensland report shows $1,430,000 for detached dwellings and $920,000 for attached dwellings; the study uses the figure for all residential dwellings together, $1,130,000.

How the duty figures were read

Every duty figure on this page was read from the official calculator of the state or territory that charges it, on 4 November 2026, with a contract date of 2 November 2026. We entered each price as an established home, owner occupier, eligible first home buyer, and again with no first home buyer relief. Prices run: Revenue NSW first home buyers assistance calculator, 24 prices, about 08:50 Australian Western Standard Time, with four of them about 09:59; State Revenue Office Victoria land transfer duty calculator, 16 prices with and without first home buyer relief, about 09:00; Queensland Revenue Office transfer duty estimator, 8 prices in three columns, about 09:30; ACT Revenue Office conveyance duty calculator, 6 prices for an owner occupier and 3 with the Home Buyer Concession, about 09:45; RevenueSA stamp duty calculator, 5 prices and 2 new home checks, about 09:55. Every published figure matched a run, to the dollar, and to the cent where the calculator shows cents ($29,978.05 for New South Wales at $953,000; $22,424.50 for a New South Wales owner occupier at $627,500).

Inputs. New South Wales: execution date 02/11/2026, existing home, no shared equity; the duty shown is the “purchase duty amount” and the owner occupier figure is that amount plus the “purchase duty savings”. Victoria: residential, established home, principal place of residence yes, first home yes or no, foreign purchaser no, regional commercial no. Queensland: foreign person no, home concession yes; “my first home (a home that has previously been lived in or sold as a place of residence)” for the first home buyer figure and “my home (second or subsequent home)” for the owner occupier figure. The Queensland estimator's date picker fills the year with two digits, which the page can read as 1926 and so apply rules for contracts before 9 June 2024; we typed the year with four digits. ACT: residential, owner occupier yes, pensioner concession no, home buyer concession yes or no; we used the owner occupier line, which is the published eligible owner occupier scale, not the first “duty payable” line, which is the full scale for a non owner occupier. South Australia: residential, foreign purchaser no, first home buyer relief no for an established home; with relief, the calculator offers it only for a new home or vacant land.

The ACT $0 for an eligible buyer was confirmed on the calculator at $750,000, $953,000 and $1,030,000, which are the only ACT first home buyer figures shown.

Rounding and the cent

New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and the ACT charge per $100 or part of $100. Victoria rounds general duty to the nearest dollar and rounds a fractional first home buyer concession down to the whole dollar. We show figures exactly as the calculators gave them: to the cent where the calculator gives cents, otherwise to the dollar.

How we describe a gap

A gap is the duty on one side minus the duty on the other for the same row, written as “pays $X more on the Y side”. It is a simple difference of two figures in the same row. Gaps are never added across pairs or states. None of them is a measured cost to any buyer, and a gap shows what two sets of rules produce at one price, not what a buyer would do or should do.

What is not on the page

Populations, distances and commute times; first home owner grants; foreign purchaser surcharges; new home, off the plan and house and land concessions (none is shown); investor rates; land tax; any other cost of buying. The ACT foreign ownership surcharge is an annual land tax, not duty.

Where each rule was read

The six eligibility pages (two for Queensland) and the five calculators are linked in the sources table with the date each was opened. The eligibility summaries rest on the pages as they read on 2 November 2026, rechecked and saved on 4 November 2026; the South Australian page was read on 4 November 2026. Two sources were read in a browser and not saved as files, because the sites block automated requests: the RevenueSA pages and the Office of the Valuer General South Australia page. The sources table says which.

Limits

Ten local illustrations, not a sample. The ten pairs are four rule pairings: New South Wales with Queensland, Victoria and the ACT, and South Australia with Victoria. Six of the ten are the same pairing, New South Wales with Victoria. We chose the pairs ourselves. They are not a random or representative sample of Australian border towns, and they are not a ranking of states: nothing here says one state is cheaper or more generous than another.

One contract date. Every figure is for a contract and transfer on 2 November 2026 under the rules in force that day. A contract on another day faces the rules in force on that day. We did not model any earlier or later date.

One kind of buyer. An eligible first home buyer, buying an established home to live in, one buyer, no foreign purchaser surcharge, no other concession, unless a line says otherwise. A new home, an off the plan purchase, a buyer with a partner, a foreign buyer or an investor can face different duty.

Each side uses its own government reference price, and those prices are different measures. The New South Wales figures are median prices of non strata residential sales for a postcode or local government area. The Victorian figures are median house sale prices for a locality in calendar 2025. The Queensland figures are median prices for all residential dwellings, houses and units together, for a local government area; the Gold Coast figure is total dwellings, not houses. The ACT figure is a Canberra wide median price of established house transfers. The South Australian figure is a pooled median house price for eight towns. The areas differ in size, the periods differ, and some rest on small samples (the Wentworth figure is flagged as 30 or fewer sales). Queensland figures are preliminary. A Victorian 2025 median can move as late sales arrive. A price on one side says nothing about the market on the other.

Eligibility tests differ by jurisdiction. Residence periods, prior ownership tests, price limits and new home only rules are different in each place. South Australia gives no first home buyer relief on an established home. The ACT looks back five years at any property anywhere; New South Wales asks whether the buyer has ever owned residential property in Australia; Victoria and Queensland have their own tests. A $0 on one side does not mean the same buyer qualifies on the other. Each relief also requires the buyer to live in the home bought, in that state or territory, for the period it sets, so the figures say nothing about a buyer who lives elsewhere.

Duty only. No grants, no mortgage or registration fees, no legal or inspection costs, no land tax. First home owner grants are not duty and are not in the tables.

How the figures were read. The duty figures were read from the official calculators on 4 November 2026. The price sources and eligibility pages were read on 2 November 2026, with the Victorian workbook, the Queensland reports and the South Australian eligibility page read again on 4 November 2026. Calculators and pages can change.

Who did the checking. The reading of the official calculators was done by an AI model (Claude Opus 5.5). The design and the first calculation were prepared by Claude Fable 5.1, and a second read of that design on 2 November 2026 was done by ChatGPT (an OpenAI model, reported by the tool as “gpt-6-astra”). No government body has reviewed this page. The author and decider is the owner of NestPath, Anish Puri.

Held back. We worked out twelve pairs and publish ten. The two held back were chosen for the reasons in the methods.

Our interest

NestPath (nestpath.com.au) publishes stamp duty calculators and state guides, and earns referral income from some links on its pages. It has a commercial interest in people finding and using those calculators and guides. The calculation code behind them was checked against the same official calculators used here, and during those checks our own calculator was one cent high at $953,000, a price in the New South Wales taper, and was fixed. The owner of NestPath, Anish Puri, is the author of this page and decided which pairs, prices and wording it uses. The checks of every figure against the official calculators were done by an AI model, Claude Opus 5.5, and the second read of the study design on 2 November 2026 was done by ChatGPT (an OpenAI model, reported by the tool as “gpt-6-astra”). No NestPath page was used as a source for any price or rule. NestPath received no payment from any party named here.

Official sources and checksums

Where the saved file is our record of calculator runs, the checksum identifies our record, not the calculator, which is a live web tool. The Queensland reports state that all figures are preliminary. Two sources, the RevenueSA pages and the Office of the Valuer General South Australia page, were read in an ordinary browser because the sites block automated requests, and no file of the Valuer General page is saved.

Related reading

• Run your own numbers: the NestPath stamp duty calculator
• New South Wales stamp duty calculator and New South Wales first home buyer grants
• Victoria stamp duty calculator and Victoria first home buyer grants
• Queensland stamp duty calculator
• ACT stamp duty calculator and ACT first home buyer grants
• South Australia stamp duty calculator and South Australia first home buyer grants
• First home buyer eligibility checker
• How NestPath researches and checks its pages
• Our earlier page sets out first home buyer stamp duty in six capital cities at five prices, computed from our own formulas: AU first home buyer stamp duty by capital city and price tier.