AU first-home-buyer stamp duty by capital city & price tier — May 2026 baseline
Australian first-home-buyer stamp duty concessions vary dramatically by state and by purchase price. This page is the cross-state cross-tier matrix nobody publishes: six mainland state capitals, five representative FHB price tiers, both the standard owner-occupier rate and the FHB-concession rate, side-by-side. Every cell is computed at compile time from the same state-revenue-office formulas we use on our stamp-duty calculator.
Headline finding. Of the 30 computed cells in the matrix below, 8 qualify for a full FHB exemption (zero stamp duty), 5 fall into a tapered concession band, and 17 require the standard owner-occupier rate. At the lowest price tier ($600,000 entry) the average FHB-tier saving across the six states is 92% off the standard rate. Aggregate savings across all 30 cells: $275,611 compared to paying the standard rate.
The matrix
| State | Purchase price | Standard duty | FHB duty |
|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | $600k | $21,531 | $0 — exempt |
| New South Wales | $750k | $28,281 | $0 — exempt |
| New South Wales | $900k | $35,031 | $17,516 (−$17,515) |
| New South Wales | $1.1m | $44,031 | $44,031 |
| New South Wales | $1.4m | $59,411 | $59,411 |
| Victoria | $600k | $27,970 | $0 — exempt |
| Victoria | $750k | $36,970 | $36,970 |
| Victoria | $900k | $45,970 | $45,970 |
| Victoria | $1.1m | $60,500 | $60,500 |
| Victoria | $1.4m | $77,000 | $77,000 |
| Queensland | $600k | $20,025 | $0 — exempt |
| Queensland | $750k | $26,775 | $13,388 (−$13,387) |
| Queensland | $900k | $33,525 | $33,525 |
| Queensland | $1.1m | $43,775 | $43,775 |
| Queensland | $1.4m | $61,025 | $61,025 |
| Western Australia | $600k | $22,515 | $11,258 (−$11,257) |
| Western Australia | $750k | $29,741 | $29,741 |
| Western Australia | $900k | $37,466 | $37,466 |
| Western Australia | $1.1m | $47,766 | $47,766 |
| Western Australia | $1.4m | $63,216 | $63,216 |
| South Australia | $600k | $26,830 | $0 — exempt |
| South Australia | $750k | $35,080 | $35,080 |
| South Australia | $900k | $43,330 | $43,330 |
| South Australia | $1.1m | $54,330 | $54,330 |
| South Australia | $1.4m | $70,830 | $70,830 |
| Australian Capital Territory | $600k | $15,280 | $0 — exempt |
| Australian Capital Territory | $750k | $21,880 | $0 — exempt |
| Australian Capital Territory | $900k | $29,980 | $0 — exempt |
| Australian Capital Territory | $1.1m | $41,680 | $7,665 (−$34,015) |
| Australian Capital Territory | $1.4m | $60,580 | $52,920 (−$7,660) |
Methodology
Every figure in the matrix is computed at compile time from the state-revenue-office formulas current at May 2026. The formulas themselves live in our public repository at src/lib/stamp-duty-state-formulas.ts and are sourced from:
- NSW: Revenue NSW transfer duty rates (FY2025-26 indexation applied)
- VIC: SRO Victoria principal-place-of-residence duty
- QLD: QRO transfer duty + first-home concession
- WA: RevenueWA transfer duty (rates effective 14 March 2025)
- SA: RevenueSA conveyance duty
- ACT: ACT Home Buyer Concession Scheme (FY2025-26 thresholds — full exemption to $1.02m)
The FHB-concession calculation assumes an established home in all rows (no new-build bonuses applied). New-build rules differ in QLD (no price cap since 1 May 2025) and NT (house-and-land-package exemption). These are documented in our per-state state grants pages.
What this baseline reveals
- VIC's $600k cliff is the harshest in the country. VIC's full exemption ends at $600,000; the taper window ($600k–$750k) is the narrowest of any state. Anyone buying at $750k pays close to the standard rate.
- ACT now has the most generous FHB threshold at $1,020,000 full exemption — raised from $607,500 on 1 July 2025. For the same purchase price, ACT buyers can save tens of thousands more than VIC buyers.
- NSW's FHBAS at $800k full exemption puts NSW second on the threshold ladder but the $1m+ tier shows standard rate kicks in fast above the $1m concession ceiling.
- QLD's established-home concession ends at $800k. But QLD new builds carry no price cap since 1 May 2025 — a separate research artifact we will publish for the new-build path.
What this does not prove
Honest scope. This baseline shows what FHB stamp-duty rates are at five representative price tiers in six mainland states. It does not:
- Predict your actual stamp duty — that depends on whether the property is new vs established, whether you qualify for the scheme, and whether the threshold has shifted since publication. Use the stamp-duty calculator for your specific case.
- Cover NT and TAS. Our formula library uses a simpler tiered approximation for these two; we've deliberately excluded them from this matrix rather than publish numbers at lower confidence than the other six states.
- Cover suburb-level median prices. The 2,600-postcode version of this dataset is on our roadmap; we did not ship that as part of this MVP because programmatic pages at that scale risk Google's May 2026 Core Update “scaled content abuse” filter without commensurate per-postcode editorial depth. See our editorial methodology for how we scope programmatic content.
Cite this
Suggested citation:
Puri, A. (2026). AU First-Home-Buyer Stamp Duty by Capital City & Price Tier — May 2026 Baseline. NestPath Research. https://nestpath.com.au/research/au-stamp-duty-by-suburb-2026Licensed CC BY 4.0 — reuse with attribution. Machine-readable JSON: /data/au-stamp-duty-by-suburb-2026.json.
Refresh schedule
State stamp-duty rates and FHB-concession thresholds change at start-of-financial-year (1 July) and on ad-hoc policy announcements. This baseline will be reissued each 1 July with the new FY rates, and supplemented with policy-changelog entries as they happen. The page's dateModified advances only on real edits per our dateModified honesty rule.
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