What it costs to buy a home in each state

The price on the contract is not what leaves your bank account. For a buyer with a 20% deposit, the largest cost on top of the price is transfer duty — still widely called stamp duty — a state tax charged on the transfer of land. It is levied by the state or territory where the property sits, not by the Commonwealth, so the same purchase price produces eight different bills depending on which side of a border you are standing on.

To make the comparison concrete, this article uses a single national reference price: $1,111,100, the mean price of residential dwellings in Australia in the March quarter 2026 ABS Total Value of Dwellings release. All duty figures on this page are calculated from the 2026-27 owner-occupier scales for an established home.

The same price, eight different duty bills

Applying each jurisdiction's current scale to the same $1,111,100 purchase produces a spread of more than $23,872 between the cheapest and the most expensive.

Two structural quirks explain most of that spread. Most jurisdictions use a marginal bracket scale: a fixed base amount for the bracket plus a rate applied only to the part of the price above the bracket's floor, exactly like income tax. Victoria is different at this price point — above $960,000 it applies a flat 5.5% to the whole value rather than only the excess, which is why the Victorian figure is the highest in the table. The Northern Territory is different again: below $525,000 its duty comes from a quadratic formula rather than brackets, and above that it charges a flat percentage of the full value.

Because most scales are marginal, duty as a share of the price climbs as prices rise. Bracket thresholds are set in legislation and are not automatically indexed everywhere — Revenue NSW indexes its thresholds to CPI each 1 July while holding the rates fixed, so the same real price attracts a slightly different bill from one year to the next.

Duty at each state's own price level

A single national price is useful for comparing the scales, but nobody buys the national average. The table below runs each jurisdiction's scale over its own ABS mean dwelling value, which is closer to what a buyer in that market actually faces.

The stamp duty calculator runs the same scales on any price and any state.

First-home concessions are not a national scheme

There is no Commonwealth stamp duty concession. Each jurisdiction writes its own, and they differ in kind, not just in degree. The common design is a full exemption up to one threshold, then a concession that tapers away to nothing at a second, higher threshold — above which a first home buyer pays exactly what everyone else pays.

$750,000 is used for the last column because it sits inside or close to several of the taper ranges, which shows how sharply the schemes diverge. The same first home buyer, buying the same established house at the same price, pays nothing in New South Wales and the ACT, $9,800 in Queensland, $22,305 in Western Australia, and the full $37,125 in the Northern Territory.

Four points about the current settings. The ACT removed both the price cap and the income test from its Home Buyer Concession Scheme from 1 July 2026, so an eligible first home buyer there pays no conveyance duty at any value, a difference of $41,068 against the full scale on a $1,111,100 purchase. Western Australia's 2026-27 Housing Taxation Package lifted its exemption threshold to $600,000 and its concession ceiling to $800,000 from 7 May 2026. Tasmania's established-home first home buyer exemption lapsed on 30 June 2026 and was not renewed, so full duty applies there now. South Australia and the Northern Territory offer no duty relief for first home buyers purchasing an established home, though both run separate assistance schemes with their own rules.

Eligibility conditions sit on top of the thresholds in every jurisdiction — typically that you have never owned residential property in Australia, that you buy as an individual rather than a company or trust, and that you live in the home for a minimum period soon after settlement. Those conditions vary by state and are administered by the relevant revenue office, which is the authority on whether a particular purchase qualifies.

The First Home Guarantee since 1 October 2025

The First Home Guarantee is a Commonwealth scheme administered by Housing Australia. It does not lend money and it does not reduce duty. It guarantees part of the loan: a buyer contributes a deposit of at least 5% of the price and the government guarantees up to a further 15%, so the lender is covered to the equivalent of a 20% deposit and lenders mortgage insurance is not charged.

From 1 October 2025 the scheme changed materially. The annual cap on places was removed, so places are unlimited, and the income tests that previously excluded higher earners were abolished. What remains is a property price cap that varies by location — a higher cap for capital cities and designated regional centres, and a lower one for the rest of the state.

The caps interact with the duty thresholds in ways that are not always aligned. In New South Wales the guarantee cap in Sydney is $1,500,000 while full duty relief stops at $800,000 and the concession runs out at $1,000,000 — so a purchase can be inside the guarantee and still attract full duty. Housing Australia also applies its own eligibility rules, including citizenship or permanent residency requirements and owner-occupier conditions, and the loan itself must come from a participating lender.

The first-home deposit tool works out the deposit required at a given price, and First Home Super Saver covers the separate ATO scheme for saving a deposit inside superannuation.

How lenders mortgage insurance is triggered

Lenders mortgage insurance protects the lender, not the borrower, against loss if the loan is not repaid and the security is sold for less than the outstanding debt. The borrower pays the premium. The trigger is the loan-to-value ratio — the loan divided by the property value. At an LVR of 80% or below, meaning a deposit of 20% or more, LMI is not charged. Above 80%, it generally is, unless a guarantee such as the First Home Guarantee stands in for the missing deposit.

The premium rises steeply with LVR, because the insurer's exposure grows faster than the loan does. The table below shows the indicative premium rates this site uses, applied to the loan amount.

These LMI rates and dollar figures are indicative only. Indicative estimate only — actual LMI varies by lender and insurer. LMI is priced commercially by a small number of insurers, and premiums vary by lender, loan size, LVR, loan purpose and borrower profile. There is no official published rate table, so no LMI number on this page — or on any calculator — is a quote. Only a lender can tell you the actual premium on a specific loan.

The top row is the band in which no premium arises. Each subsequent row applies to a loan above the previous row's LVR and up to its own — so the rate steps up in blocks rather than sliding smoothly, and crossing a boundary by a small amount changes the premium by a large one.

On the $1,111,100 reference price, the indicative premium at a 5% deposit is $45,388, against $26,000 at a 10% deposit and nothing at 20% — again, indicative figures, not quotes. Lenders commonly allow the premium to be capitalised, that is added to the loan rather than paid in cash at settlement, in which case interest accrues on it for as long as it remains outstanding. Whether a larger deposit, a guarantee or a capitalised premium suits a particular purchase depends on individual circumstances; a lender, a mortgage broker or a licensed financial adviser can advise on that.

The rest of the settlement bill

Duty and LMI dominate, but they are not the whole list. Conveyancing or solicitor's fees, building and pest inspections, loan application and settlement fees, land transfer and title registration fees, and lender valuation costs all fall due around settlement. The rent vs buy and property vs shares tools model these together using a default of $2,500 for transaction costs excluding duty — an editable modelling assumption rather than a published figure, since the actual amounts depend on the property, the lender and the state.

Adding the pieces together for the $1,111,100 reference price gives a rough shape of the upfront requirement: a 20% deposit of $222,220, duty of between $37,238 and $61,111 depending on the jurisdiction, and transaction costs on top. A first home buyer using the guarantee at a 5% deposit needs $55,555 instead of the 20%, but borrows the difference and pays interest on it. The mortgage repayment and borrowing power calculators cover what happens after settlement.

Duty scales, concession thresholds and guarantee caps all change by legislation, sometimes mid-year and sometimes with a fixed end date, as Tasmania's lapsed exemption and Western Australia's May 2026 increase both show. The relevant state revenue office and Housing Australia are the authorities on what applies to a specific purchase on a specific date.