Stamp duty calculator

What the result means

Stamp duty, formally transfer duty, is a tax the state or territory charges when property changes hands. It is worked out from the price on a sliding scale, so each extra dollar of price is taxed at a higher rate than the one before. It is paid once, by the buyer, around settlement.

How it is calculated

Duty = base amount for the price band + rate × (price − band threshold)

• Price: The dutiable value, normally the higher of the purchase price and the market value.
• Band: The slice of the price scale that the price falls into, set by the revenue office.
• Rate: The duty charged on each $100 above the band threshold.

Duty is built from bands. Below the first threshold the rate is low, and each time the price crosses a threshold the rate steps up, but only for the part of the price above that threshold, except in Victoria where one band applies a flat percentage to the whole price. Each band comes with the duty already owed at its threshold, which is why the formula starts from a base amount and adds the rate on the excess.

Worked example

$850,000 in New South Wales

A buyer purchases an $850,000 property in New South Wales. There is no separate home rate, so the same scale applies to a home and an investment.

Band

Over $387,000, up to $1,290,000

Duty at the threshold

$11,602

Price above the threshold

$850,000 − $387,000 = $463,000

Duty on the excess

$4.50 per $100 × 4,630 = $20,835

Total duty

$11,602 + $20,835 = $32,437

About $32,437, or roughly 3.8% of the price. A first home buyer in New South Wales could pay less or nothing, which is why the concessions are worth checking before settlement.

Which states are covered, and why only three

OzCalc covers New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. Each state sets its own rates and concessions, and a stamp duty figure is only useful if it matches what the revenue office would charge, so a state is added only when its published rates reproduce that office's own online calculator.

The rates here were checked against the Revenue NSW, State Revenue Office Victoria and Queensland Revenue Office calculators across every rate band, at the band edges and at awkward prices that test rounding. Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory are not covered yet.

Home rates, investment rates and what is left out

Victoria and Queensland charge less on a home you will live in. In Victoria that is the principal place of residence rate, available up to $550,000, and in Queensland it is the home concession. New South Wales has no separate rate for owner-occupiers, so a home and an investment property cost the same there.

The figure does not include first home buyer exemptions or concessions, the off-the-plan concession, foreign purchaser surcharges, pensioner concessions, or the grants some states pay. Any of these can cut the duty, or add to it, by thousands of dollars, so check the revenue office's own calculator before relying on the number.

Rates change, so the year matters

New South Wales adjusts its thresholds with inflation every July, so the NSW rates here are for 2026–27 and will need replacing. Victoria and Queensland change their rates only when the government legislates a change. Each figure in this calculator was last checked against the official source on 17 October 2026.

Questions