Australia Foreign Purchaser Duty Guide 2026 PDF

Foreign purchaser duty in Australia is not one rule but eight — every state and territory sets its own surcharge, its own exemptions and its own definition of who counts as a foreign person — and this 31-page guide goes through them state by state rather than offering a single average figure that would be wrong for most readers.

It opens by defining what foreign purchaser duty actually is and, critically, who counts as a foreign person under Australian law, since that definition trips up permanent residents and some visa holders who assume it does not apply to them. From there it covers New South Wales surcharge purchaser duty in detail, then Victoria and Queensland's Additional Foreign Acquirer Duty (AFAD), then South Australia and Western Australia's foreign ownership surcharges, then Tasmania and the ACT — including which jurisdictions currently charge no surcharge at all. A closing chapter explains the federal ban on established dwelling purchases and includes a combined duty calculation worksheet so a reader can work out their own total liability across state and federal rules rather than guessing.

Two template letters are included: a request for reassessment of surcharge purchaser duty to Revenue NSW, and an enquiry regarding an exemption from the federal ban on established dwellings — both useful starting points for a buyer who believes they may not fall under a surcharge or ban that initially appears to apply.

The guide closes with a frequently-asked-questions section, a glossary of the surcharge and duty terminology used across the different states, and a sources list. It is written for prospective foreign buyers and their conveyancers who need to know which state's rules actually apply to a specific purchase, current as of 10 September 2026, and is general information rather than a substitute for advice from a conveyancer or tax adviser on an individual purchase.

Because each state legislates separately, the guide cites the actual statute behind every rate: New South Wales' surcharge sits in Chapter 2A of the Duties Act 1997, in force since 21 June 2016, Victoria's in the Duties Act 2000 at its current rate since 1 July 2019, and Queensland's Additional Foreign Acquirer Duty in Chapter 4 of the Duties Act 2001, with the 8 percent rate effective from 1 July 2024 — three different legal bases a reader comparing states side by side would otherwise have to track down separately. The definition of a foreign person is likewise traced to its common source, the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act 1975 (Cth), which every state surcharge regime borrows from even though the surcharge itself is a state, not federal, charge.