Which Australian capital has the highest stamp duty on a median home?

Sydney, at $51,139 on its median dwelling value of $1,265,608 as at June 2026 — an effective rate of 4.04% of the purchase price. Canberra is the lowest at $27,188.

Do first home buyers pay stamp duty on a median-priced home?

In seven of the eight capitals, yes — the median dwelling value now sits above every first home buyer threshold for an established home. Canberra is the only capital where a first home buyer pays nothing at the median price, because the ACT abolished conveyance duty for first home buyers from 1 July 2026 with no price cap. Buying a new build changes the answer in Brisbane and Adelaide, where first home buyers pay no duty on a new home regardless of price.

What is stamp duty bracket creep?

Stamp duty scales are progressive but the thresholds are rarely indexed to house prices. When prices rise, more of the purchase price falls into higher marginal bands, so duty rises faster than the price does. In the year to June 2026 this happened in five of eight capitals — most sharply in Brisbane, where prices rose 17.4% but duty on the median home rose 31.1%.

Stamp Duty on a Median Home in Every Australian Capital, 2026

Original research · published 26 July 2026 · free to reuse with attribution

We computed stamp duty on the median dwelling in all eight Australian capital cities using each jurisdiction's current legislated rate scale. The headline result: in seven of the eight capitals, a first home buyer paying the median price for an established home now gets no first home buyer duty relief at all. The median home has outgrown the concession.

What we found

7 of 8 capitals give a first home buyer nothing on an established home at the median price: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart, Darwin. Canberra is the only exception.
Duty outran prices in 5 of 8 capitals. In Brisbane, prices rose 17.4% over the year but duty on the median home rose 31.1%. That gap is bracket creep.
The spread is $23,951. The same buyer at their local median pays $27,188 in Canberra and $51,139 in Sydney.
Effective rates range from 3.07% to 5.39% of the purchase price.
Across the eight medians, duty is $33,955 higher in total than it was twelve months ago.

Duty payable by an owner-occupier who is not a first home buyer, on an established home at each city's median dwelling value. Computed 26 July 2026 from the rate scales linked at the foot of this page.

The full numbers

Capital	Median dwelling	Duty	Effective rate	First home buyer (established)	First home buyer (new build)	Investor
Sydney New South Wales	$1,265,608	$51,139	4.04%	$51,139	$51,139	$51,139
Adelaide South Australia	$945,868	$45,855	4.85%	$45,855	$0	$45,855
Perth Western Australia	$1,046,551	$45,013	4.30%	$45,013	$45,013	$45,013
Melbourne Victoria	$808,486	$43,579	5.39%	$43,579	$43,579	$43,579
Brisbane Queensland	$1,118,306	$37,653	3.37%	$37,653	$0	$44,828
Darwin Northern Territory	$638,187	$31,590	4.95%	$31,590	$31,590	$31,590
Hobart Tasmania	$752,760	$29,059	3.86%	$29,059	$29,059	$29,059
Canberra ACT	$885,254	$27,188	3.07%	$0	$0	$30,180

Median dwelling values: Cotality Home Value Index, as at 30 June 2026. Duty computed on the dutiable value with no concessions other than those shown. Foreign purchaser surcharges, which add 7–9% in most states, are excluded.

Why first home buyers at the median now get nothing

Every first home buyer concession in Australia is capped by property value. Those caps are set in legislation and adjusted only when a government chooses to adjust them. Median dwelling values, meanwhile, have risen in six of the eight capitals over the past year — sharply in Perth, Brisbane and Darwin.

The result is a slow disqualification. The concession does not get taken away; the median house simply climbs past it. Perth is the clearest case: the First Home Owner Rate cuts out at $700,000, while Perth's median dwelling value is now $1,046,551 — roughly 1.5 times the threshold.

The exception, and it is a big one. The ACT abolished conveyance duty for all eligible first home buyers from 1 July 2026, with no price cap and no income test — the first Australian jurisdiction to do so. A first home buyer in Canberra pays nothing at the median, saving $27,188.

A new build changes the answer in three capitals

Where the established-home concession has phased out, new-build relief often has not, because several states apply it with no value cap at all:

Brisbane — a first home buyer pays nil duty on a new home at the median, against $37,653 on an established one. A saving of $37,653.
Adelaide — a first home buyer pays nil duty on a new home at the median, against $45,855 on an established one. A saving of $45,855.
Canberra — a first home buyer pays nil duty on a new home at the median, against $27,188 on an established one. A saving of $27,188.

This is the single largest lever available to a first home buyer in those markets, and it is a function of what you buy rather than what you earn.

Bracket creep: duty rose faster than prices in 5 capitals

Duty scales are progressive, but the thresholds are not indexed to house prices. As a median price rises, more of it falls into higher marginal bands — so duty rises by a larger percentage than the price did. No government has to legislate anything for the tax take to grow.

Capital	Median Jun 2025	Median Jun 2026	Price change	Duty Jun 2025	Duty Jun 2026	Duty change	Extra duty
Brisbane	$952,560	$1,118,306	17.4%	$28,715	$37,653	31.1%	+$8,938
Perth	$844,674	$1,046,551	23.9%	$34,616	$45,013	30.0%	+$10,397
Canberra	$860,305	$885,254	2.9%	$25,716	$27,188	5.7%	+$1,472
Adelaide	$847,552	$945,868	11.6%	$40,448	$45,855	13.4%	+$5,407
Hobart	$688,710	$752,760	9.3%	$26,268	$29,059	10.6%	+$2,791

Brisbane is the sharpest example: a 17.4% price rise produced a 31.1% duty rise, an extra $8,938 on the same median home. Sydney and Melbourne do not appear because their medians were flat or falling over the period.

Owner-occupier or investor changes the bill in two jurisdictions

Most states charge the same duty regardless of why you are buying. Two do not:

Brisbane — an investor pays $44,828 against $37,653 for an owner-occupier who will live in the property. A difference of $7,175.
Canberra — an investor pays $30,180 against $27,188 for an owner-occupier who will live in the property. A difference of $2,992.

Queensland's home concession is widely misunderstood as a first home buyer measure. It is not — it is available to any buyer acquiring a residence they will live in, with no upper value cap. Victoria's principal place of residence concession works the same way below $550,000.

How we calculated this

Every figure on this page is computed, not collected. The method is deliberately reproducible:

Median dwelling values are the Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) Home Value Index medians as at 30 June 2026, for all dwellings — houses and units combined.
Duty is computed on that value using each jurisdiction's current legislated rate scale, the same engine that powers our stamp duty calculator. Every scale was verified against the relevant revenue office in July 2026.
June 2025 medians are derived from the current median and Cotality's published annual change for that city, then run through the same scale to isolate the effect of price movement on duty.
First home buyer figures assume the buyer meets all non-price eligibility conditions — occupancy, prior-ownership and, where applicable, residency tests — so the only binding constraint is the property value cap.
Excluded: foreign purchaser surcharges, mortgage and transfer registration fees, and off-the-plan or land-only variants except where stated. Including surcharges would add 7–9% of the purchase price in most states.

Rate scales verified against: NSW · VIC · QLD · WA · SA · TAS · ACT · NT

Caveats worth stating plainly. A median is a market-wide midpoint, not a house you can buy — half of all dwellings sold for less. "All dwellings" blends houses and units, and the mix differs by city, so Melbourne's median is pulled down by a high unit share while Perth's is not. Treat these as comparisons between jurisdictions, not as a quote for any particular purchase. Western Australia has a first home owner rate change expected in late July 2026 that is not yet reflected here.

Reuse and citation. This dataset is free to republish, including the chart, for any purpose including commercial, under CC BY 4.0. The only condition is attribution with a link. Suggested form:

Source: ozfinancecalc.com.au, "Stamp Duty on a Median Home in Every Australian Capital, 2026"
— https://ozfinancecalc.com.au/blog/stamp-duty-median-home-every-capital-2026

Journalists: we are happy to run this for a specific price point, suburb median, or buyer profile on request, usually same day. Contact details are on our contact page.

Work out your own number

The medians above are a benchmark. For an actual purchase price, including first home buyer concessions, foreign purchaser surcharge and total buying costs:

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