How ACT stamp duty is calculated in 2026 (Canberra)

The ACT is doing something no other Australian jurisdiction has committed to: killing conveyance duty. The 20-year Taxation Reform Agenda started in 2012 and runs to 2032, trimming duty rates a notch each year and pushing the lost revenue onto annual general rates. By the time the agenda closes, a Canberra home purchase will attract little or no duty, and the cost of ownership will live mostly on the rates notice instead. That shift is roughly halfway done in 2026.

Here is what the ACT Revenue Office actually charges on a 2026 residential contract, what the Home Buyer Concession Scheme does to that figure, and how the ongoing rates side of the ledger works.

The 2026 conveyance duty schedule

The ACT runs a progressive bracket schedule similar in shape to the states, but the rates have been ratcheting down each July for over a decade. The figures below reflect the 2024-25 schedule still in force for 2026 contracts, published by the ACT Revenue Office. Worth checking the live schedule before signing, since the rates step again on 1 July each year.

• Up to $260,000: 0.60% of the dutiable value (a $260k purchase pays $1,560).
• $260,001 to $300,000: $1,560 plus 2.20% on the amount over $260,000.
• $300,001 to $500,000: $2,440 plus 3.40% on the amount over $300,000.
• $500,001 to $750,000: $9,240 plus 4.32% on the amount over $500,000.
• $750,001 to $1,000,000: $20,040 plus 5.90% on the amount over $750,000.
• $1,000,001 to $1,455,000: $34,790 plus 6.40% on the amount over $1,000,000.
• $1,455,001 and above: $63,910 plus 4.54% on the amount over $1,455,000.

The shape is unusual. The 6.40% rate in the $1m to $1.455m band is the highest marginal rate of any standard residential bracket in the country, and then the top rate drops back to 4.54% above $1.455m. That reverse-tapered top end is the legacy of the staged phase-out: the middle of the schedule comes down faster than the tails because that is where most contracts sit, so trimming the middle delivers the biggest annual saving to the median buyer.

Worked example: $850,000 Canberra owner-occupier

$850,000 is close to the Canberra median house price in 2026 and sits in the $750k to $1m bracket. The arithmetic walks like this for a non-first-home owner-occupier on an established home.

• Base at the $750,000 threshold: $20,040.
• Amount over $750,000: $100,000.
• Duty on the excess: $100,000 × 5.90% = $5,900.
• Total duty: $20,040 + $5,900 = $25,940.

That is an effective rate of about 3.05% on the full $850,000 contract. A $620,000 Belconnen purchase in the bracket below comes in at $14,424, an effective rate near 2.33%. The ACT duty bill on a median Canberra purchase is materially lower than the equivalent NSW figure ($33,840 on the same $850k in Sydney), and the gap widens every July as the ACT trims and NSW does not.

Home Buyer Concession Scheme (HBCS)

The ACT's first-home buyer relief is the most generous in the country if you qualify, and the qualification test is on household income rather than property price. In 2024-25 the government abolished the previous $1m property-value cap. The current rules:

• Full duty exemptionon any residential property, new or established, at any price, for eligible buyers. A $1.4m purchase in O'Connor pays $0 of conveyance duty under HBCS.
• Household income test: roughly $170,000 for a no-dependants household, scaling up with dependants (the ACT Revenue Office publishes the current dependant-adjusted ceiling each year).
• Eligibility: at least one buyer must be 18+, all buyers must be Australian citizens or permanent residents, and no buyer can have held an interest in residential property in Australia in the previous two years (with limited exceptions).
• Residency requirement: move in within 12 months of settlement and stay as principal place of residence for a continuous 12 months.

Compare this with NSW, where the equivalent buyer on the same $850k purchase would get a partial concession on a new build only and pay full duty on an established home. The income test is the trade-off: an ACT household earning $200k jointly is outside HBCS, and pays the full $25,940 on an $850k contract, where a NSW first-home buyer at the same income would get a new-build partial concession. The shape differs from every other state, and the comparison in the first home owner grant by state article walks through how the cash-grant side compares.

One useful consequence of HBCS being so broad is that the ACT does not need a separate off-the-plan concession or new-build carve-out. The standard duty schedule applies identically regardless of whether the contract is for an established Ainslie cottage or an off-the-plan apartment in Kingston, and the eligible first-home buyer pays zero on either.

The annual rates trade-off

The reason the ACT can afford to phase duty out is that general rates (the equivalent of council rates plus a land-tax layer) are stepping up to replace the revenue. Buying a Canberra property therefore means a lower upfront duty bill but a higher annual rates bill than the equivalent property would attract in a comparable NSW suburb.

For an $850,000 detached house in a middle-ring Canberra suburb, general rates in 2026 land somewhere between $3,000 and $3,800 per year depending on the unimproved land value and the suburb's rating category. The same house would attract NSW council rates closer to $1,800 to $2,400 per year, with the gap representing the slice of duty Canberra has shifted across to the annual side of the ledger.

Over a typical 8-year ownership window, the rates differential narrows the upfront saving meaningfully. A buyer paying $8,000 less on duty than a Sydney equivalent and then $1,500 more per year on rates breaks even on the rates side around year five. The phase-out is genuinely cheaper for short-tenure buyers and roughly neutral for very long-tenure owners, which is worth weighing if the purchase is a 30-year forever-home rather than a 5-year stepping-stone.

Foreign Investor Acquisition Levy (0.75%)

Foreign purchasers pay a 0.75% levy on top of the standard conveyance duty, calculated on the full purchase price. That is dramatically lower than the surcharges in the eastern states, which sit at 7% in SA, 8% in VIC, QLD and TAS, and 9% in NSW. A foreign buyer on the $850k Canberra example owes the standard $25,940 plus $6,375 of levy, for a total of $32,315. The same buyer on the same price in Sydney would owe roughly $110,340.

The ACT's soft touch on foreign purchasers is one of the few places the jurisdiction is meaningfully cheaper than NSW on a like-for-like contract today, separately from the duty phase-out. For context on how the eastern surcharges actually bite, the NSW calculation breakdown walks through the 9% surcharge on a Sydney purchase.

How to run this on your specific contract

The schedule above gives you the answer to the nearest $50 on a round-number price. Your contract has cents, a particular buyer category, and possibly an HBCS application. The platform calculator carries the verified ACT brackets and the concession toggles.

1. Enter your contract price and set the jurisdiction to the ACT in the stamp duty calculator. If you might qualify for HBCS, toggle the first-home option and run both scenarios, because the difference between $0 and $25,940 is the whole upfront-cost conversation.
2. Compare against a neighbouring state if you are weighing a cross-border move. The NSW calculation breakdown covers the same $850k purchase in Sydney and shows how the ACT's phased-out duty stacks against the full NSW schedule.
3. Carry the duty into your upfront-cost stack alongside the deposit, conveyancing, building and pest, and LMI if applicable, then add the projected annual rates to your holding-cost model. The first-home buyer guide covers the full line-item walkthrough.

The ACT is the one jurisdiction where the duty answer is moving every year and the rates answer is moving with it. A median Canberra purchase in 2026 carries duty around 3% of contract value, half what it was a decade ago, and the line keeps falling. The right way to read a Canberra contract is not duty alone but duty plus eight years of rates, and the calculator and your accountant between them give you that full figure before settlement.