FIRB foreign-buyer rules: what non-residents can actually buy in Australia, and what it costs

Australia's foreign-buyer regime is restrictive on existing dwellings, permissive on new builds, and expensive in fees and surcharges either way. A non-resident buying a $1.2M Sydney house pays roughly $80,000 to $130,000 in FIRB application fees and state foreign-buyer surcharge stamp duty on top of standard duty, before annual absentee land tax kicks in. The rules also moved meaningfully in the last twelve months, with a federal freeze on foreign purchase of established homes adding a layer the older guides do not cover.

FIRB is the Foreign Investment Review Board, the body that screens proposed acquisitions of Australian residential land by foreign persons. The screening outcome is binary: approved, sometimes with conditions, or refused. The application fee is paid up front and is not refundable if the buyer withdraws, with narrow exceptions. What follows is a working guide to who can buy what in 2026, what the up-front fees look like, and what the recurring annual costs add on top.

The three buyer categories under FIRB

FIRB sorts residential-property buyers into three categories, and the buying envelope changes sharply between them.

• Foreign non-resident: no Australian visa, or only a short-term visa with no residency rights. This is the most restricted category. Foreign non-residents cannot buy established dwellings as investments. They can buy new dwellings off the plan or on completion, vacant land for development, and (in limited circumstances) redevelopment sites that yield a net increase in dwellings.
• Temporary resident: typically a subclass 482 (skilled), 485 (graduate), 500 (student) or similar visa with the right to live in Australia for more than twelve months. A temporary resident can buy one established dwelling as a principal place of residence, and must sell within six months of ceasing to live there. They can also buy new builds, off the plan, or vacant land for development, on the same basis as foreign non-residents but with fewer restrictions on investment use of new stock.
• Permanent resident, Australian citizen, or NZ citizen: treated as Australian for FIRB purposes. No FIRB application is required for residential property. Spousal exemptions also apply where a foreign person buys jointly as tenants in common with an Australian spouse, subject to ownership-share rules.

The current freeze on foreign purchase of established homes, announced by the federal government in 2025, further narrows what the first two categories can do. While the freeze is in force, foreign non-residents are effectively shut out of the established-dwelling market altogether, and the temporary-resident pathway into a principal place of residence is subject to tighter screening. The policy is moving and the exact end date depends on future government announcements, so confirm the current settings on the FIRB site before signing anything.

FIRB application fees

FIRB application fees are tiered by property value and indexed annually on 1 July, so the schedule below is indicative for 2026 and should be checked against the current FIRB fee schedule before lodging.

• Established dwelling (temporary resident, principal place of residence): tiered by value. Around $14,700 for a $1M property, around $29,500 for $2M, and around $132,000 for $5M. Fees rise non-linearly above $2M.
• New dwelling or vacant land for development: a separate, generally lower fee schedule applies. Around $14,700 at the $1M tier and stepping up similarly, with developer exemption certificates available for off-the-plan projects so the developer pays once and individual foreign buyers do not each lodge.
• Refund policy: the application fee is not refundable if the buyer withdraws after lodging, with limited exceptions (for example, where the application is rejected before substantive consideration, or where a duplicate fee was paid in error).

Lodging a contract conditional on FIRB approval is the usual path. The contract must be signed with a FIRB-approval condition before settlement, and the approval itself must issue before that condition is waived. Skipping the approval step is not a minor oversight: penalties run to 25% of the property's value, and divestment orders can follow.

State foreign-purchaser stamp duty surcharges

Every state and territory bar the Northern Territory applies a surcharge on top of standard transfer duty when the buyer is a foreign person. The 2026 indicative rates are below, again to be verified against current state revenue-office guidance.

• NSW: 9% surcharge on the dutiable value, on top of standard transfer duty.
• VIC: 8% Foreign Purchaser Additional Duty.
• QLD: 8% Additional Foreign Acquirer Duty.
• WA: 7% Foreign Buyers Duty.
• SA: 7% Foreign Ownership Surcharge.
• TAS: 8% Foreign Investor Duty Surcharge.
• ACT: 0.75% of unimproved value, payable annually as a land tax surcharge rather than a one-off transaction surcharge.
• NT: no foreign-purchaser surcharge at present.

The surcharge is calculated on the same dutiable value as standard duty (purchase price or unencumbered market value, whichever is higher), and it is paid at settlement together with standard duty. A buyer who is unsure whether they qualify as a foreign person under a particular state's definition should ask the conveyancer to obtain a written ruling before exchange. Definitions vary modestly between jurisdictions.

Annual absentee land tax surcharges

Three states layer an absentee-owner surcharge on top of standard land tax. This is an annual cost, not a one-off transaction cost, and it can be the single largest line item over a long holding period.

• NSW: 5% surcharge on the taxable land value of residential land, in addition to standard land tax. No tax-free threshold for the surcharge itself.
• VIC: 4% absentee owner surcharge on the taxable value of Victorian land owned by an absentee person.
• QLD: 3% absentee land tax surcharge, applied on top of standard land tax for absentee individuals.

Other states either apply a smaller surcharge through their normal land-tax bands for foreign-owned residential land or, in the ACT's case, levy the whole foreign-buyer impost as an annual rather than transaction surcharge. The state-by-state land tax guide sets out the base rates and thresholds the surcharges sit on top of.

The federal vacancy fee

Foreign owners of Australian residential property pay an annual vacancy fee if the dwelling is not occupied or available to rent for more than six months in a twelve-month period. The fee is tiered on the same bands as the FIRB application fee and is reported via an annual vacancy return. The intent is straightforward: discourage land-banking of empty dwellings during a housing-supply shortage.

Practically, an owner who lists the property for rent at a reasonable market rate and can document the listing history will typically satisfy the "available to rent" test even if the property does not lease promptly. An owner who lists at well above market and receives no inquiries can be assessed as not genuinely available, with the vacancy fee triggered.

A worked numeric example: $1.2M new Sydney apartment

A Singapore-based investor without Australian visa rights buys a $1.2M new apartment in Sydney via FIRB approval. The headline costs at settlement run roughly as follows.

• FIRB application fee (new dwelling, $1M-$2M tier): around $29,500. Indicative; verify against the current schedule.
• NSW standard transfer duty on $1.2M: around $52,000 on the standard residential scale.
• NSW foreign-purchaser surcharge (9% of $1.2M): $108,000.
• Total up-front taxes and fees: around $189,500, before legal fees, lender fees, and the deposit itself.

Then the annual running cost. If the apartment sits on land valued for tax purposes at around $400,000 (a rough proxy for a city-fringe Sydney apartment's share of the underlying lot), standard NSW land tax on residential investment land at that level might be around $1,200, and the 5% absentee surcharge on the same $400,000 lifts the annual land-tax bill by another $20,000. Add the vacancy fee if the property is not occupied or genuinely available to rent. The yield maths shifts materially once that combined annual figure goes in.

Model the cash impact for your own purchase price and state via the stamp duty calculator and the buying cost calculator; the latter rolls in lender, legal, and ancillary fees that can move the all-in number by tens of thousands. For yield modelling on the back end, the rental yield calculator will let you see how much of the annual rent the absentee surcharge absorbs.

Compliance, conditions, and the cost of getting it wrong

FIRB approval must issue before the contract becomes unconditional. The standard practice is to sign a contract with a FIRB-approval condition, lodge the application, and wait for the decision before going unconditional. Processing times vary by complexity and the FIRB workload at the time, and the application fee is payable on lodgement, not on approval.

Skipping the approval step or buying outside the permitted category is enforced. Civil penalties can reach 25% of the property's value, and the ATO can order divestment with a forced sale at no less than the purchase price. Penalty notices for vacancy-fee non-reporting have also climbed in the last two years. The compliance footprint of a foreign-buyer purchase is meaningfully heavier than that of a domestic one, and the right legal and tax advice up front is part of the cost of doing business.

Related considerations: CGT, structure, and exit

Foreign owners of Australian residential property also face a withholding regime on sale. The foreign-resident CGT withholding rules require the purchaser to withhold a fixed percentage of the sale price and remit it to the ATO at settlement, unless the vendor provides a clearance certificate. That withholding sits on top of the actual CGT liability, which for non-resident sellers does not get the 50% individual discount that Australian residents receive.

Buyers looking at structures such as Australian trusts or self-managed super funds as a way around the foreign classification should read the trust-ownership guide first. A trust with a foreign beneficiary is still a foreign person for surcharge and FIRB purposes in most states, and rebadging the legal entity does not change the underlying classification.

Quick reference: what each category can do

• Foreign non-resident: new dwellings, off-the-plan, vacant land for development. No established dwellings (and currently subject to the federal freeze on established-home purchases).
• Temporary resident: one established dwelling as PPR (sell within 6 months of leaving), new dwellings, off-the-plan, vacant land. Subject to tighter screening while the established-home freeze is in force.
• Permanent resident, citizen, NZ citizen: no FIRB required, no foreign-purchaser surcharge, no absentee land tax surcharge.

Reading the policy direction

The trend in Australian foreign-buyer policy for the last decade has been one-way: more restriction, higher fees, more surcharges, tighter compliance. Every state that introduced a surcharge has since raised it. Federal fees have been indexed up annually without meaningful exemptions. The 2025 freeze on foreign purchase of established homes is the most prominent recent step, but it sits on a longer arc.

For a non-resident considering a purchase in 2026, the practical implication is that the up-front and annual costs are best modelled at the high end of current rates, with a margin for further movement during the holding period. A purchase that works at today's surcharge and fee schedule needs to still work if NSW lifts its 9% surcharge to 10% or if the vacancy fee bands move up another tier. The off-the-plan risk guide is the right companion read for buyers focused on the new-dwelling pathway, since that is where most foreign-buyer activity now lands.

On Burbfinder, suburb and region pages surface the local price, rent, and vacancy signals a foreign buyer needs alongside the federal and state cost layer in this guide. The rules decide what you are allowed to buy. The local data decides whether the deal makes sense once the surcharges are paid.