Land Tax Calculator ACT 2025-26

How ACT land tax works in 2025-26

ACT land tax is the annual bill the ACT Revenue Office charges on residential land that is not the owner's principal place of residence — typically investment properties, second homes, holiday flats and rented dwellings in Canberra. The 2025-26 land tax year runs 1 July 2025 – 30 June 2026 and is assessed quarter-by-quarter rather than as a single year-end snapshot.

Two design choices make the ACT bill sit very differently to NSW, VIC and QLD:

1. There is no tax-free threshold. From the first dollar of average unimproved value, residential land tax applies. NSW, VIC and QLD all give the first roughly $25,000 – $1,075,000 of land value away tax-free; the ACT does not.
2. The bill is a fixed charge plus a marginal percentage of land value, billed quarterly. Most other states charge a single annual figure with a step-up rate. The ACT layers a flat $1,693 fixed charge on top of an AUV-banded marginal rate, then divides the result into four quarterly instalments.

Council rates and the fire & emergency services levy are separate bills under the ACT general rates framework — they apply even to a principal place of residence. This calculator estimates land tax only.

The fixed charge plus AUV-based marginal rate

For 2025-26 the calculation runs in two stages:

Component	2025-26 figure
Fixed charge	$1,693
AUV up to $150,000	0.54% of AUV
AUV $150,001 – $275,000	0.62% of the portion above $150,000
AUV $275,001 – $1,000,000	1.13% of the portion above $275,000
AUV above $1,000,000	1.16% of the portion above $1,000,000

The marginal rates apply only to the portion of AUV inside that band — they do not reset the bill to zero each band. The total annual liability is the fixed charge plus the cumulative marginal tax across every band the AUV passes through.

The $1,000,000 threshold band is a relatively recent change — the ACT Government introduced it from 1 July 2024 so that high-AUV residential investments contribute a slightly higher marginal rate on the portion above $1m.

The figures above mirror the ACT Revenue Office's published 2025-26 rates and the official online land tax calculator. If the ACT Government revises rates in a subsequent budget, the constants in logic.ts are the single point of update — a fact-check against revenue.act.gov.au is built into the calculator's quarterly review cycle.

AUV: a five-year rolling average

The unimproved value (UV) is the value of the land alone — what the block would sell for with no house, fence, pool or improvement on it — set each year by the ACT Valuer-General. The figure ACT land tax actually uses is the average unimproved value (AUV), a rolling five-year average:

AUV (2025-26) = average of UVs published on 1 January 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.

Two practical consequences:

• The contract price you paid is not the AUV. Buyers who plug the purchase price into a land tax calculator routinely overstate their bill by 2–3x because the price includes the building, while the AUV does not.
• Year-to-year valuation swings are smoothed. A 30% spike in Canberra land values in one year only feeds 20% of itself into next year's AUV (since it is averaged across five years). Conversely, a fall in values takes five years to fully wash through the bill.

The AUV your calculator should use is the figure printed on the ACT Revenue Office rates and land tax notice for the property, not the price on the contract of sale.

No tax-free threshold (unlike NSW, VIC and QLD)

This is the single biggest planning quirk for cross-border investors. A summary, for residential investment land only and ignoring trust and surcharge variations:

State	Tax-free threshold for individuals	First marginal rate
NSW	$1,075,000 (2026)	$100 + 1.6% above the general threshold
VIC	$50,000	Stepped, starting at $500 + small marginal rate
QLD	$600,000 (2024-25)	1.0% to 1.65% then up
ACT	No threshold	$1,693 fixed + 0.54% from $1

So a Canberra investor with a $300,000 AUV faces a non-trivial annual bill where a NSW investor with a $1,000,000 UCV pays nothing. By the time the AUV is around $400,000 the ACT bill has already passed the figure a NSW investor would face on a $1.5m UCV. The trade-off is that ACT marginal rates are lower than the NSW premium rate and the QLD top tier, so for very high-value holdings the differential narrows.

Foreign owner surcharge: 0.75% of AUV

Since 1 July 2018, residential land in the ACT held by a foreign person attracts an additional 0.75% of AUV in surcharge land tax, on top of the standard fixed-plus-marginal calculation. There is no tax-free threshold for the surcharge — it is charged from the first dollar of AUV.

The ACT follows the Commonwealth foreign investment framework's definition of foreign person. A few traps recur:

• A discretionary trust whose deed has not been amended to irrevocably exclude foreign beneficiaries can be treated as foreign-controlled, even if every named beneficiary is Australian.
• Joint ownership with one foreign owner generally pulls the entire residential interest into the surcharge, not just the foreign owner's share — check your specific assessment.
• Permanent residents holding ACT residential land are typically not foreign persons; temporary visa holders may be.

The 0.75% figure is much lower than NSW (5%) or VIC (4%), but the absence of any tax-free threshold means the effective rate on small-AUV residential investments can still be substantial relative to rental yield.

Quarterly billing: 4 instalments per year

The ACT Revenue Office assesses land tax on four quarterly dates: 1 July, 1 October, 1 January and 1 April. Each quarter's instalment is set by the property's use at the start of that quarter:

• A property rented out on 1 July attracts that quarter's land tax even if the owner moves into it on 2 July.
• Conversely, a property used as a PPR on 1 October avoids that quarter's land tax even if it is listed for rent later in the quarter.

The annual figure shown by this calculator is divided by four to give the typical quarterly instalment. Real assessments can deviate slightly from this clean division when a property changes use mid-year or when partial-year exemptions apply.

Settlement timing close to a quarter boundary can shift several thousand dollars between buyer and seller, so it is worth modelling the instalment before signing a contract of sale.

Worked examples

1. PPR — $750,000 AUV. The owner lives in the property as their main home. PPR exemption applies, so residential land tax is $0 for the year. Council rates and the fire & emergency services levy still apply, but those are billed under the ACT general rates framework, not residential land tax.

2. Investment property — $500,000 AUV. The marginal land tax steps through three bands: $150,000 × 0.54% = $810, $125,000 × 0.62% = $775, $225,000 × 1.13% = $2,542.50. Marginal total = $4,127.50. Add the $1,693 fixed charge and the typical bill is around $5,820 a year, or roughly $1,455 per quarter.

3. Foreign-owned investment — $800,000 AUV. Marginal: 150k × 0.54% + 125k × 0.62% + 525k × 1.13% = $7,517.50. Fixed charge $1,693. Surcharge 800,000 × 0.75% = $6,000. The typical annual bill is around $15,210, or $3,802.50 per quarter. The 0.75% surcharge alone is more than three times the fixed charge.

Common pitfalls

• AUV ≠ contract price. Always use the AUV from the ACT Revenue Office rates notice, not the price you paid.
• Land tax is annual, not one-off. Unlike stamp duty, the land tax bill recurs every year for as long as the property is non-PPR. A $5,000-a-year land tax bill on an investment unit is a real drag on yield — model it before you buy.
• Quarter-boundary settlement. A 30 June settlement transfers the next year's first quarterly bill to the buyer; a 2 July settlement leaves the seller liable for the September quarter. A few days can swing thousands of dollars.
• Trust foreign-beneficiary trap. A discretionary trust that does not explicitly and irrevocably exclude foreign beneficiaries is at risk of being treated as a foreign person — adding the 0.75% surcharge to all residential holdings, even where every named beneficiary is Australian.
• Council rates ≠ land tax. Many Canberra owners conflate the two. Rates are charged on every property, including PPR; residential land tax is a separate impost only on non-PPR residential land.
• Interstate comparison is treacherous. ACT, NSW, VIC and QLD all use different bases (AUV vs UCV vs site value), different threshold rules and different surcharge rates. Do not assume an interstate calculator carries over.

When to talk to a professional

This calculator gives a general estimate based on the ACT Revenue Office's published 2025-26 figures. Binding assessments — especially involving a discretionary trust, a deceased estate, partial PPR use, primary production exemption, mid-year change of use, or a foreign person determination — should go through an ACT-registered property lawyer or a tax agent. For your exact assessment, contact the ACT Revenue Office or use the official ACT Revenue Office portal. Nothing on this page is personal legal, tax or financial advice.

Comparing ACT vs NSW vs VIC vs QLD

For investors weighing which state to buy in, three numbers usually decide the order:

• Threshold height — how much UCV/AUV/site value sits tax-free. NSW is the most generous; the ACT is the least.
• Top marginal rate — how punitive the bill becomes at high values. NSW (2.0%), VIC (stepped to over 2%), QLD (top tier ~2.25%) and ACT (1.16%) all differ.
• Foreign surcharge rate — 5% (NSW), 4% (VIC), 3% (QLD), 0.75% (ACT). The ACT is the lightest by a wide margin, but its no-threshold rule means even small-AUV residential foreign holdings still owe non-trivial surcharge.

The right comparison is always the all-in annual bill at the actual AUV/UCV for each candidate property, not a headline rate.

Related calculators

• NSW Land Tax Calculator — Revenue NSW thresholds plus the 5% foreign surcharge.
• VIC Land Tax Calculator — Victorian general and trust thresholds with the 4% surcharge.
• QLD Land Tax Calculator — Queensland aggregated land value and 3% absentee surcharge.

Sources:

• ACT Revenue Office — Land tax
• ACT Revenue Office — How land tax is calculated
• ACT Revenue Office — Calculating rates and land tax
• ACT Revenue Office — Foreign ownership surcharge
• ACT Revenue Office — Changes for 2025-26
• ACT Revenue Office — Online calculator (2025-26)