What is the foreign purchaser or absentee owner land tax surcharge?

“Foreign purchaser surcharge” and “absentee owner land tax surcharge” get used almost interchangeably in property conversations, but they’re two different taxes with two different triggers. It’s worth separating them before anything else.

A foreign purchaser duty surcharge is an extra one-off amount added to standard transfer (stamp) duty when a foreign person buys residential property. It’s charged once, generally around settlement, on top of the ordinary duty every buyer pays.

An absentee owner (or foreign-ownership) land tax surcharge works differently. It’s an ongoing, annual charge added to land tax, and it keeps applying for as long as the owner remains foreign or absentee — not a one-off cost paid at purchase. Where it applies, it sits on top of a state’s ordinary land tax, in the same way land tax itself sits on top of, and separate from, stamp duty.

As at July 2026, six Australian states charge a foreign purchaser duty surcharge of somewhere between 7% and 9% of a property’s dutiable value. The Australian Capital Territory doesn’t charge a purchase-time duty surcharge at all, but does run an annual, ongoing land tax surcharge for foreign owners instead — and it isn’t alone: New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania each run one too, on top of their one-off duty. The rest of this article sets out where each of those figures sits.

How much is the foreign purchaser duty surcharge, by state?

These are one-off amounts, added to standard transfer duty, charged at (or shortly after) settlement — as at July 2026:

State/territory	Foreign purchaser duty surcharge	Notes
New South Wales	9% of dutiable value	Current rate per Revenue NSW (page updated 26 June 2026)
Victoria	8%	Applies to contracts/transactions from 1 July 2019 (was 7% from 1 July 2016)
Queensland	8%	Applies where liability arises from 1 July 2024 (was 7% from 1 July 2018)
South Australia	7%	Applies to acquisitions of an interest in residential land entered into on or after 1 January 2018, under the Stamp Duties Act 1923
Western Australia	7%	Applies since 1 January 2019
Tasmania	8%	Applies to agreements from 1 April 2020 (primary production land carries a lower 1.5%)
Australian Capital Territory	None	No purchase-time duty surcharge — see the annual land tax surcharge below instead
Northern Territory	None	No purchase-time duty surcharge, per the same official interstate comparison

Sources: Revenue NSW, State Revenue Office Victoria, Queensland Revenue Office, RevenueSA, WA Department of Treasury and Finance, State Revenue Office Tasmania, and the WA Treasury interstate comparison, Overview of State Taxes and Royalties 2025-26.

Definitions of “foreign person,” and the exemptions or refunds available, differ by state — that’s part of why each row above needs its own citation rather than one shared source. If you’re weighing whether a purchase might attract a surcharge, the relevant state’s own revenue office is the authority to check.

Is there a separate annual land tax surcharge on top of the one-off duty?

Yes — and in more places than the purchaser-duty table above suggests on its own. As at July 2026, an ongoing, annual land tax surcharge for foreign or absentee owners applies in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and the ACT, sitting on top of each jurisdiction’s own ordinary land tax and continuing to be charged every year the property stays foreign-owned or absentee-owned. South Australia and Western Australia don’t appear to run one.

State/territory	Annual land tax surcharge for foreign/absentee owners	Notes
New South Wales	5% of the land value	No tax-free threshold applies to this surcharge; current rate applies from the 2025 land tax year (was 4% for 2023–2024, 2% for 2018–2022)
Victoria	4%	Absentee owner surcharge, applying from the 2024 land tax year, added on top of the ordinary land tax rate
Queensland	3%	Absentee surcharge, applying where the total taxable value of the absentee owner’s land is $350,000 or more
South Australia	None identified	SA’s 7% foreign ownership surcharge (in the table above) is a one-off charge under the Stamp Duties Act 1923, payable at acquisition — RevenueSA does not describe a separate, ongoing land tax version
Western Australia	None identified	Neither WA’s own land tax guidance nor the WA Treasury’s interstate comparison records an ongoing land tax surcharge for foreign or absentee owners
Tasmania	2%	Foreign Investor Land Tax Surcharge (FILTS), applying to land acquired on or after 1 July 2022 that’s classified as general land capable of residential use
Australian Capital Territory	0.75% of Average Unimproved Value (AUV)	Applying since 1 July 2018, on top of the ACT’s own land tax

Sources: Revenue NSW, State Revenue Office Victoria, Queensland Revenue Office, RevenueSA, State Revenue Office Tasmania, ACT Revenue Office, and the WA Treasury interstate comparison already cited above (which independently corroborates the NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania rates, and records no equivalent surcharge for SA or WA).

Don’t assume the duty percentage in the table above also describes the annual land tax charge in the same state — they’re different tax events, charged at different times. Where a state runs both (New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania each do), the annual land tax surcharge rate is a separate figure from the one-off duty surcharge rate.

The Northern Territory sits outside this question altogether. The NT Government confirms it has no land tax of any kind — so there’s no annual land tax base for a foreign or absentee-owner surcharge to sit on top of, separate again from the “no purchaser duty” position already noted in the table above.

Who counts as a “foreign person” or “absentee owner”?

Both terms are defined state by state, in each state’s own legislation — there’s no single national definition, and the tests can turn on citizenship, residency status, visa type, or, for a company or trust, who ultimately owns or controls it. Some sources describe exemptions for certain visa holders or, according to some material, citizens of particular treaty countries — but the official sources we checked conflict with each other on at least one of these exemption questions, so this article doesn’t assert who is or isn’t exempt either way. If a purchase or an existing holding might be affected, the relevant state or territory revenue office is where to check, not a general guide like this one.

Tax outcomes depend on your circumstances — speak with a registered tax agent before acting.

How this fits into your investment property’s costs

Whether a foreign purchaser duty surcharge or an ongoing land tax surcharge applies to you at all depends on your residency status and the structure you’re buying through — individual, company, trust and self-managed super fund can all be treated differently under a state’s foreign-ownership rules, on top of the different tax treatment those structures already carry more generally. That’s not something a general guide can work out for you.

Where a surcharge does apply, it’s another line item in the running cost of holding a property, alongside ordinary land tax, insurance and property management fees. Our guide to cash flow positive property vs negatively geared property walks through how ongoing costs like this weigh against rental income, and our guide to property investment in Australia covers where costs like these sit in the wider picture of holding a rental property.

Because whether either surcharge applies to you, and how much it would add, depends on your residency status, your ownership structure and the state the property sits in, a registered tax agent is the person to work that out with — not a general article.

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