Should I Buy an Investment Property Under My Own Name or a Company Name?
Buying under your own name or through a company changes your CGT discount, negative gearing and land tax position. Compare the options — then get advice.
Should I buy an investment property under my own name or a company name?
There’s no single right answer here — it depends on your tax position, how long you plan to hold the property, whether you’re comfortable with the extra cost and paperwork of running a company, and what level of protection you want between the property and your other assets. Both options are used by Australian property investors, and the two structures are taxed differently in several specific ways set out below.
This is general information, not a recommendation for your situation. Choosing between an individual purchase and a company purchase is a structuring decision — the kind a registered tax agent, and often a solicitor or conveyancer, should look at before you sign a contract, because unwinding a structure after settlement is usually far more expensive than setting it up correctly the first time.
What’s the difference between owning in your own name and owning through a company?
Buying in your own name (individual ownership) means the property and any net rental result — profit or loss — sit with you directly. You’re taxed on it through your own tax return, at your own marginal rates.
Buying through a company means the company holds the property in its own right, as a separate legal structure from its owners (shareholders). Company profits and losses are dealt with at the company level, rather than flowing straight through to the shareholders’ own tax returns.
Two other structures come up in the same conversation, so it’s worth knowing where they sit:
- A discretionary (family) trust, where a trustee holds legal title and the trust’s net income is generally taxed in the hands of the beneficiaries who are “presently entitled” to it, in proportion to their entitlement, rather than taxed to the trust itself.
- A self-managed super fund (SMSF), which sits inside superannuation law rather than ordinary tax law, with its own rules covered separately below.
| Structure | Who holds the property | How profit/loss is taxed | Access to the 50% CGT discount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Individual | You, directly | Your own marginal tax rates | Yes — resident individuals holding 12+ months |
| Company | The company | Company tax rate, at the company level | No |
| Discretionary trust | The trustee | Beneficiaries, per their entitlement | Yes |
| SMSF | The fund (trustee) | Fund tax rate, under super law | One-third discount for eligible assets |
No government source ranks these four structures or tells you which one is “best” — the right fit depends on your income, your plans for the property, and factors like asset protection that a registered tax agent or licensed financial adviser can weigh for your circumstances.
How does the 50% CGT discount differ between individual and company ownership?
Capital gains tax (CGT) is the tax on the profit — the capital gain — when you sell an asset like an investment property. The 50% CGT discount lets an eligible taxpayer disregard half of that gain before it’s taxed.
An Australian resident individual who has held the property for at least 12 months can generally access the 50% discount. A company cannot — companies have no access to the general 50% CGT discount at all, regardless of how long they’ve held the asset. A discretionary trust generally retains access to the 50% discount; an SMSF gets a one-third discount for eligible assets rather than the individual’s 50%.
These CGT discount rules apply to gains from CGT events before 1 July 2027. From that date, an enacted reform — the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Act 2026, which received royal assent on 26 June 2026 — ends the 50% discount for individuals, trusts and partnerships (retaining it for new residential dwellings and qualifying affordable housing), while complying super funds keep their one-third discount. Companies, which already have no discount today, are unaffected by that particular change. As at July 2026, that transition is settled law for CGT events on or after 1 July 2027; it does not change anything for a sale before then.
Tax outcomes depend on your circumstances — speak with a registered tax agent before acting.
How does negative gearing work under each ownership structure?
Negative gearing happens when you buy a rental property with borrowed money and the rental income is less than the deductible expenses, including loan interest — the result is a net rental loss. Under current law (as at July 2026), an individual can generally claim that full loss against their other income, such as salary or wages, in the same tax return; if other income isn’t enough to absorb it, the loss carries forward to future years.
Because a company’s profits and losses are dealt with at the company level rather than passed through to shareholders, a rental loss inside a company doesn’t reduce a shareholder’s personal tax the way negative gearing reduces an individual owner’s tax — the loss stays with the company, to be used against the company’s own future income, subject to the company’s own loss rules.
From the 2027-28 income year, an enacted change (new section 26-155 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, a different schedule of the same 2026 Act as the CGT reform above) quarantines residential rental deductions that exceed residential rental income: the excess can no longer offset other income, only future residential rental income or residential capital gains. Interests acquired before 7:30pm AEST on 12 May 2026 are grandfathered under the old rules. The Act itself sets out only two exclusions from the quarantine — a widely held unit trust and a complying superannuation entity (section 26-155(4)) — so as at July 2026, a company or an ordinary (non-widely-held) discretionary trust holding residential property directly is not excluded from it either; a registered tax agent can confirm how it applies to your specific structure.
Tax outcomes depend on your circumstances — speak with a registered tax agent before acting. See our guide to capital gains tax on property in Australia and our guide comparing cash flow positive and negatively geared property for more on how a net rental loss or profit plays out day to day.
Does depreciation work differently for a company-owned property?
Depreciation on an investment property splits into two categories that are taxed differently, and one of them treats companies differently to individuals.
Capital works deductions (the building and structure itself) are claimed at 2.5% a year over 40 years for residential construction that started on or after 16 September 1987, under Division 43 of the ITAA 1997. This rate applies the same way regardless of ownership structure.
Plant and equipment deductions (Division 40 — items like ovens, carpets and air-conditioners) are different. Since 2017 legislation, and still current law as at July 2026, an owner generally cannot claim a Division 40 deduction for second-hand plant and equipment in a residential rental property — in practice, this reduces the deduction to nil for an ordinary individual buying an established property with existing appliances and fittings already installed. But the law that created this restriction specifically excludes certain entities from it, including a corporate tax entity (a company), a superannuation plan that isn’t an SMSF, and public unit trusts. In other words, a company can generally still claim Division 40 depreciation on second-hand plant and equipment in a way that an individual buying the same established property cannot — a genuine, sourced difference between the two structures, not a market prediction.
Tax outcomes depend on your circumstances — speak with a registered tax agent before acting.
How does land tax differ by ownership structure?
Land tax is set by each state and territory, not the Commonwealth — there’s no national land tax, and each jurisdiction has its own act, its own revenue office and its own threshold. That means a structure change can shift which threshold applies, and by how much, depending on where the property is.
Two concrete examples, both as at July 2026, show the pattern without assuming it holds everywhere: in Queensland, the Queensland Revenue Office sets a different — and lower — land tax threshold for companies and trustees than the $600,000 individual threshold, so a company-held Queensland property can trigger land tax at a lower land value than the same property held by an individual. In Victoria, the State Revenue Office’s current-rates page sets a $25,000 trust surcharge threshold, well below the $50,000 general threshold that applies to individual ownership.
Because land tax thresholds are budget-volatile and jurisdiction-specific, always check the current settings on your property’s state or territory revenue office before buying, rather than assuming one state’s rule — or one structure’s rule — carries across to another.
Tax outcomes depend on your circumstances — speak with a registered tax agent before acting.
What about asset protection?
Asset protection is one of the reasons investors ask about company ownership in the first place — the idea that a separate legal structure creates distance between the property and a person’s other assets. That’s a real, qualitative difference between direct personal ownership, a separate company, a trustee-held beneficial interest and a regulated super fund. But no ATO or Moneysmart page ranks these structures by asset-protection strength, and real-world outcomes turn on things a general guide can’t settle for you — the specific company or trust deed, any personal guarantees you’ve given a lender, family law, and bankruptcy law. A licensed financial adviser or solicitor, alongside your registered tax agent, is the right combination to work through what actually protects you.
What about buying through an SMSF?
A self-managed super fund is a fourth path some investors consider, and it comes with rules the other three structures don’t have. Every SMSF investment — including a residential property — has to meet the sole purpose test: it must be made and maintained for the sole purpose of providing retirement benefits to members (or death benefits if a member dies first). SMSFs also face in-house asset limits and related-party restrictions that don’t apply to an individual or company purchase, alongside their own concessional tax settings (a 15% fund tax rate and the one-third CGT discount mentioned above).
Superannuation rules are complex and penalties for breaches are significant — seek advice from a licensed financial adviser before making SMSF decisions.
Where does something like a Brix fractional interest fit into this decision?
Everything above assumes you’re buying a whole property outright, where you (or your company, trust or fund) become the registered legal owner. A fractional interest — a Brix on the MyBrix platform — is a different kind of asset: MyBrix’s Product Disclosure Statement is explicit that buying or selling Brix is not a transfer of legal or beneficial ownership of the land itself. Buying Brix doesn’t put you through the same individual-vs-company decision for the underlying property, because you’re not taking legal title to it either way.
The account you invest through is still a choice, though. MyBrix’s Product Disclosure Statement names self-managed super funds, alongside individuals and other investor types, as eligible to invest — though which account category and onboarding terms apply to an SMSF is a question for your fund’s trustee and adviser, not something this guide resolves. And how a Brix distribution is taxed depends on the structure of the specific listing and your own circumstances — MyBrix’s PDS is explicit that this can vary and points investors to independent tax advice, which lines up with the ATO’s general position that trust and managed-investment distributions are taxed according to how the underlying arrangement is structured. Our guide to how fractional property investment is taxed in Australia and our guide on investing in fractional property through an SMSF go into both of those points in more depth.
What should I do next?
Weigh the factors rather than looking for a single “correct” structure: your likely holding period and whether the CGT discount matters to you, whether a net rental loss is more useful sitting against your personal income or carried in a separate structure, how the plant-and-equipment depreciation rules land on the specific property you’re considering, the land tax settings in the state where you’re buying, and how much you value the separation a company or trust can offer. None of these factors point the same way for every investor, which is exactly why this is a structuring conversation rather than a checklist.
A registered tax agent can model the CGT, negative gearing, depreciation and land tax outcomes for your specific numbers; a solicitor or conveyancer can advise on setting the structure up correctly before you exchange contracts; and a licensed financial adviser is the right person if an SMSF is on the table. For the basics of how property investment works before you get to the structuring stage, see our guide to property investment in Australia.
