What Are the Upfront Costs of Buying an Investment Property in Australia?
Deposit, LMI, stamp duty, conveyancing and inspections all land before settlement — the full list, sourced to Moneysmart and state revenue offices.
What upfront costs come with buying an investment property in Australia?
Before the purchase price itself, an investment property purchase in Australia typically carries these upfront costs:
- Deposit — the share of the price you pay yourself; the rest is borrowed.
- Lenders Mortgage Insurance (LMI) — usually only if you borrow above 80% of the property’s value.
- Stamp duty (transfer duty) — a one-off state government tax on the transfer of the property.
- Conveyancing or solicitor’s fees — for the legal work of transferring title.
- Building and pest inspections — commonly arranged before you commit, or while a finance or inspection condition is still open.
- Loan application and valuation fees — charged by some lenders to set up the loan.
- Settlement adjustments — your share of council rates, water rates and similar charges from settlement day.
- Foreign purchaser duty — an extra state surcharge, but only if you’re buying as a foreign person.
How many of these apply to you, and how much they add up to, comes down to the state or territory, the lender and the specific property — none of them are a fixed percentage you can apply everywhere. The rest of this guide works through each one, then covers land tax: a cost that isn’t charged at settlement but starts from the day you own the property.
How much deposit do I need, and when does Lenders Mortgage Insurance (LMI) apply?
There’s no deposit percentage set by law — that’s a matter of individual lender policy. What is consistent, per Moneysmart, is the point at which Lenders Mortgage Insurance usually applies: when the amount you borrow is above 80% of the property’s value — an 80% loan-to-value ratio, or LVR. LMI is a one-off, upfront cost typically added to or paid alongside the loan, and it’s worth being clear on what it actually does: it protects the lender if you default, not you or any guarantor.
Moneysmart’s own wording on the 80% trigger doesn’t carve out a different rule for investment loans — it’s stated as a general rule, not one that changes because the property is an investment rather than a home you’ll live in.
No government or consumer body publishes a typical LMI premium figure — Moneysmart doesn’t quote one, and the actual cost depends on your lender, your LVR and the size of your loan. If you want a like-for-like sense of the cost, Helia (a major LMI provider) publishes a public LMI fee estimator — treat any figure it returns as an illustration built on your own inputs, not a market average.
How much stamp duty (transfer duty) will I pay?
Stamp duty is a one-off state government tax charged on the transfer of property, and per Moneysmart, you typically need to pay it within 30 days of settlement. The amount is set individually by each state and territory — there’s no national stamp duty rate, and first home buyer concessions generally don’t extend to an investment purchase.
Because the rate, thresholds and any surcharges differ by jurisdiction, the only reliable way to estimate what you’ll pay on a specific property is your state or territory revenue office’s own calculator — never a flat percentage rule of thumb carried over from another state.
Do foreign purchasers pay an extra duty?
If you’re buying as a foreign person, most states add a surcharge on top of ordinary stamp duty. As at July 2026, six states charge an additional foreign purchaser duty: NSW 9%, VIC 8%, QLD 8%, TAS 8%, WA 7%, and SA 7% (per Western Australian Treasury’s official interstate comparison — RevenueSA’s own page wasn’t reachable to confirm directly, so check it yourself before relying on this figure). The ACT and NT don’t charge a foreign purchaser duty surcharge on the purchase itself — though the ACT applies its own ongoing land tax surcharge for foreign owners instead, covered below.
“Foreign person,” available exemptions and any treaty arrangements are all defined differently state by state. If this applies to you, confirm your specific position directly with that state’s revenue office rather than relying on an exemption you’ve seen mentioned elsewhere.
What do conveyancing, inspections and loan fees add on top?
Beyond duty and LMI, a handful of smaller but real costs sit between signing a contract and settlement day:
- Conveyancing or solicitor’s fees, for preparing and checking the contract and handling the legal transfer of title.
- Building and pest inspections, commonly arranged before you commit or while a finance or inspection condition is still open, to flag structural or pest issues before you’re locked in.
- Loan application and valuation fees, which some lenders charge to set up the loan and confirm the property’s value.
- Settlement adjustments, your share of council rates, water rates and body corporate fees (where relevant) from the settlement date, reconciled between you and the seller.
None of these carries a government-published typical figure — they’re commercial fees that vary by provider, location and how complex the specific purchase is. Moneysmart’s own approach to this list is the practical one to copy: get quotes for each before you commit, rather than budgeting off a number you’ve seen quoted for someone else’s purchase.
What continues once you own it: land tax, from the day you hold the property
Land tax is different from everything above it in one important way: it isn’t charged when you buy. It’s an ongoing state or territory tax, assessed annually on the land you hold as at a set date each year — which means it starts from the moment you own an investment property, even though it never appears on the settlement statement. New investors are often caught out by the first assessment landing not long after they’ve finished paying everything else on this list.
Tax outcomes depend on your circumstances — speak with a registered tax agent before acting.
Land tax is set independently by each state and territory, with its own threshold, scale and revenue office — there’s no single national land tax and no single comparison page you can rely on for every jurisdiction. As at July 2026:
| State/territory | Tax-free threshold (individuals) | Notes | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| NSW | $1,075,000 combined taxable land value | Frozen (no longer annually indexed) since the 2024-25 Budget | Revenue NSW |
| VIC | $50,000 (general); $25,000 (trust surcharge) | A separate COVID-debt land tax surcharge is layered on top through the 2033 land tax year | SRO Victoria |
| QLD | $600,000 | Companies and trustees have a different, lower threshold — check QRO’s own calculator | QRO |
| WA | $300,000 | Perth-metro owners may also owe a separate 0.14% Metropolitan Region Improvement Tax | WA Treasury |
| TAS | $125,000 | Threshold has applied since 1 July 2024 | SRO Tasmania |
| ACT | No tax-free threshold | A fixed charge plus a marginal rate on Average Unimproved Value applies instead | ACT Revenue Office |
| SA | $936,000 combined taxable site value | Re-indexed annually by gazette notice (by 30 June each year) off the Valuer-General’s site value index — this is the 2026-27 land tax year setting only, not a fixed figure; trust ownerships have a separate $25,000 threshold | RevenueSA |
| NT | No land tax | The Northern Territory doesn’t levy a land tax at all — its own government confirms this directly; stamp duty is the NT’s tax on the purchase itself | Northern Territory Government |
South Australia’s threshold moves every year rather than staying fixed like most of the other jurisdictions above — treat the $936,000 figure as the current land tax year’s setting, not a number to carry forward into next year’s budget without checking RevenueSA again.
A few things hold across every jurisdiction in the table. Every state and territory exempts a genuine principal place of residence from land tax in some form — since an investment property isn’t your home, it generally doesn’t get that exemption, which is exactly why land tax matters more to investors than to owner-occupiers. Foreign-owner surcharges (including the ACT’s separate annual charge of 0.75% of value) and Victoria’s Vacant Residential Land Tax — a further charge if a Victorian property sits unoccupied and unrented for more than six months in a year — sit on top of the thresholds above, not inside them. And because every figure in this table moves at state and territory budgets, treat it as current as at July 2026 only, and re-check the linked page directly before relying on it for a specific purchase.
Is there a lower-upfront-cost way to get exposure to property?
Everything above assumes buying a whole property outright. If the combined weight of deposit, duty, LMI and fees is the sticking point rather than the idea of property as an asset class, fractional platforms are a different entry point worth knowing about. MyBrix, for example, lets investors buy Brix — fractional economic interests in a specific property — through NestEgg from a minimum contribution of $100 a month, well below what a deposit and settlement costs add up to on a whole property. It’s a genuinely different product, with its own product disclosure statement, not a straight substitute for the analysis above if you’re set on buying outright — but it’s a legitimate way to start smaller.
If some of the costs above mean a property runs cash-flow negative in its early years, our guide to cash flow positive vs negatively geared property covers how that trade-off is usually weighed.
How do I add all this up before I make an offer?
There’s no single total that applies to every purchase, because so many of the line items above are set by your state, your lender or the specific property. A practical way to build your own figure before you make an offer:
- Get your state or territory revenue office’s stamp duty estimate for the specific price and property type.
- Ask your lender or broker whether LMI applies at your planned deposit, and get an estimate if it does.
- Get quotes for conveyancing and for a building and pest inspection.
- Ask your lender what application and valuation fees apply to the specific loan.
- Ask the agent or your conveyancer for an indicative settlement adjustment figure.
- Separately, check the land tax threshold for the state the property is in, so the following year’s assessment isn’t a surprise.
If you’re new to property investment more broadly, our guide to what property investment involves in Australia is a good place to start before you get into cost specifics.
