Buying your first home in Australia comes with a stack of concessions and schemes, but they're run by different levels of government, change often, and each has its own price caps and fine print. This is the lay of the land: what's on offer, who runs it, and how the pieces fit together.
Stamp duty concessions
Stamp (transfer) duty is usually the biggest upfront cost after the deposit, often tens of thousands of dollars on an average home. Every state and territory runs its own first-home-buyer concession that reduces or waives the duty below a price threshold, then phases it out above it.
Duty is reduced or waived entirely, set by your state or territory revenue office.
The concession phases out, then disappears, and you pay duty at the standard rate.
Because it's state-based, the saving on the same-priced home differs a lot depending on where you buy. Check your state revenue office for the current threshold before you budget around it.
The First Home Owner Grant
The First Home Owner Grant, or FHOG, is a one-off state or territory payment to help you buy or build. It's generally limited to new homes, meaning newly built or bought off the plan, and it comes with a price cap of its own.
The amount and the rules are set by your state revenue office, and they change periodically.
Because the grant only applies to new builds, it sits alongside the stamp duty concession rather than replacing it. An established home can still get you the duty concession, just not the grant.
The First Home Guarantee
Under the federal First Home Guarantee, an eligible first-home buyer can purchase with as little as a 5% deposit while the government guarantees part of the loan. That lets you skip Lenders Mortgage Insurance, which can otherwise cost thousands on a low-deposit loan.
First Home Super Saver
The First Home Super Saver scheme, or FHSS, lets you make voluntary contributions into super and later withdraw them, plus deemed earnings, towards a deposit. Because super contributions are taxed lightly compared with your income, it can be a tax-effective way to save.
The catch is that it's capped both annually and in total, with limits set by the ATO, so it works best as one part of a deposit strategy rather than the whole plan.
How they fit together
These schemes aren't either/or. A common combination is a stamp duty concession, paired with the First Home Guarantee's 5% deposit, with the deposit itself partly saved through FHSS. The catch is the eligibility maze underneath all three, so confirm each of these before you count on any of them:
- First-home status. None of these schemes are available if you or your partner have owned property before, with narrow exceptions.
- Price caps. Each scheme, the duty concession, the grant and the guarantee, has its own cap, and they don't always match.
- Residency. Most schemes require Australian citizenship or permanent residency, and some require you to live in the home.
- New versus established. The grant generally needs a new or off-the-plan home; the duty concession and the guarantee can apply to an established one.
The bottom line
Four levers, run by different governments, each with its own caps and fine print: a stamp duty concession that can save tens of thousands, a grant for new homes, a federal guarantee that gets you in on 5% without LMI, and FHSS for a tax-effective way to save the deposit. Combine what you're eligible for, but confirm the current figures with your state revenue office and the official scheme pages before you count on any of them.
Estimate the duty in your state, with the first-home concession and grant applied.
General information only, not financial advice.