Australia's foreign buyer ban to 2029: what can be bought and the fees

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Kooky

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A buyer who is not an Australian citizen or permanent resident meets three federal rules before any state duty or lender enters the picture. The first decides which homes are open to them at all. The second puts a price on asking for permission. The third follows them for as long as they own the home, and charges them if it stands empty. All three are national: they apply the same way in every state and territory, and they sit on top of whatever a state charges.

The first rule changed on 1 April 2025, when a temporary ban on foreign purchases of established dwellings began. The Australian Taxation Office, which screens residential proposals, now gives its end date as 30 June 2029. This guide sets out who the rules apply to, what remains open to a foreign person, what an application costs in 2026-27, and how the vacancy fee is calculated and reported. It describes the general rules as the Australian Taxation Office and Treasury publish them. State surcharges on duty and land tax are a separate subject and are not covered here.

Australian Taxation Office pages on the ban, residential fees for a foreign person and the vacancy fee return, read in October 2026.

Who counts as a foreign person

Everything starts with a definition. According to the Australian Taxation Office, an individual is a foreign person if they intend to buy Australian residential or commercial property and are not an Australian citizen, a permanent resident, or a New Zealand citizen who holds a special category visa. The office adds two refinements. A permanent resident who is not ordinarily resident in Australia may be a foreign person in some circumstances, and New Zealand citizens who are non-resident in Australia are foreign persons under the legislation.

Temporary residents are foreign persons too, and the term has its own meaning. The office describes a temporary resident as someone who holds a temporary visa that allows a continuous stay of 12 months or more, regardless of how much time is left on it. A person who lives in Australia, has applied for a permanent visa and holds a bridging visa that lets them stay until that application is decided is also a temporary resident.

The definition reaches beyond individuals. A corporation is generally a foreign person where an individual not ordinarily resident in Australia, a foreign corporation or a foreign government holds a substantial interest in it, or where two or more such persons together hold an aggregate substantial interest. The same two tests apply to the trustee of a trust. A foreign government is itself a foreign person.

The office calls the definition complex and does not try to settle hard cases on its summary page. It points to Part 1, section 4 of the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act 1975, where the term is defined, and to Treasury's Guidance Note 2 on key concepts, where it is explained. The percentage that makes an interest "substantial" is in that guidance note and not on the page read for this guide, so no figure is given here. For anyone unsure of their own status, the office's answer is independent legal advice.

What the ban covers and how long it runs

The ban is aimed at one kind of property: the established dwelling, which the Australian Taxation Office defines as an existing dwelling on residential land that is not a new dwelling. While it runs, foreign persons, a group that includes temporary residents and foreign-owned companies, cannot buy an established dwelling in Australia unless an exception applies.

Its dates have moved once. The ban started on 1 April 2025 and was originally put in place for 2 years, which gave an end date of 31 March 2027. In the 2026-27 Budget the Government announced an extension of 2 years and 3 months. Counted from 31 March 2027, that leads to 30 June 2029, and from start to finish the ban would run for 4 years and 3 months.

The change that matters most to people already living in the country concerns temporary residents. The office states that the ban covers temporary residents who want to buy an established dwelling as their principal place of residence.

People who acted earlier are treated differently. The office says special rules apply to temporary residents who bought an established dwelling, or received foreign investment approval to buy one, before 1 April 2025. It does not set those rules out on its summary page, and they are not described here.

Enforcement, according to the office, is done through enhanced screening of foreign investment proposals relating to residential property. The pages read do not state the penalties for a purchase made in breach of the ban.

What a foreign person can still buy

The ban closes one door and leaves several open. The Australian Taxation Office lists five types of residential property that a foreign person can still buy, each of them subject to approval.

The definitions do a lot of work, and the one for a new or near-new dwelling is wider than the everyday meaning of "new". It takes in a dwelling that will be, is being or has been built on residential land, and one that has not been occupied for more than 12 months in total. It also takes in a dwelling in a residential development that the developer sold once before, where that sale did not settle. A home that fell back into a developer's stock after a failed settlement therefore stays on the new side of the line.

The 12-month test is counted in total occupation, not from the date of completion. An apartment completed a year or two ago that has been lived in for a few months can still be near-new; one that has been lived in for more than a year in total is an established dwelling, however modern it looks.

Vacant land has a precise meaning as well. The office describes it as land with no substantive permanent building on it that can be lawfully occupied by persons, goods or livestock, and adds that it is generally land that has not previously had an established dwelling on it. A block with an old house on it is not vacant land for these purposes; it falls to be looked at as an established dwelling, bought for redevelopment or not at all.

The company category is narrow. It covers foreign companies that employ workers from Pacific island countries and Timor-Leste and must provide them with housing, including participants in the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme.

Temporary residents keep access to the same open types as other foreign persons: the office confirms that they can still apply for approval to buy vacant land or new dwellings. Commercial real estate, agricultural land, water interests, business interests and mining are governed by separate rules that this guide does not cover.

The exceptions, and what the sources leave unsaid

Two groups of exceptions sit behind the phrase "unless an exception applies". The first is carried over from the existing rules: according to the Australian Taxation Office, existing exemptions remain for purchases by permanent residents and New Zealand citizens. The second belongs to the ban itself: limited exceptions will include investments that significantly increase housing supply or support the availability of housing supply. Redevelopment of an established dwelling and housing for Pacific workers, both in the table above, are listed by the office among the property types still open to a foreign person; its page does not say whether they are the supply exceptions meant.

Several details that a buyer or an agent would want are not on the pages read for this guide, and they are left open here.

• The full list of exceptions and the legal instrument that sets them out.
• The conditions attached to redevelopment, and any deadline for building on vacant land.
• The special rules for temporary residents who bought or were approved before 1 April 2025.
• The penalties for buying in breach of the ban.

Each of these depends on the facts of the purchase and on the approval a buyer is given.

Approval comes before the purchase

The second rule is procedural. Treasury states that investors must apply for approval before purchasing residential real estate or land in Australia. A fee is payable when an investor seeks a no objection notification, or applies for an exemption certificate or a variation.

The Australian Taxation Office describes the fee from the buyer's side. One is payable on applying for approval to purchase a residential property or for an exemption certificate, on applying to vary an existing approval, and on lodging a vacancy fee return where a vacancy fee is due. Application fees are generally based on the value of the property and are charged "per action". They are indexed each financial year on 1 July, so the amounts in this guide are those for 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027 and are due to change after that.

Two practical points follow from the sources. Fee waivers and remissions exist, but the office says they are granted only in very limited circumstances, and it does not list the criteria on its fees page. And the way of paying has narrowed: according to Treasury, from 19 September 2026 it no longer accepts foreign investment fee payments by credit or debit card. The options are BPAY, direct deposit and international bank transfer. The pages read do not say whether an application is processed before the fee is received, nor whether a fee is refunded if a purchase does not go ahead.

The 2026-27 fee scale

There are two scales, one for new or near-new dwellings and vacant residential land, and one for established dwellings. Each works in bands of property value. The table gives the main bands; the Australian Taxation Office publishes every band up to A$40 million.

The scale is a staircase, not a percentage. From the A$2 million band upwards, each further A$1 million of value adds A$31,300 to the fee for a new dwelling or vacant land, until the top band is reached above A$40 million. A staircase has edges, and they matter. As a worked example on the published bands, a new apartment bought for exactly A$1 million carries a fee of A$15,600, while one bought for A$1,000,001 falls in the next band at A$31,300. One dollar of price moves the fee by A$15,700.

Because the fee is fixed within a band, its weight differs from one purchase to the next. Take two illustrative purchases of new dwellings. On a price of A$850,000 the fee is A$15,600, about 1.8 per cent of the price. On a price of A$1.95 million the fee is A$31,300, about 1.6 per cent. These are examples computed from the scale, not market figures, and they leave out every other cost of buying.

The established dwelling scale is three times the other one in the bands shown: A$46,800 against A$15,600 up to A$1 million, A$93,900 against A$31,300 up to A$2 million. While the ban runs, that scale only concerns the purchases that fit an exception. A company housing Pacific workers in an existing house valued at A$1.5 million, to take an illustrative case, would be in the A$93,900 band, A$62,600 more than the fee on a new dwelling of the same value.

Shared ownership, variations and developers' certificates

Three situations change the amount a buyer pays.

Tenants in common. The fee follows the share. According to the Australian Taxation Office, a foreign person buying as a tenant in common pays the percentage of the total fee that equals their percentage of ownership. Its own example is a 25 per cent interest in a A$1.5 million new dwelling: the full fee for that value is A$31,300, and the buyer pays A$7,825. The same arithmetic on another illustrative case, a 40 per cent interest in a new dwelling of A$900,000, gives 40 per cent of A$15,600, or A$6,240.

Variations. An approval can be changed after it is given, at a price. In 2026-27 a simple variation, meaning an immaterial or minor one, costs A$4,600, and a complex variation costs A$31,300. Both are capped at the fee originally paid where that was lower. The office illustrates the cap with a complex variation requested in November 2026 on an approval for which A$15,100 had been paid: the variation fee is A$15,100, not A$31,300.

Developers' certificates. A developer can apply for a New or near-new dwelling exemption certificate, which lets it sell dwellings in a project to foreign persons without each buyer applying individually. The initial fee for an application made in 2026-27 is A$67,400. The developer must then report its sales of new or near-new dwellings every 6 months and pay a separate fee for each dwelling sold to a foreign person under the certificate. The office's fees page does not state the amount of that per-sale fee.

How the vacancy fee works

The third rule lasts as long as the ownership does. A foreign owner of a dwelling must tell the Australian Taxation Office once a year how the dwelling was used, and pays a vacancy fee if it was vacant for 183 days, or 6 months, or more in that year.

The obligation to lodge a return applies to anyone who made a foreign investment application for residential property after 7:30pm AEST on 9 May 2017, and to anyone who bought under a developer's exemption certificate applied for after that time. It applies while the person owns the dwelling and remains a foreign person.

The year in question is not the calendar year or the financial year. The office calls it the vacancy year: each successive 12-month period starting on the dwelling's occupation day, for as long as the owner continuously holds an interest in it. The occupation day is typically the day of settlement for an established dwelling, or the day a fitness-for-occupancy certificate is issued for a new one. Every dwelling therefore has its own year.

The amount comes from the application fee. For vacancy years starting from 9 April 2024, the vacancy fee is double the foreign investment application fee that was paid. Earlier vacancy years are charged at the application fee itself. The office's example is a townhouse settled on 1 August 2022 with an application fee of A$13,200: for the vacancy years ending 31 July 2023 and 31 July 2024 the fee is A$13,200, and for the year from 1 August 2024 to 31 July 2025 it is A$26,400.

On current amounts, the office gives A$62,600 as the vacancy fee that goes with a A$31,300 application fee. The chart applies the same doubling to an illustrative property valued at A$1.5 million, as a new dwelling and as an established dwelling bought under an exception.

Other cases have their own base. Where a dwelling was bought under a developer's exemption certificate, the vacancy fee is based on the application fee that would have applied without the certificate. Where the application fee was waived, it is based on the lowest application fee that would have been payable. Joint tenants pay one fee between them. For tenants in common, the fee is based on each owner's own application fee: the buyer in the earlier illustration who paid A$6,240 for a 40 per cent share would face a vacancy fee of A$12,480 for a year in which the dwelling counted as vacant.

Counting the 183 days

A dwelling is residentially occupied, in the office's words, if at least 183 days of the vacancy year fall under one of three headings.

1. The owner, or a relative of the owner, genuinely lived in the dwelling.
2. The dwelling was genuinely occupied under a lease or licence with a term of at least 30 days.
3. The dwelling was genuinely available on the rental market, for terms of at least 30 days.

The days do not have to be continuous. They can be added up across several periods. A dwelling does not need a tenant to pass, provided it was genuinely available, and the office gives that phrase three parts: the dwelling is on the rental market, advertised publicly and offered at market rent.

Short stays are the trap. Stays of under 30 days, including those booked through web-based stay sites, do not count as residential occupancy, and the office says such dwellings can attract the fee. Two worked examples show the difference. In the first, a new apartment is let on a lease for 150 days and, once the tenant leaves, advertised publicly at market rent for 40 days before the owner's family moves in. The lease and the advertised period give 190 qualifying days, which is over 183. In the second, an apartment is booked for 200 nights through a short-stay site, a few nights at a time, and the owner's relative lives in it for 60 days. Only the 60 days count, and the dwelling is treated as vacant for the year even though it was rarely empty.

There is one more restriction for the group caught by the ban's history. Established dwellings that were bought as a principal place of residence cannot be rented or leased, the office states, and must be genuinely occupied by the foreign owner or their family. For those owners the rental headings are not available; occupation by the owner or the family is the only route to the 183 days.

No fee is payable where the owner shows that the dwelling could not be lived in for at least 183 days of the vacancy year. The office lists four situations: the dwelling was damaged, unsafe or otherwise unsuitable; it was undergoing substantial repairs or renovations; a court, a tribunal or a law prohibited or restricted occupation; or a usual occupant was away in long-term in-patient, medical or residential care. Supporting evidence may be requested, and the return must be lodged all the same.

Lodging the return and paying

The return is lodged once a year, through the office's Online services for foreign investors, by the owner or a representative. The sequence is short.

The 30 days for lodging start on the day after the vacancy year ends. The office's example is a vacancy year running from 5 October 2022 to 4 October 2023, with the return due by 3 November 2023. On the same count, an illustrative new dwelling whose occupancy certificate was issued on 1 September 2025 has a first vacancy year ending on 31 August 2026 and a first return due by 30 September 2026.

Who lodges depends on how the title is held. Joint tenants lodge one return for the dwelling. Tenants in common each lodge their own. Where several dwellings are built on one parcel, there is a return for each. No return is needed for vacant land while no dwelling has been built on it; once one is built, the owner must give the office the occupancy date before lodging a first return.

Owners are also expected to keep their details up to date during the year. The office lists the changes it wants to hear about: the owner is no longer a foreign person, the ownership changes, the owner dies, the land has no dwelling or construction is incomplete, or a new dwelling is finished and its occupancy certificate received. A return is not required after the dwelling is sold or otherwise legally transferred, or once the owner is no longer a foreign investor, but the details must still be updated.

Records relevant to the vacancy fee must be kept for at least 5 years after the end of each vacancy year. The office does not list the documents it expects, but it says evidence of occupancy may be asked for. The amounts of the infringement notices and civil penalties are not stated on the pages read.

What it changes for vendors, agents and buyers

For a vendor of an existing house or apartment, the ban narrows the field of possible buyers: a foreign person, including a temporary resident who wanted the home to live in, cannot buy it unless an exception applies. The Australian Taxation Office does not publish, on the pages read, how many buyers that removes, and no figure is suggested here.

For a developer or an agent selling new stock, the definitions decide the audience. A dwelling that has not been occupied for more than 12 months in total, or one that returns to the developer after a sale that failed to settle, can still be offered to a foreign person with approval. Past the 12-month mark it is an established dwelling and inside the ban.

For a foreign buyer, the cost of approval can be read from the scale in advance, and so can the cost of leaving the home empty: double the application fee, for each vacancy year in which the 183-day test is not met.

One caution applies to every reader. The amounts in this guide are those of 2026-27 and are indexed again on 1 July. The end date of the ban is the one announced in the 2026-27 Budget, and whether it has been legislated was not confirmed. Both depend on the Australian Taxation Office's current pages and, for a given purchase, on the terms of the approval itself.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

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