Stamp duty in South Australia

In South Australia the tax on buying a home is called stamp duty, and RevenueSA collects it. After the price itself it is the largest single cost of the purchase. The table below is computed from the state's rate bands by the same code as the library calculator, so the two cannot disagree.

How duty is worked out in South Australia

Duty is worked out on a sliding scale. The price is split into brackets, each with its own rate, so the effective rate climbs with the price. RevenueSA publishes the brackets on its rate of stamp duty page. They were not opened from this environment and are not restated here.

No annual indexation rule was found. Changes arrive through the State Budget: the 2024-25 Budget rewrote first-home relief from 6 June 2024, and the prior-ownership test changed for contracts from 13 February 2025.

The official tool is the RevenueSA stamp duty calculator, which also works out relief for eligible first home buyers. No general principal-place-of-residence concession for other buyers was found.

First home buyers

For contracts on or after 6 June 2024, an eligible first home buyer pays no duty on a new home or an off-the-plan apartment. The same applies to vacant land to build on and to a house-and-land package. There is no property value cap.

RevenueSA states that relief is not available on the purchase of an established home, meaning one already built and previously occupied or sold as a residence. Nor is relief available for a property intended solely as an investment or a holiday home.

The relief is conditional on the eligibility tests, which RevenueSA applies.

• Prior ownership. For contracts from 13 February 2025, a buyer is not eligible if they, or their spouse or domestic partner, own or have ever owned residential property in Australia. A property never lived in still counts.
• Residence. All applicants must live in the home as their principal place of residence for a continuous six months. The period starts within 12 months of settlement, or when a home on vacant land is ready to occupy.
• Age and status. Each applicant must be at least 18. At least one must be an Australian citizen or permanent resident, or a New Zealand citizen permanently residing in Australia on a Special Category Visa.

Applications go through RevenueSA's how-to-apply page.

Duty at a glance

State/territory transfer-duty rate bands — NSW on the 2026–27 scale (the tiers from $387,000 and premium duty read on Revenue NSW 15 Sep 2026; the three tiers below reconstructed from the published base amount), VIC and SA schedules verified against the revenue office 15 Sep 2026, NT top rates per the Territory Revenue Office 15 Sep 2026, ACT first band from 1 Jul 2025 with the upper bands unverified; first-home-buyer concessions as published for 2026–27 (checked 6 Sep 2026). First-home-buyer figures assume you meet the relevant eligibility conditions, which the report does not verify: you (and any co-buyer) are an individual who has not previously owned property in Australia, you are an Australian citizen or permanent resident, you intend to move in and live there for the required period, and you meet any state price, contract-date, residency or income tests that apply. Confirm eligibility with the relevant state revenue office before relying on these figures. Where a concession phases out between two thresholds the calculator approximates it as a straight line; the revenue office calculator applies the statutory formula.

The standard column steps up through the brackets and the effective rate rises with the price. The established-home column matches it at every price, because there is no first-home relief on an established home. The new-home column is nil throughout, because the relief for eligible buyers has had no value cap since 6 June 2024.

Other concessions and surcharges

RevenueSA's calculator page names two further forms of relief: seniors downsizing relief, and ex gratia relief for victim-survivors of family, domestic or sexual violence. Seniors downsizing relief is for buyers aged 60 or over who sell their principal place of residence and move to a newly built home, an off-the-plan apartment or vacant land to build on with a smaller land size, for contracts from 25 March 2026; the ex gratia scheme covers a victim-survivor building or buying another home under a contract from 4 June 2026. Both came with the 2026-27 State Budget, and the calculator does not yet compute either.

A foreign ownership surcharge applies to foreign purchasers; since the 2024-25 Budget a first-home transfer carries no relief from it. The calculator covers the surcharge for contracts before 13 February 2025; for later contracts the full surcharge is payable, and the calculator does not compute it.

What the figure leaves out

Registering the transfer carries a lodgement fee and a transaction fee. Land Services SA's property transfer fee calculator adds them; this table does not. A mortgage carries its own registration fee. conveyancing and a building and pest inspection are quoted separately. Land tax, where it applies, is an annual charge, not a purchase cost.

Checking the figure

The RevenueSA calculator is the official one. The library calculator set to South Australia uses the bands behind the table above. A Property Decision Report for one property includes duty in its purchase-cost figure.