Victorian Stamp Duty in 2026: What Buyers in Melbourne's West Actually Pay
Stamp duty is the single largest upfront cost most Victorian buyers face outside the deposit itself, and in Melbourne's west it can be the difference between buying this spring and buying next year. As at August 2026, first home buyers pay no land transfer duty at all up to $600,000 and a sliding concession up to $750,000 — thresholds that land right on top of the median house price in Tarneit, Werribee and Wyndham Vale. Get the number wrong and your savings plan is out by tens of thousands. Here is exactly how the rules work, and where the local medians sit against them.
What is stamp duty in Victoria and when do you pay it?
Land transfer duty — almost everyone still calls it stamp duty — is a state tax charged by the Victorian State Revenue Office when property changes hands. It is calculated on the dutiable value of the property, which is normally the purchase price or the market value, whichever is higher.
Two things about the timing catch buyers out. First, duty is payable at settlement, not at auction and not when your loan is approved. Second, and more importantly, lenders will not lend you the money to pay it. Duty has to come out of your own funds alongside your deposit, so it sits squarely in the cash you need to have saved before you can settle.
That is why the thresholds matter so much. A buyer at $595,000 and a buyer at $780,000 are not $185,000 apart in cash terms — they are $185,000 apart on price plus the full duty bill on the second property, because the concession has cut out entirely by then.
The first home buyer exemption and concession in 2026
As at August 2026, Victoria's first home buyer duty relief works on two thresholds:
- Up to $600,000: a full exemption. You pay zero land transfer duty.
- $600,001 to $750,000: a sliding concession. The discount tapers down as the price rises toward $750,000.
- Above $750,000: no first home buyer exemption or concession is available. Duty is charged at the general rates.
Unlike the First Home Owner Grant, this relief applies to both new and established homes. A never-lived-in townhouse in Truganina and a thirty-year-old brick veneer in Hoppers Crossing are treated the same way for duty purposes, provided you meet the first home buyer eligibility rules and move in as your principal place of residence.
The taper between $600,000 and $750,000 is the part worth planning around. Because the concession shrinks as the price climbs, every dollar of purchase price in that band costs you more than a dollar in total outlay. Negotiating a contract from $612,000 down to $598,000 is not a $14,000 saving — it is a $14,000 saving plus whatever duty you were going to owe.
Where Melbourne's west sits against the $600,000 and $750,000 lines
This is where the thresholds stop being abstract. Median house prices across Wyndham for the June quarter 2026 sat at:
- Wyndham Vale: $610,000
- Tarneit: $670,000, down about 1% on the quarter
- Werribee: $680,000, down about 0.4%
- Point Cook: $855,000, down about 1.7%
Hoppers Crossing sat at $721,000 as at the March 2026 quarter. Across the Wyndham LGA, houses recorded average growth of around 4.2% over the twelve months to March 2026, and the corridor as a whole still sits several hundred thousand dollars below Melbourne's overall median house price of roughly $1.17 million.
Read those figures against the thresholds and a clear picture emerges. A median-priced house in Wyndham Vale, Tarneit or Werribee falls inside the $600,000–$750,000 concession band, so a first home buyer gets meaningful — though partial — duty relief. Hoppers Crossing at $721,000 is still inside the band, but only just. Point Cook at $855,000 is well clear of it: a first home buyer there pays full general-rate duty with no concession at all.
That single fact reshapes a lot of shortlists. Two buyers with identical savings can end up with very different borrowing positions depending on which suburb they focus on, because in one case duty is a partial cost and in the other it is a full one. Running the numbers through our borrowing capacity calculator before you set a suburb shortlist, rather than after, tends to save a lot of wasted weekends.
The $10,000 First Home Owner Grant: new homes only
Separate from duty relief, Victoria's First Home Owner Grant remains a $10,000 payment for eligible first home buyers, and it was confirmed to continue in the 2026–27 Victorian Budget. The rules are narrower than the duty concession:
- The home must be newly constructed or never occupied. Established homes do not qualify.
- The property must be valued at up to $750,000.
- You must move in as your home, not buy it as an investment.
The practical consequence is that a buyer purchasing an established house in Werribee at $680,000 gets the duty concession but no grant, while a buyer of a new townhouse at the same price in Tarneit or Truganina can potentially get both. In the western growth corridor, where new estates and established stock sit side by side at similar prices, that $10,000 gap is worth checking before you sign anything.
The off-the-plan concession, now extended to April 2027
Victoria's expanded off-the-plan duty concession was due to end on 20 October 2026. In the 2026–27 Victorian State Budget handed down on 5 May 2026, the government extended it to 20 April 2027.
Two features make this concession unusually broad:
- There is no property value threshold. It applies to apartments, units and townhouses of any value.
- It is not limited to first home buyers or owner-occupiers. Investors, companies and trusts can use it too.
The mechanism is a 100% deduction of outstanding construction and refurbishment costs when working out the dutiable value. Because you buy before the build is finished, duty is assessed on a much smaller base than the contract price.
The important limitation: the concession applies to properties in a strata subdivision with common property. That means apartments, units and townhouses in a strata plan. A standalone house-and-land package that is not part of a strata subdivision does not qualify, which rules out a large share of the traditional new-estate product across Melbourne's west. If you are weighing a townhouse against a house-and-land package, the duty treatment can differ substantially even at the same price.
For a first home buyer, the off-the-plan concession and the first home buyer duty relief can stack, which is why off-the-plan townhouses can be surprisingly efficient on upfront cost.
What everyone else pays: the general duty rates
If you are not a first home buyer, or you are buying above $750,000, duty is charged under Victoria's general rate table. It runs across five brackets, from $1.40 per $100 of dutiable value at the bottom end up to $6.50 per $100 at the top.
One bracket deserves specific attention because it behaves differently. For dutiable values between $960,000 and $2,000,000, duty is charged as a flat 5.5% of the entire value — not as a marginal rate applied only to the portion above $960,000. On a $1,000,000 purchase, that is $55,000 payable at settlement.
Upgraders moving from the outer west into a larger home closer to the city are most often caught by this. The step from a $900,000 purchase into a $1,000,000 one carries a duty jump far larger than the price difference alone suggests, so model the total settlement cost at a few price points before committing to a bracket.
Budgeting for the real upfront cost
Duty is one line in a settlement budget, not the whole thing. A realistic Victorian purchase also carries conveyancing or legal fees, building and pest inspections, lender application or valuation fees, title registration and transfer fees, and moving costs. Lenders mortgage insurance sits on top where your deposit is under 20% and no guarantee applies.
On that last point, the federal 5% Deposit Scheme — the program previously known as the First Home Guarantee — continues under its October 2025 settings as at August 2026, with no income caps, no place limits, and a Victorian capital price cap of $950,000. Eligible first home buyers can buy with a 5% deposit without paying LMI. No changes were announced in the 2026 federal budget. That $950,000 cap comfortably covers the median house in every Wyndham suburb listed above, including Point Cook. We have compared this scheme against the alternatives in detail in our guide to the First Home Guarantee and Help to Buy.
The rate environment shapes what you do with the money left over. The RBA held the cash rate at 4.35% on 11 August 2026, its second consecutive hold, and Governor Michele Bullock declined to rule out further increases. The next Monetary Policy Board meeting is in late September 2026. Meanwhile the spread between lenders remains wide: as at August 2026 the lowest advertised owner-occupier variable rates start from around 5.69% p.a., roughly a dozen lenders sit below 6%, the lowest big four variable is about 5.99% p.a., and the average variable rate is around 6.92%. The gap between the average and the sharpest available rates is worth more, over a loan term, than most upfront concessions.
Once you have a duty figure and a target price, our loan repayment calculator will show you what the remaining borrowing actually costs each month at different rates. Brokio compares more than 40 lenders, and on most home loans there is no cost to you for our service because we are paid a commission by the lender.
Frequently asked questions
Do first home buyers pay stamp duty in Victoria?
Not on purchases up to $600,000 — that is a full exemption as at August 2026. Between $600,001 and $750,000 a sliding concession applies, reducing as the price rises. Above $750,000 there is no first home buyer exemption or concession and duty is charged at the general rates.
Does the Victorian first home buyer concession apply to established homes?
Yes. The duty exemption and concession apply to both new and established properties, provided you meet the first home buyer criteria and live in the home. The $10,000 First Home Owner Grant is different — it is limited to newly constructed or never-occupied homes valued up to $750,000.
Has the off-the-plan stamp duty concession ended?
No. It was due to expire on 20 October 2026, but the 2026–27 Victorian State Budget of 5 May 2026 extended it to 20 April 2027. It is open to all purchasers, has no property value threshold, and applies to strata-subdivided apartments, units and townhouses rather than standalone house-and-land packages.
When do I have to pay stamp duty?
At settlement, and from your own funds — lenders generally will not finance it. Budget for it alongside your deposit and other settlement costs rather than treating it as something the loan will cover.
Important information
This article is general information only and is current as at August 2026. It does not take into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs, and is not personal financial, credit, taxation or legal advice. Duty rates, thresholds, grant and scheme rules, concession end dates and lender policies change frequently — confirm current figures with the Victorian State Revenue Office, Housing Australia and individual lenders before acting. Median price figures are quarterly market data and are not a valuation of any individual property. All loan applications are subject to the lender's normal credit assessment and approval, and eligibility criteria apply. Consider seeking advice tailored to your personal circumstances before making financial decisions.