Victoria · Land tax
VIC land tax calculator
Your Victorian land tax for 2026 from the total site value of your taxable land, at general or trust rates.
2026 tax year rates · verified against the official sources.
Your tally
Annual land tax
$3,450
That's an effective 0.43% of your taxable land value, each year.
How it’s made up
The same $800,000 elsewhere (individual rates, no surcharges): NSW nil · QLD $2,500 · WA $1,250 · SA nil · TAS $6,238 · ACT (one property) $9,898 · NT none. Compare every state.
Estimate for standard holdings. Exemptions (home, primary production and others), joint ownership and grouping rules change the result — confirm with SRO Victoria.
The lowest tax-free threshold of any state: $50,000, for the 2024 to 2033 land tax years.
The COVID Debt Repayment Plan cut Victoria’s tax-free threshold from $300,000 to $50,000 and added flat charges of $500 ($50k–$100k of land) and $975 ($100k+), plus 0.1 percentage points on rates above $300,000. The Act sets those rates for the 2024 to 2033 land tax years, with the $300,000 threshold written back in from 2034 — until then a single modest investment unit’s land share can be enough to be taxed.
How Victoria land tax works
This land tax calculator for Victoria works out your annual bill for the 2026 tax year — assessed on the land you owned at midnight 31 December 2025 — using the SRO schedules that apply for 2024–2033, including the COVID debt levy and the trust surcharge rates.
Land tax in Victoria is an annual tax on the total site value of everything taxable you owned at midnight 31 December — the 2026 tax year looks at 31 December 2025. Site value is the land alone (it is on your council rates notice), your principal place of residence is exempt, and primary production land generally is too. What is left — rentals, holiday houses, commercial land, vacant blocks — is added together and taxed on one schedule.
Since 2024 the schedule has carried the COVID debt levy: a $500 flat charge from $50,000, $975 from $100,000, then marginal rates from 0.3% to 2.65% above $3m. Land held on trust pays a separate, higher schedule from a $25,000 threshold until the two converge at $3m. Absentee owners add 4% of their entire taxable value on top.
VIC land tax — general rates
| Taxable value | Land tax |
|---|---|
| Under $50,000 | Nil |
| $50,000 – <$100,000 | $500 flat |
| $100,000 – <$300,000 | $975 flat |
| $300,000 – <$600,000 | $1,350 + 0.3% of the amount over $300,000 |
| $600,000 – <$1,000,000 | $2,250 + 0.6% of the amount over $600,000 |
| $1,000,000 – <$1,800,000 | $4,650 + 0.9% of the amount over $1,000,000 |
| $1,800,000 – <$3,000,000 | $11,850 + 1.65% of the amount over $1,800,000 |
| $3,000,000 and over | $31,650 + 2.65% of the amount over $3,000,000 |
2024–2033 schedule, COVID debt levy included.
VIC land tax — trust surcharge rates
| Taxable value | Land tax |
|---|---|
| Under $25,000 | Nil |
| $25,000 – <$50,000 | $82 + 0.375% of the amount over $25,000 |
| $50,000 – <$100,000 | $676 + 0.375% of the amount over $50,000 |
| $100,000 – <$250,000 | $1,338 + 0.375% of the amount over $100,000 |
| $250,000 – <$600,000 | $1,901 + 0.675% of the amount over $250,000 |
| $600,000 – <$1,000,000 | $4,263 + 0.975% of the amount over $600,000 |
| $1,000,000 – <$1,800,000 | $8,163 + 1.275% of the amount over $1,000,000 |
| $1,800,000 – <$3,000,000 | $18,363 + 1.1072% of the amount over $1,800,000 |
| $3,000,000 and over | $31,650 + 2.65% of the amount over $3,000,000 |
Land held on trust; converges with general rates at $3m.
Land tax in VIC — quick answers by value
Annual land tax at each taxable value, computed by the same tested engine as the calculator:
| Taxable land value | General rates | Trust rates |
|---|---|---|
| $50,000 | $500 | $676 |
| $100,000 | $975 | $1,338 |
| $300,000 | $1,350 | $2,239 |
| $500,000 | $1,950 | $3,589 |
| $800,000 | $3,450 | $6,213 |
| $1,000,000 | $4,650 | $8,163 |
| $2,000,000 | $15,150 | $20,577 |
| $3,000,000 | $31,650 | $31,650 |
Worked examples
- One investment unit with a $90,000 land share: flat charge of $500 a year — this owner paid nothing before 2024.
- An investor with $800,000 of site value: $2,250 + 0.6% × $200,000 = $3,450 a year.
- The same land held on trust: $4,263 + 0.975% × $200,000 = $6,213 a year.
- An absentee owner of $1,000,000 of land: $4,650 general + $40,000 surcharge = $44,650 a year.
How to reduce land tax in Victoria, legally
Start with what does not work. Splitting land between names, companies or trusts in order to cut land tax is what the Act’s anti-avoidance rules are written for: if the Commissioner finds a scheme with that purpose, it can simply be disregarded. What works is using the exemptions as the Act writes them, and staying out of the charges that add to the bill.
Your home. Your principal place of residence is exempt, but generally only one home at a time anywhere in Australia, only with a dwelling on the land, and never for a company or a discretionary trust. Three timing rules settle most cases. Buy on or after 1 July and move in after 31 December, and the State Revenue Office can defer the tax while you complete six months there. Buy your next home before selling the old one, and both can be exempt for one land tax year, provided neither earns income, you move into the new home within 12 months of buying it and live there for at least six months, and you no longer own the old one by the end of that year. A seller stays the owner until the buyer has taken possession and paid at least 15% of the price, so a sale that has not reached that point by then can cost the old home its exemption. Build on vacant land, and the exemption can run for up to four tax years, but only if you apply for it. While you live in the home, a granny flat you let out is taxed on its part of the land only, and so is the business part of a home with substantial business activity.
Moving out. A home you leave temporarily can stay exempt for up to six years, but only if the land earns no income at all in the year before, not even from a part of it. Renting it out ends the land tax concession, even though the capital gains six-year rule lets you rent for six years: the two rules are different, and this is where people get caught.
Timing, not a loophole. There is no first-year exemption. Land tax is worked out on what you own at midnight on 31 December, so land you buy in March is not yours in that year’s assessment, the seller pays the whole year, and on a sale under $10.7 million (the threshold from 1 January 2026, indexed each year) the seller cannot pass it on to you in the contract.
The add-ons. A family trust usually raises Victorian land tax rather than cutting it: trust land is taxed from $25,000 at the surcharge rates, unless a fixed trust notifies its beneficiaries or the trust nominates a beneficiary who lives in the home. The 4% absentee surcharge does not apply to Australian citizens or permanent residents living overseas. And a home that is lived in for six months of the year or less (exactly six is not enough) can attract vacant residential land tax anywhere in the state outside the alpine resorts since 2025, at 1% of its capital improved value rising to 3%. The two exemptions an owner is most likely to use both need a principal place of residence elsewhere in Australia: one holiday home per owner, used by you or your relatives for at least four weeks of the year (a company or trust qualifies only if it has held the land since 28 November 2023), or a home you use for at least 140 days of the year to attend a Victorian workplace. A holiday home still pays ordinary land tax.
The dates matter as much as the rules. Tell the SRO about a vacant home before 15 February and about absentee status before 15 January, and object to an assessment within 60 days, or to the valuation within 2 months. The $50,000 threshold is written into the Act for the 2024 to 2033 land tax years; from 2034 the $300,000 tax-free threshold returns.
Sources: Land Tax Act 2005 (Vic), authorised version 086 (amendments to 1 May 2026), and the State Revenue Office’s land tax pages, read 4 October 2026.
Land tax is one line of the annual holding picture — the negative gearing calculator shows the after-tax cost of the whole thing, since land tax is generally deductible against rent. Buying? The LMI calculator covers mortgage insurance over 80% LVR, and the CGT calculator covers the day you eventually sell.
Frequently asked questions
What is the land tax threshold in Victoria for 2026?
How much is land tax on $100,000 of land in Victoria?
How is land tax calculated in Victoria?
Who pays land tax in Victoria?
How can I reduce land tax in Victoria legally?
Do I pay land tax on my home in Victoria?
What is the absentee owner surcharge?
Why are trusts taxed more in Victoria?
Is vacant residential land tax the same thing?
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Sources
Prefer the method itself? See how to calculate land tax. Rates last verified 2026-08-28 for the 2026 land tax year. General information only — not financial, legal or tax advice.