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Your fee · The ATO’s rules

Quantity surveyor cost

The fee is your quote and it is tax deductible — enter it to see when the depreciation report pays for itself.

Example figure — replace it with your quote.

Don’t know it? It is what the building cost to build — never the price you paid, and never the land. Working it out is the report’s job — the ATO accepts an estimate from a quantity surveyor or another qualified estimator — and if you had it built, your building contract shows it. The break-even beside the result tells you whether the report is worth ordering without it.

The 40 years run from completion whoever owned it. Use 0 for a new build.

Year one

Tax saved in year one

$4,625

Against a $441 fee after its own deduction — recovered within the first year’s claim.

Don’t know the construction cost? At your fee and tax rate, the report pays for itself in year one on any building begun after 15 September 1987 that cost more than about $47,700 to build.

What the schedule finds

Capital works, apportioned$12,500
Fittings, first year$0
Capital works left to claim$375,000
The fee, after deducting it$441
Deduction in year one$12,500
Where the year-one deduction comes from

A breakdown of the first-year deduction into the apportioned capital works claim on the building and the decline in value on fittings, where fittings are claimable at all.

Fittings are excluded on an established purchase, so this is the building only.

Next: what the claim does to the weekly cost of holding the property → Negative gearing calculator

The surveyor’s fee is a market quote: the field starts on an example figure for you to replace, and no average is asserted. Rates and tests are the ATO’s. Construction before 16 September 1987 attracts a different rate or none, and this tool returns no rate rather than guessing — the property depreciation calculator works it out from the dates. Payback assumes every later year is rented or available in full, with the fittings at the same full-year figure. General information only — not tax advice.

The test that decides whether the fee is worth paying

The fee is a quote, and it comes back faster than its sticker price suggests because it is deductible. What decides the payback is whether the report will find anything: on a second-hand purchase the fittings half of the claim usually does not exist, and that single test decides whether the fee comes back in months or never.

A schedule has two halves. The building — capital works — is claimable at 2.5% a year for 40 years from completion where residential construction started after 15 September 1987, and that half survives almost any purchase for whatever is left of the 40 years. The fittings are the half that often does not.

The ATO allows decline in value on new depreciating assets. That extends to assets that came with a newly built or substantially renovated property, but only where nobody was previously entitled to claim on them and either nobody lived there before you, or you acquired the property within six months of the building or renovation work.

Buy an established house on a contract signed after 7:30 pm on 9 May 2017 and you fail that. The dishwasher, the carpet and the blinds are somebody else’s used assets, and no schedule can conjure a deduction for them. It does not make the report pointless — the building claim is untouched — but it does change the payback, which is why the tick box above is the most important field on the page, and why it comes first.

The fee is deductible; the depreciation follows the days

The two behave differently in a year the property is not yet rented or on the market. The ATO’s Rental properties 2026 guide says the cost of engaging an appropriately qualified person to estimate construction costs is deductible in the income year you incur it, and is claimed at D10, Cost of managing tax affairs — so the calculator nets the fee down whatever the days field says.

The depreciation is apportioned. Capital works are claimable only for the part of the year the property was used to produce income, and the same guide rules out deductions where a property was not rented or available for rent on commercial terms. A year with no such days claims nothing on either half, so the report is still worth getting early — it simply starts paying back from the first year the property is available.

Apportionment, and the trap in year one

The deduction follows the days the property was rented or genuinely available, not the days you owned it. The ATO’s own example takes a townhouse with a $500,000 construction cost, computes $12,500 for a full year at 2.5%, and then reduces it to $4,178 because the property was only available for 122 days of that year.

So a schedule bought in May will not return anything like a full year’s benefit in that first return. It returns it in the second and each year after, until 40 years from completion — and on an established home some of those years were used up before you bought it, so the calculator counts only what is left.

It is a deferral, not a gift

Capital works deductions you claimed or can claim come off the property’s cost base, so the capital gain is larger when you sell. You are moving tax from now to later rather than removing it.

That is still usually worth doing — money now is worth more than the same money in a decade, and the gain may attract the discount — but it belongs in the decision. If you are selling in two years, the sums look very different from holding for twenty.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a quantity surveyor cost?
It is a quoted professional fee with no published schedule, so no average is printed here — put the quote you were given into the tool and it will tell you how long it takes to earn itself back. Worth knowing before you compare quotes: the fee is deductible, so the sticker price is not the real cost. At a 37% marginal rate a $700 report costs you $441, which the calculator nets off before working out the payback.
Is the surveyor's fee itself tax deductible?
Yes. The ATO's Rental properties 2026 guide lists quantity surveyor's fees among the expenses you can claim an immediate deduction for, and says the cost of having a qualified person estimate construction costs is deductible in the income year you pay it, claimed at D10 Cost of managing tax affairs. Do not confuse it with the other surveyor's fees in the same guide: its Example 6 has buyers paying $350 in surveyor's fees on the transfer of the property, and says plainly that they are not deductible against rental income — they go into the cost base instead. Same word, opposite treatment.
Does it have to be a quantity surveyor?
No. Where you cannot precisely determine construction expenditure, the ATO accepts an estimate from an appropriately qualified person, and names a clerk of works, a supervising architect who approves payments at project stages, and a builder experienced in estimating costs on similar projects — as well as a quantity surveyor. It is cautious about others: unless they are otherwise qualified, valuers, real estate agents, accountants and solicitors generally have neither the qualifications nor the experience, so ask what qualifies the person before relying on their figure.
What if the property is not rented yet?
Then the fee and the depreciation part company. Say you settle in mid-June, paint through July and first advertise it in August: the report you paid for in June is still deductible in the year to 30 June, because the 2026 guide makes the cost of a construction-cost estimate deductible in the year you incur it. The building and the fittings are not — they follow the days rented or available for rent, and that year had none. Set the days field to zero and the calculator still nets the fee down, shows nothing claimed in year one, and works out the payback from the following year.
What is a depreciation schedule actually claiming?
Two separate things that behave differently. Capital works is the building itself — for residential construction that started after 15 September 1987, 2.5% of the construction cost each year for 40 years from completion, so a home finished 15 years before you bought it has 25 of them left. Plant and equipment is the removable stuff: the dishwasher, the carpet, the blinds, each declining over its own effective life. The first is a flat claim until its years run out; the second is the one that often is not available at all.
Can I claim depreciation on a second-hand apartment?
The building, generally yes, for whatever is left of its 40 years. The fittings turn on when you signed. The ATO allows decline in value on new depreciating assets, including those bought with a newly built or substantially renovated property where nobody was previously entitled to the deduction and either nobody lived there before you, or you bought within six months of the work. An ordinary established purchase made after 7:30 pm on 9 May 2017 fails that and loses the plant half of the claim. One signed before then keeps it, over what is left of each item's effective life.
My place was built in 1975 — is a schedule still worth it?
Possibly, but not for the original building. The 2.5% rate is tied to construction starting after 15 September 1987; earlier construction attracts a different rate or none, and the ATO publishes a date table for it. What can still be claimable is later structural work — an extension or a new bathroom, say — done after the qualifying date, even where the original building does not qualify. That is a question for the surveyor, and the calculator returns no rate rather than guessing one.
Do I claim a whole year in the first year?
Only if the property was earning for a whole year. The deduction is apportioned by the days it was rented or genuinely available, which is why the calculator asks. The ATO's own example runs a $500,000 townhouse at 2.5% for $12,500 a year, then scales it to $4,178 because the owner only had it available from 1 March to 30 June.
Does claiming depreciation cost me later?
On capital works, yes. Capital works deductions you have claimed reduce the cost base of the property, so the capital gain when you sell is correspondingly larger. It is a deferral of tax rather than a pure saving — worth having, since a dollar now beats a dollar later and the gain may be discounted, but not free money.

Keep tallying

Every year

Negative gearing calculator

Where the depreciation claim lands: rent against interest, rates and the tax effect.

Open calculator →

At the end

Capital gains tax calculator

The other side of the deferral — what the reduced cost base does to the gain.

Open calculator →

Sources

  • The 2.5% rate, the 15 September 1987 date, the 40-year period, apportionment by days and the $500,000 / $12,500 / $4,178 worked example — ATO, Work out your capital works deductions, last updated 22 June 2026.
  • The new-assets test for plant and equipment, and the six-month rule — ATO, Depreciating assets in rental properties, last updated 21 May 2026.
  • Second-hand fittings stay claimable in a rental bought before 7:30 pm on 9 May 2017 — ATO, Second-hand depreciating assets, last updated 22 June 2026, and the Treasury Laws Amendment (Housing Tax Integrity) Act 2017, Schedule 2 item 13.
  • Cost base reduced by capital works claimed — ATO, Cost base adjustments for capital works; “claimed or can claim” is the Rental properties 2026 guide’s wording.
  • “Quantity surveyor’s fees” on the immediate-deduction list, the cost of a construction-cost estimate deductible in the year incurred at D10, the non-deductible surveyor’s fees on the transfer in Example 6, and who else is qualified to estimate construction costs — ATO, Rental properties 2026 — rental expenses, last updated 30 May 2026.
  • No deductions where a property was not rented or available for rent on commercial terms — same ATO guide, Expenses for which you can’t claim deductions.
  • Surveyors’ fees are quoted professional prices with no published schedule, so none is asserted — the fee above is an example for you to replace with your quote.