Stacking the grant, duty relief and a 5% deposit on one Queensland home

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Kooky

Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.

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A first home buyer in Queensland is offered help from two governments through three separate doors. The State pays a $30,000 grant. The State also waives or reduces transfer duty. And the Commonwealth guarantees part of the loan so that a 5 per cent deposit is enough. Each is explained on its own website, by its own agency, as if the others did not exist.

They can be used together. A buyer who lines all three up on one purchase pays no duty, receives $30,000 and needs a deposit a quarter of the conventional size. But the three were not designed as a set. Each has its own price limit, its own idea of who a first home buyer is and its own rule about moving in, and the overlap between them is narrower than the headline numbers suggest.

This guide maps that overlap. It uses the rules published by the Queensland Revenue Office for the grant and the duty concessions, and by the Australian Government's First Home Buyers website and Housing Australia for the 5% Deposit Scheme. The worked purchases are illustrative.

Queensland Revenue Office; First Home Buyers website, Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme.

Three kinds of help that do different jobs

It is easier to see how the pieces fit once each is reduced to what it actually does.

The First Home Owner Grant is cash. The Queensland Revenue Office pays $30,000 to a first buyer of a new home valued under $750,000, and the money does not have to be repaid if the conditions are met. It is not available on an established home at any price.

The first home duty concessions remove a cost. Transfer duty would otherwise be the largest expense of buying after the price itself. A first buyer pays none on a new home, whatever it costs, for contracts dated from 1 May 2025. On an existing home a first buyer pays none up to $700,000 and a reduced amount up to $800,000. Land bought to build a first home is also free of duty.

The 5% Deposit Scheme changes what a lender will accept. Housing Australia guarantees up to 15 per cent of the property's value to the lender, so a buyer with a 5 per cent deposit is treated as if they had 20 per cent and pays no lenders mortgage insurance. It applies to new and existing homes under a price cap: $1,000,000 in Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast, and $700,000 in the rest of Queensland.

So one puts money in, one takes a cost out, and one lowers the entry bar. None of them reduces the price of the home, and only the grant reduces what the buyer has to find or borrow.

What can be combined, and what cannot

The two State measures are explicitly compatible. The Revenue Office's concession pages say a buyer is allowed to claim both the grant and a transfer duty concession, and add in the same sentence that each has its own eligibility requirements.

The federal scheme sits alongside them without objection. It is a guarantee to a lender, not a grant, and Housing Australia's guidance treats State grants as something a buyer may well hold at the same time: it tells buyers to confirm with their lender whether a cash grant from a State scheme can be counted as part of their savings.

The line is drawn at shared equity. Queensland Treasury's Boost to Buy excludes an applicant who is receiving a Commonwealth home-buyer guarantee, and the federal Help to Buy scheme excludes other guarantees and shared equity arrangements. A buyer can combine the 5% Deposit Scheme with the grant and duty relief, or take a shared equity place with the grant and duty relief, but cannot hold the guarantee and a government equity share on the same home.

The First Home Super Saver scheme is a fourth piece that can be added to any of these. The Australian Taxation Office says it operates independently of state and territory concessions.

Where each one runs out

The three have different ceilings, and the gaps between the ceilings decide what a buyer can stack at a given price.

The chart leaves out the one measure with no ceiling: duty on a new first home is nil at every price. Everything else has a limit, and the limits are not aligned.

Two details about how the limits are measured matter as much as the figures. The grant's $750,000 is a value, and on a build it includes the land and every variation to the building contract. The 5% Deposit Scheme's cap is tested twice: the First Home Buyers website warns that both the purchase price and the value the lender assigns to the home must be at or under the cap.

The band where all three meet

Put the limits together and the full stack is available in one part of the market only.

For a new home, all three apply where the home is valued under $750,000 and sits under the 5% Deposit Scheme cap for its location. In Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast that means any new home under $750,000. In the rest of Queensland it means a new home at or under $700,000, because the federal cap is lower there than the grant's limit. A regional buyer of a new home priced between $700,001 and $749,999 can have the grant and nil duty, but not the 5 per cent deposit.

For an existing home, the grant is never available, so the most a buyer can stack is two. Duty relief and the 5 per cent deposit overlap fully up to $700,000 anywhere in the state. Between $700,000 and $800,000 the duty concession is shrinking and, outside the south-east, the deposit scheme has already ended. Above $800,000 an existing home in the south-east can still be bought with 5 per cent, with no first home duty concession at all.

That is the practical shape of Queensland's first-buyer policy. The State's money points at new homes under $750,000. The Commonwealth's guarantee is indifferent to whether a home is new, and stretches much higher in the south-east.

Four purchases worked through

The table sets four illustrative purchases side by side. Each assumes a first buyer who meets every personal condition, a deposit of exactly 5 per cent, and a purchase price equal to the lender's valuation.

The new house at $680,000 is the complete stack. The buyer puts down $34,000, pays no duty and receives $30,000. At the general rates the duty on $680,000 would have been $23,625, so the two State measures together are worth $53,625 on this purchase, and the federal scheme has removed the need for a further $102,000 of deposit, the difference between 5 and 20 per cent.

The existing unit at $650,000 stacks two. Duty is nil under the first home concession, a saving of $22,275 against the general rates, and the deposit is $32,500. There is no grant because the unit is not new.

The existing house at $780,000 shows the taper. It is $20,000 short of the point where the first home concession ends, and the duty is $17,480. The deposit scheme still applies because the home is in Brisbane; the same house at the same price in Townsville or Toowoomba would be over the $700,000 cap and outside the scheme altogether.

The new townhouse at $820,000 keeps the duty relief, which has no cap for a new home, and the deposit scheme, which runs to $1,000,000 in Brisbane. It is too expensive for the grant. At the general rates the duty would have been $29,925.

A fifth case needs no row. An existing house in Brisbane at $1,050,000 is over the deposit scheme's cap, over the first home concession's limit and ineligible for the grant. The buyer is treated like any other owner occupier and pays duty of $33,725 at the home concession rate.

Does the grant count toward the 5 per cent?

The arithmetic invites an obvious question. If the grant is $30,000 and the deposit on a $600,000 new home is $30,000, can the grant be the deposit?

Neither government answers it. Housing Australia's guidance is that buyers should confirm with their participating lender whether cash grants received under State schemes "can be considered as part of their genuine savings". The decision belongs to the lender's credit policy, and lenders differ.

Timing complicates it further. The Revenue Office says the grant is paid at different times depending on how and when the application is made and whether the buyer is building or buying, and warns applicants not to rely on it for a payment due on a fixed date. A deposit under a contract of sale is usually payable long before a grant on a home under construction could arrive.

Some schemes close the question themselves. Queensland Treasury's Boost to Buy requires a 2 per cent deposit from the buyer's actual savings and says the First Home Owner Grant does not count toward it. The 5% Deposit Scheme leaves it open, which means a buyer planning on the grant as part of their funds needs the lender's answer in writing at pre-approval.

Even where the grant cannot be the deposit, it is not wasted. It reduces the loan, or covers the costs the deposit does not: conveyancing, inspections, moving and the first rates notice.

One buyer, three definitions

A buyer can be eligible for one piece and not another without anything about them changing, because each test of previous ownership is worded differently.

The grant asks whether the applicant or their spouse has owned residential property in Australia that they lived in on or after 1 July 2000, or owned any before that date. The duty concessions ask whether the buyer has ever held an interest in a residence anywhere in the world. The 5% Deposit Scheme asks whether the buyer has owned a home or land in Australia in the past ten years, counted from the sale of the earlier property to the new loan agreement.

Three examples show how the stack can come apart. A person who sold a home in 2014 passes the federal test and fails both State ones. A person who has only ever owned an investment unit, never lived in, may pass the grant's test and fails the duty concession's. A person whose spouse once owned a home fails the grant even if buying alone.

Residency adds another layer. The grant requires an Australian citizen or permanent resident, or an applicant applying with one. The 5% Deposit Scheme requires every applicant to be a citizen or permanent resident. And for transactions entered into from 1 August 2026, the duty concessions are limited to citizens, permanent residents and specified foreign retirees.

Three different rules about moving in

All three measures are for a home the buyer lives in, and all three check. They do not agree on the timetable.

The federal rule is the tightest at the start and the longest at the end. The First Home Buyers website says a buyer must move in within six months of settlement and continue living there while the guarantee is active; a buyer who does not may be required to pay lenders mortgage insurance or other costs. The State rules give a year to move in and then run for a fixed period.

A buyer holding all three therefore works to the strictest of each: in within six months, six months of continuous residence for the grant, no letting of the whole home in the first year for the duty concession, and owner occupation for as long as the guarantee remains.

The order things happen

The pieces are claimed at different moments, through different hands.

The lender is the common thread. A participating lender under the 5% Deposit Scheme is usually also an approved agent for the grant, which is the route the Revenue Office describes as faster, so one application can carry both. The duty concession is handled separately, by the conveyancer or solicitor who lodges the transfer.

The 90 days deserve attention in a stacked purchase. A buyer looking for a new home under $750,000 is shopping in a narrower field than one who will take any home under the cap, and the pre-approval clock does not stop while a suitable one is found.

When one piece falls away

Because the three are independent, losing one does not automatically cost the others. It does change the sums, sometimes sharply.

The price moves. A new home contracted at $745,000 that reaches $750,000 through variations loses the grant and keeps the duty relief. An existing home negotiated up from $700,000 to $710,000 gains a duty bill of $2,185 and, outside the south-east, drops out of the deposit scheme.

The valuation comes in differently. The deposit scheme uses the lender's valuation. The First Home Buyers website says the deposit is calculated on the home's value as assessed by the participating lender, which may differ from the purchase price.

Plans change after settlement. A buyer who moves out early must tell the Revenue Office, which can reassess the duty and require the grant to be repaid, and may find the lender asking for mortgage insurance once the guarantee no longer applies. On the first worked example that is $23,625 of duty, $30,000 of grant and an insurance premium, all arising from the same decision.

A checklist before making an offer

Most of the work in stacking is done before a contract exists. Seven questions cover it.

1. Is the home new, or land to build on, or established? Only the first two can attract the grant.
2. Is its value, with land and variations, under $750,000?
3. Is the price at or under the 5% Deposit Scheme cap for that location: $1,000,000 in Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast, $700,000 elsewhere?
4. If the home is established, is the price at or under $700,000, or in the tapering band up to $800,000?
5. Do I pass each ownership test, and does my spouse pass the grant's?
6. Will my lender count the grant toward my funds, and when does it expect the grant to be paid?
7. Can I move in within six months of settlement and stay?

The Queensland Revenue Office publishes a duty calculator and eligibility testers for the grant and the concessions. The First Home Buyers website has an eligibility tool and a price cap lookup for the federal scheme. A broker or lender can say how the three combine for a particular loan, and the conveyancer or solicitor acting on the purchase lodges the duty claim. Each of the three is generous taken separately. Whether they add up on one home depends on its type, its price, its location and the buyer's own history, in that order.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property 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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