Queensland sale commissions average 2.33 per cent, platform data shows

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Kooky

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

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Queensland agents were paid an average commission of 2.33 per cent of the sale price over the six months to February 2026, according to a report by the software company Reapit that the trade publication Elite Agent covered on 28 May 2026. The national average in the same data was 1.95 per cent. Only the Northern Territory, at 2.39 per cent, sat higher.

Commission surveys with a clear method and a clear period are rare in Australia, because no regulator collects the figure. That makes this one worth reading closely, both for what it says about Queensland and for the limits of any single average in a state where every commission is negotiated one appointment at a time.

Reapit 2026 Real Estate Intelligence Report, sales recorded September 2025 to February 2026, as reported by Elite Agent on 28 May 2026.

What the report measured

The figures come from Reapit's own sales management platform. Elite Agent reports that the company drew on anonymised transactions recorded between September 2025 and February 2026, from a platform used by more than 52,000 agents across Australia and New Zealand. The commission rate is expressed as a share of the sale price.

That makes it a record of what was written into real appointments and paid on real sales, which is different from a poll asking agents or sellers what they think the going rate is. It is also a sample: agencies that use one software product, over one spring and summer. An agency on another system, or a sale handled outside any system, is not in it.

The report sets the commission rate beside two other measures taken from the same transactions: the number of offers received per listing and the number of days a property spent on the market. Elite Agent notes that Queensland was the only state to better the national average on all three.

Queensland against the other states

On commission rate, the eight states and territories fall into two groups. The Northern Territory, Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia sit at 2 per cent or more. Victoria, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and South Australia sit between 1.64 and 1.75 per cent.

Queensland's 2.33 per cent is 0.38 of a percentage point above the national 1.95 per cent, and 0.62 of a point above New South Wales at 1.71 per cent. The spread from the top of the table to the bottom is 0.75 of a point, from 2.39 per cent in the Northern Territory to 1.64 per cent in South Australia.

Why a rate is not a fee

A commission rate and a commission in dollars are two different things, and the table shows only the first. A percentage is applied to a price, so a lower rate on a dearer home can produce a larger payment than a higher rate on a cheaper one.

A worked example makes the point. The figures are illustrative and use round prices, not market medians. At Queensland's average rate of 2.33 per cent, a $900,000 sale produces a commission of $20,970. At the New South Wales average of 1.71 per cent, a $1.4 million sale produces $23,940. The state with the lower rate pays the larger sum in this example, because the price it is applied to is higher.

This is the usual explanation offered for why rates in Sydney and Melbourne sit below those of smaller markets: the work of selling a home does not double when its price does. The Reapit figures are consistent with that pattern, with the two most expensive capital-city states near the bottom of the rate table, but the report as covered by Elite Agent does not publish average prices or dollar commissions by state, so the comparison cannot be completed from this source.

One more caution applies. In Queensland the commission written on an appointment must include GST and say so, according to the Office of Fair Trading. The coverage does not say whether the rates in the report are recorded with or without GST, or whether every state's data is recorded the same way. A reader comparing the 2.33 per cent figure with a rate quoted by an agent should check that both are on the same footing.

No scale behind the number

Nothing in Queensland law produces a figure of 2.33 per cent. The Office of Fair Trading states that there is no cap on commission and that agents and clients may negotiate freely. The Real Estate Institute of Queensland says the same in its guidance to members: commission was deregulated in 2014 and there is no standard rate for residential sales.

The REIQ goes further and warns agents against language that suggests otherwise. Describing a figure as an approved or standard commission, it says, can amount to misleading conduct under consumer law, because no body approves one. An average drawn from past sales is a description of what parties agreed, not a rate anyone is entitled to charge or to pay.

What the law does fix is the record. The Office of Fair Trading's guidance says the commission is set in writing at the time of the appointment and cannot be altered afterwards. The appointment must state the fees, charges and commission for each service, any other expenses such as advertising and marketing, when each payment falls due, and whether commission is payable if a sale does not go through. In Queensland that record is the prescribed appointment form.

What an average cannot show

An average rate folds together appointments that were built very differently, and three differences matter most.

The first is structure. A commission can be a flat percentage of the price, a fixed sum, or a scale that pays one rate up to a target price and a higher rate above it. A database can turn any of these into a single percentage of the sale price after the event. A seller who agreed a tiered scale and a seller who agreed a flat rate may both appear as 2.33 per cent while having signed quite different terms.

The second is what sits outside the commission. Marketing is normally a separate line on the appointment, and the split between the two varies by agency. An agency that carries more of the campaign cost within its fee will show a higher rate than one that bills the same work as an expense. The rate alone does not show which approach produced the lower total for the seller.

The third is geography. One figure for Queensland covers inner Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, the regional cities and small towns. The report as covered gives no regional breakdown, so it cannot say whether the state's rate is lifted by its large regional market, by its price levels or by something else. Nor does a platform average say anything about the service delivered for the fee, which is what the commission pays for.

For agents the figure deserves the same care. Commission is how the profession earns its living, and a sale price percentage is gross income to the agency before it pays its staff, its rent, its insurance and the many campaigns that end without a sale. The average says what sellers agreed to pay, not what agents take home.

Offers and days on market beside the rate

The two companion measures give the commission figure some context. Queensland listings in the data drew an average of 1.98 offers each, against a national 1.53. Only South Australia recorded more, at 2.18. Queensland homes spent an average of 52.5 days on the market, against a national figure of 58.33 days. Western Australia was fastest at 38.17 days and the Northern Territory slowest at 84.66.

Read together, the three numbers describe a state where, over that spring and summer, listings attracted more competing buyers than most and sold faster than the national pace. The report does not claim that one of these causes another, and nothing in it shows that a higher rate produces more offers or that more offers justify a higher rate. The territory with the highest commission rate in the table also has the fewest offers per listing and the longest selling time, which is a reminder that the three measures move independently.

Elite Agent quotes Reapit's general manager for Australia and New Zealand, Simon Berglund, on the purpose of publishing the data: "Agents don't need more opinion – they need real data they can act on."

Reading the next commission figure

The period matters as much as the number. These sales were recorded between September 2025 and February 2026. Rates agreed in appointments signed since then are not in the data, and conditions in a market can change the balance between sellers and agents from one season to the next.

Any future figure can be tested with the same four questions this one raises. Whose transactions are counted, and how many? Over what months? Is the rate recorded with GST or without it? And is it a rate alone, or a rate with the prices it was applied to? A survey that answers all four can be compared with another. One that answers none is closer to an opinion.

For a Queensland seller or agent, the firmer reference point remains the document both of them sign. Whatever an average says, the commission that applies to a particular sale is the one written on the appointment, GST included, with its due date and its conditions beside it.

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.

About Kooky and Shaka →