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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →The Queensland Revenue Office said on 17 August 2026 that it has started issuing land tax assessment notices for the 2026-27 financial year. In the same notice it told people who owned land in Queensland on 30 June 2026 that they might also receive a letter, either confirming that an exemption has been applied or explaining how to claim one.
For most Queenslanders nothing will arrive, because the home they live in is exempt. For investors, holiday home owners, family trusts and companies, the envelope or email that turns up over the coming weeks is the one property tax bill of the year that depends on a single night: who owned what at midnight on 30 June.
What the Revenue Office said
The notice is brief and practical. Annual assessment notices for 2026-27 are being sent by post, it says, and owners who have chosen digital delivery will be emailed when a notice is ready to view in QRO Online. Letters are also going to owners who are not being billed, to tell them what land the office has on record for them and whether an exemption has been recorded against it, with instructions on applying for one where it has not. The two examples the office gives are land used as the owner's home and land used for primary production.
It asks three things of owners: keep address and email details current, add the Treasury email domain the office writes from to a safe senders list so that messages are not filtered out, and check the details held in QRO Online each July.
Related readTax Institute: trust tax relief leaves State duty and GST unsolvedNothing in the notice changes a rate or a threshold. The 2026-27 State Budget in June left both where they were, so the scale on this year's notices is the scale owners saw last year. What changes from one year to the next is the land value underneath it.
Who is liable
Land tax in Queensland is charged on freehold land, on its taxable value, to whoever owned it at midnight on 30 June. The Revenue Office's pages set out two thresholds. An individual is liable when the total taxable value of their land is $600,000 or more. A company or a trustee is liable at $350,000 or more.
Those are totals, not per-property figures. An individual with one investment block valued at $450,000 pays nothing; the same person with two such blocks has a total of $900,000 and is over the line. The house itself is not counted: only the land is valued.
The lower threshold for trusts and companies is one of the facts that most often surprises people when a family buys a rental through a trust. The land may be modest, but the tax-free band is $250,000 narrower than it would be in a personal name.
How the bill is worked out
Above the threshold the tax rises in steps. The Revenue Office's published scales for individuals and for companies and trustees are these.
| Owner | Taxable value | Tax |
|---|---|---|
| Individual | $600,000 to $999,999 | $500 plus 1 cent for each $1 over $600,000 |
| Individual | $1,000,000 to $2,999,999 | $4,500 plus 1.65 cents for each $1 over $1,000,000 |
| Individual | $3,000,000 to $4,999,999 | $37,500 plus 1.25 cents for each $1 over $3,000,000 |
| Company or trustee | $350,000 to $2,249,999 | $1,450 plus 1.7 cents for each $1 over $350,000 |
| Company or trustee | $2,250,000 to $4,999,999 | $33,750 plus 1.5 cents for each $1 over $2,250,000 |
Queensland Revenue Office land tax rate pages. Higher brackets apply from $5 million for both groups and are not shown.
The Revenue Office's own examples show how the steps bite. An individual with land of $680,000 in taxable value pays $500 plus 1 cent on the $80,000 above the threshold, which is $1,300. A self-managed super fund trustee with $760,000 pays $1,450 plus 1.7 cents on $410,000, which is $8,420.
Related readTownsville and Cairns rates climb about 7 per cent as costs bitePut the two side by side and the gap between structures is plain. On the individual scale, $760,000 of land would be taxed at $500 plus 1 cent on $160,000, or $2,100. The same land held by a trustee costs $8,420, four times as much. That is not a penalty on trusts; it is the effect of a lower threshold and a steeper first rate, and it is one of the running costs a buyer weighs when choosing how to hold a property.
The value on the notice is often an average
The figure the scale is applied to is not always this year's land valuation. The Revenue Office says the taxable value of each parcel is the lesser of its statutory valuation for the tax year and its averaged value, which is generally the average of that valuation and those for the two previous years.
Averaging matters most in the years after a revaluation. The Queensland Government issued new valuations for 15 local government areas, covering more than 560,000 properties, on 11 March 2026, and those values took effect on 30 June 2026. For land in those areas, the 2026-27 assessment is the first to include the new figure, and it counts for one third of the average. If the valuation rose, the owner sees part of the rise this year and the rest over the following two.
It also explains a result that puzzles some owners: a land tax bill that goes up in a year when the valuation did not change. The valuation held steady, but an older and lower figure dropped out of the three-year window.
Related readTransfer duty in Queensland: rates, the home concession, when it is paidWhen a valuation is altered after an objection, the tax follows. The Revenue Office gives the example of an owner who objected in May 2026 to a $450,000 valuation and had it reduced to $400,000; the lower value flowed through to the averaged taxable value and produced a refund. The office is careful to add that only the Valuer-General can change a valuation. The tax office cannot.
Exemptions do not always apply themselves
The main exemption is for a home. Land used as the owner's principal place of residence is left out of the total, and so is land used for primary production and land owned by certain charitable bodies. That is why most households never see an assessment.
The 17 August notice hints at where the exemption can go missing. The letters now going out tell owners either that an exemption has been applied or how to apply for one. An exemption is recorded against a particular parcel and a particular owner, and events can dislodge it: a move to a new home while the old one is kept and let, a property transferred into a trust, a change in how farm land is used.
An owner who receives an assessment that includes the land they live on should not assume it is a mistake that will correct itself. The Revenue Office's guide to the assessment notice says owners must tell it within 30 days if they find an error, and lists the common ones as land that should not have been included, an exemption that has not been applied and a revaluation that has been missed.
Related readNineteen council areas to get new land values in 2027, Logan includedPaying, and the dates that run from the notice
Every deadline on a land tax assessment runs from the issue date printed on it, so two owners in the same street can have different due dates.
- Within 30 daysTell the Revenue Office about any error, such as a missing exemption or land that is not yours.
- Within 35 daysLast day to register for the extended payment option for this financial year.
- Day 45First of three equal instalments under the extended payment option.
- Day 90Payment in full is due if no plan is in place. Second instalment for those on the option.
- Day 150Third and final instalment under the extended payment option.
The extended payment option is the best known of the arrangements. The Revenue Office says it splits the bill into three equal payments, is paid by direct debit only, has to be set up again for each financial year, and carries no interest unless the second or third instalment is late. Two other arrangements exist for owners who need longer: a plan of up to six months arranged in QRO Online, and a longer one applied for on a form. Interest applies to both.
A formal objection to the assessment itself, as distinct from pointing out an error, must be lodged within 60 days of the issue date. Unpaid tax interest starts the day after the due date, and the office warns that penalties may follow.
The 35-day window closes before the bill is due
An owner who wants to pay in three interest-free instalments has to register within 35 days of the issue date. Waiting until the 90-day due date is too late for this year's assessment.
What it means across the industry
For property managers, August and September are the months when landlords ring to ask why a bill has changed. The honest answer usually lies in the three-year average and not in anything the owner did.
For conveyancers and solicitors, the 30 June liability date is a standing item in every contract that settles around the end of the financial year, because the tax for the whole year belongs to whoever held the land that night. For accountants, the notice is a prompt to check that structures set up years ago still match how the land is used, particularly where a former home has become a rental.
And for owners with land in the 19 council areas the State has named for revaluation in 2027, among them Logan, Moreton Bay and Toowoomba, this year's notice is the last to be built entirely on existing values. Those areas will be valued as at 1 October 2026, with the new figures taking effect on 30 June 2027 and entering the average for the 2027-28 assessment.
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.
