# Housing infrastructure fund's second round is doubled to $1 billion
Round two of Queensland's Residential Activation Fund will hand out $1 billion instead of $500 million, after 209 applications arrived, most from outside the south-east.
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The second round of Queensland's Residential Activation Fund has been doubled from $500 million to $1 billion, the Queensland Government announced in a media statement on Sunday 14 June 2026. The fund pays for the trunk infrastructure, such as water mains, sewers and roads, that a housing estate needs before the first lot can be sold.
The statement says the round drew 209 submissions, and that the larger amount will be provided in the 2026-27 State Budget. At least half of the money is to go to rural and regional Queensland.
$1bfor round two, up from $500 million
209submissions received for the round
50%minimum share for regional Queensland
Queensland Government media statement, 14 June 2026, on round two of the Residential Activation Fund.
## Where the applications came from
Regional interest outweighed the south-east by nearly two to one. Of the 209 submissions, 136 came from regional, rural and remote areas and 73 from South East Queensland, according to the statement. That is 65 per cent and 35 per cent of the total.
Round two submissions by regionNumber of submissions, 209 in total
Queensland Government media statement, 14 June 2026. Submissions to round two of the Residential Activation Fund.
A submission is not a grant, and the statement does not say how much money the 209 submissions asked for in total. What the split does show is where councils and developers say they are held back by missing pipes and roads. The promise that at least 50 per cent of round two goes to rural and regional areas lines up with where the demand came from, though it sets a floor below the regional share of submissions.
The line between the two groups is a planning boundary. The round two program guidelines, published by the Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning in February 2026, define regional Queensland as the local government areas outside the South East Queensland Regional Plan. Under the round's original $500 million, the regional floor was $250 million. At $1 billion it becomes $500 million.
## The same pattern as round one
This is the second time a round of the fund has been doubled, the statement notes. Round one was also lifted from $500 million to $1 billion, in the 2025-26 Budget, as Queensland Government statements of 8 July and 29 August 2025 record. With two rounds of $1 billion each, the announced rounds account for the whole of the $2 billion fund.
The demand pattern has barely changed between the rounds. The 2025 statements say round one received 178 submissions, 64 of them from South East Queensland and 114 from regional, rural and remote areas. Round two's 209 is 31 more, a rise of about 17 per cent, and the regional share has edged from 64 per cent to 65 per cent. Regional submissions rose by 22 and south-east submissions by nine.
Round one grants show what the money looks like on the ground. The 8 July 2025 statement announced $27.58 million for three projects in Rockhampton, tied to more than 3,600 homes, including $17.26 million toward a $23 million package of enabling infrastructure at Parkhurst and $9.75 million toward a $13 million disinfection facility at the North Rockhampton sewage treatment plant. The 29 August 2025 statement listed $28.2 million across four projects in Toowoomba and the south-west for about 2,560 homes, the largest being $20.1 million for roadworks and services at Highfields.
Those examples carry a detail that is easy to miss. In two of the Rockhampton projects the grant covers about three quarters of the stated cost, and the applicant finds the rest.
## What the fund pays for
New housing land is often zoned and even approved long before anyone can build on it. The usual obstacle is the trunk network: the large water main, the sewer pump station or the intersection upgrade that serves a whole growth area. No single developer wants to pay for it alone, and councils may not have the money in the year it is needed.
The Residential Activation Fund is the State's answer to that. The round two guidelines open it to two kinds of applicant. Local governments may apply, and so may developers or landowners that are Australian-registered companies and hold a development approval for residential development in Queensland. Individuals, sole traders, government agencies and utility providers cannot apply in their own right, though a utility can be part of a consortium.
Eligible works are trunk or essential infrastructure needed by a residential development: water supply, sewerage, stormwater, transport, and higher-order power and telecommunications such as substations and fibre networks. The guidelines exclude parks, community facilities, the internal roads and services of a subdivision, land purchase, and the construction of homes themselves. For councils outside the south-east there is also a planning stream, which funds detailed design work for infrastructure that is not yet ready to build.
Co-contributions are not compulsory. The guidelines say applications with confirmed co-funding will be assessed more favourably, and they list cost per residential lot among the measures of value for money. The department assesses applications, and its director-general makes the final decision.
The statement describes round one as supporting 98 projects across the state which the Government says will unlock more than 98,000 homes. That figure needs to be read for what it is. It counts the homes that a funded piece of infrastructure makes possible over the life of an estate, which can be many years. It is not a count of homes approved, started or finished.
## Why bring the money forward
Doubling the round does not add to the $2 billion total. It brings more of it forward into a single round. The statement presents the decision as a response to demand and a way to get infrastructure in the ground sooner.
The guidelines back that up with deadlines.
The clock on a successful round two project
Within 3 months of approvalThe funding agreement with the State must be signed. Work cannot begin before it is.
Within 12 months of announcementConstruction must have started.
Within 3 years of announcementConstruction must be complete.
Those limits explain the logic of committing more now. Trunk infrastructure has long lead times: design, approvals, tendering and construction can take years before the first lot is serviced. A project named in the second half of 2026 has until the second half of 2029 to finish its works, and houses follow serviced lots. Money committed a year later would move every one of those dates back a year.
It also changes the odds for applicants. With 209 submissions competing for $1 billion instead of $500 million, more projects can be funded from the same pool of applications, without the delay of opening a new round. The guidelines favour projects that are close to ready: they ask for a design that is substantially progressed and for recent costings, no more than two years old for a council and 12 months for a developer.
## What it means on the ground
For buyers of new land, the fund works out of sight. Its effect, if it works as intended, is that estates which have been approved on paper begin to release lots. For councils, it shifts some of the cost of growth to the State. For developers, it removes a cost that would otherwise be carried for years before any sales revenue arrives.
The industry response carried in the statement makes the same point from the other side. It describes the servicing of land with infrastructure as one of the biggest challenges to housing supply, and credits the fund with a streamlined application and assessment process.
The statement places the fund alongside other measures in what the Government calls its Securing Our Housing Foundations Plan: more than $2 billion in joint Commonwealth and State funding intended to unlock 51,000 homes, of which 20,000 are for first home buyers; the release of State land through the Land Activation Program; the removal of stamp duty on new builds; a shared equity scheme; and a State target of one million homes by 2044, including 53,500 social and community homes.
One piece of scale is worth keeping in view. The fund's own counts, 98,000 homes from $1 billion in round one, imply roughly $10,000 of State money for each home counted. That is simple division of two announced figures. It says nothing about the full cost of servicing a lot, since many grants cover only part of a project.
## What happens next
Successful round two projects had not been named at the time of the statement. The round's question-and-answer document, published with the guidelines, anticipates project announcements after July 2026, and the 12-month and three-year clocks run from each announcement.
The 2026-27 State Budget, which the statement says will carry the extra $500 million, is the next fixed point. After that the detail to watch is the list of projects: which regions they are in, what kind of infrastructure they fund, and how many of the 209 submissions the larger round can reach.