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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →Sunshine Coast Council has set the largest rates rise announced so far by a big Queensland council for 2026-27. In a budget statement published on Monday 1 June, the council said most owner-occupier ratepayers will pay $4.26 a week more, which it puts at $221.68 a year, or 9.7 per cent above 2025-26.
The budget lands eleven weeks after the Valuer-General issued new land values for the region. The council says that revaluation lifted values by an average of 24 per cent across the Sunshine Coast, and that it worked to soften the effect on individual bills. The two numbers, 24 per cent on the land and 9.7 per cent on the rates, are a useful lesson in how a council bill is built, and in why the same valuation matters again when the State works out land tax.
Sunshine Coast Council, budget statement of 1 June 2026. The rise is measured against 2025-26.
What the council announced
The council's statement presents the budget as a correction. Mayor Rosanna Natoli said the organisation had run significant operating deficits over the past five years, and the local news site GC News, reporting the budget the same day, quoted her summary of the problem: "Put simply, Council had been spending beyond its means."
The mayor's explanation for the size of the rise is cost. Delivering the services the community relies on now costs almost 30 per cent more than it did four years ago, she said in the council statement. GC News reported that construction costs have risen by more than 60 per cent over the same period.
The spending side shows where the money goes. The council lists a capital works program of $296 million, a road reseal and pavement program of $27 million that includes $6.9 million of federal funding, $22.4 million for waterways and coastal protection, $18.7 million for libraries, $7.3 million for events and tourism support, and $7 million for lifeguard services, which pays for 124 lifeguards at 21 locations. GC News adds that the road network runs to about 2,600 kilometres and that the region's population, now about 375,000, is projected to reach 509,000 by 2041.
Related readNineteen council areas to get new land values in 2027, Logan includedDividing the council's own figures gives a sense of scale. If $221.68 is 9.7 per cent, the bill it is added to was a little under $2,300 last year. That is an inference from the two published numbers, not a figure the council states, and it describes the typical owner-occupier the council has in mind, not every property.
How a 24 per cent revaluation becomes a 9.7 per cent rise
A council rates notice starts with the land. Under Queensland's system the Valuer-General sets a statutory value for each property, and the State's land valuation pages explain that for urban land this is a site value: the land itself, without the house, sheds or fences on it. Local governments then use that value as the basis for general rates.
The Sunshine Coast was one of 15 local government areas revalued this year. The Queensland Government's valuation pages say more than 560,000 valuations were issued on 11 March 2026, reflecting the market at 1 October 2025, and that they take effect on 30 June 2026. Sunshine Coast News reported on 18 March that the new values covered 116,754 properties in the council area with a combined value of $89.2 billion, up 24 per cent overall, and that neighbouring Noosa's 22,268 properties rose 37 per cent to $29 billion.
A higher land value does not pass straight through to the bill, because the council chooses the second half of the sum: the rate charged for each dollar of value, and the minimum amount every property pays. If every property rose by the same proportion and the council wanted the same revenue, it could cut the rate in the dollar and nobody's bill would move. The State's own guidance makes the point from the other side, noting that it is not unusual for rates to change even when land values have not.
Related readBrisbane lifts rates 3.97 per cent, the lowest rise announced so farThe Valuer-General, Laura Dietrich, said as much when the values were released. Sunshine Coast News quoted her describing valuations as "not the only data considered by a council when deciding rates". The council told the same publication in March that a rise in land value does not mean rates will increase by the same percentage.
What a revaluation does change is how the total is shared. Values never rise evenly. A suburb whose land climbed 40 per cent takes on a larger share of the rates base than one that rose 10 per cent, whatever the council does with the headline figure. That is why the council speaks of "most" owner-occupiers paying 9.7 per cent more: some will pay less than that and some more, depending on how their own land moved against the regional average.
The levies and concessions on the notice
General rates are only one line. The Sunshine Coast notice also carries separate levies, each a flat amount, and the budget treats them differently from the general rate.
| Item | 2026-27 | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Environment Levy | $82 | No increase |
| Arts and Heritage Levy | $20 | No increase |
| Transport Levy | $44 | Small increase |
| Concession, single full pensioner | $343 | Up 5% |
| Concession, full pensioner couple | $268 | Up 5% |
| Concession, single part-pensioner | $171.50 | Up 5% |
| Concession, part-pensioner couple | $98 | Up 5% |
Sunshine Coast Council, budget statement of 1 June 2026.
The pensioner concessions rise by 5 per cent, which is less than the 9.7 per cent increase in the bill they reduce. A single pensioner on a full pension receives $343 off the year's rates. Set against a typical increase of $221.68, the concession still exceeds the rise, but the gap between what a pensioner household paid last year and what it pays this year widens.
Who feels it most
The council's figure is for owner-occupiers. Queensland councils are allowed to charge different rates for different categories of land, and coastal councils commonly separate a home the owner lives in from a rented house and from a property let to holiday-makers. The council's statement does not give the increase for those other categories, so an investor or the owner of a holiday let should not assume that 9.7 per cent is their number.
Related readNew capital gains rules are now law, and the family home stays exemptFor landlords the rise arrives in a year when costs are being counted closely. Rates are a deductible expense against rent, but they are also a cash cost that has to be met each quarter. An increase of a few hundred dollars across a year is modest beside a mortgage, yet it is one of the few holding costs that is entirely outside an owner's control.
For tenants there is no direct effect. Under a Queensland residential tenancy the owner pays the council rates. Any effect on rents is indirect, and nothing in the council's statement makes a claim about it.
Home owners on fixed incomes are the group the council addresses most directly, through the concessions in the table. The budget statement also frames the rise as the price of keeping services, which is the argument a council has to make when it asks for nearly 10 per cent more.
The same valuation sets land tax
The new land values have a second life that is easy to miss. The Queensland Revenue Office uses the Valuer-General's figures to work out land tax, which is assessed on the land a person owns at midnight on 30 June each year. The 2026 valuations take effect on exactly that date.
A home the owner lives in is generally exempt from land tax, so most Sunshine Coast households will never see an assessment. Investors are another matter. The Revenue Office's rates page says an individual is liable when the total taxable value of their land reaches $600,000, and companies and trustees when it reaches $350,000. A 24 per cent average rise in land values moves owners towards and over those lines.
Related readCapital gains tax when you sell: the main residence exemption's limitsLand tax uses an averaged value, which slows the effect of a revaluation
The Revenue Office says the taxable value of land is the lesser of its statutory value for the year and its averaged value, which is generally the average of the current year's valuation and the two before it. A sharp revaluation therefore reaches a land tax bill in stages, not all at once.
Council rates have no such automatic brake in State law, which is why the choices a council makes in its budget matter so much in a revaluation year. Some councils cap the yearly increase on a property or average values themselves; the Sunshine Coast statement says only that the council worked to mitigate the effect of the revaluation.
Checking and challenging a valuation
An owner who thinks the land value is wrong has a route, but it is a narrow one. The State's objection pages say an objection must be made within 60 days of the issue date on the valuation notice, either through the online portal or on a paper form, and must set out acceptable grounds with evidence. A late objection can be accepted within a year only in circumstances such as incapacity or an extraordinary emergency.
For valuations issued on 11 March, the 60 days ended in the second week of May. In other words, the period for challenging the value behind this year's rates closed about three weeks before the budget revealed what the value would cost. That timing is the same every year: the valuation notice arrives in March, the rates decision in June, and an owner who waits for the bill before looking at the valuation has usually left it too late.
An objection, where one was lodged in time, is against the land value only. It cannot be used to dispute the rate the council sets. If the Valuer-General lowers a value, the Revenue Office's guidance shows that land tax is reassessed on the new figure, and it gives the example of a parcel reduced from $450,000 to $400,000 on objection, which produced a refund.
What comes next
Rates notices for the new financial year follow the budget, and the first to be issued after 1 July will be the first to use the 2026 land values. Owners will be able to see on the notice the value the council has used and the category the property has been placed in. The category is worth reading as carefully as the amount, because a home wrongly classed as not owner-occupied is charged on a different scale.
The other large South East Queensland councils bring down their budgets through June, and the Sunshine Coast's figure will be the one they are measured against. Three of them, the Gold Coast, Ipswich and Redland, were revalued in the same program and face the same question of how much of a rise in land values to let through.
Land tax assessments for 2026-27, based on land held at 30 June, are issued by the Revenue Office later in the year. For Sunshine Coast investors they will be the second place this year's valuation shows up.
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.
