How transfer duty is assessed and paid in an electronic settlement

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Kooky

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

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Most Queensland buyers are told the same thing about transfer duty: it is paid at settlement. For decades that sentence described something a person could see. A contract went to the revenue office or to a solicitor with a stamping machine, came back with an ink impression on it, and the stamped transfer was handed across a table. Today the transfer is a data file, settlement is a scheduled event on a network, and nothing is stamped in ink. The duty is still assessed, still paid and still recorded against the transfer before the land register changes. It simply happens in two connected systems that the buyer never logs in to.

This guide follows the duty through an electronic settlement: who assesses it, which system produces the number that identifies it, what the buyer is asked to sign, how the money reaches the State, which dates count, and what changes when a concession, an exemption or a foreign buyer is involved. It does not explain how much duty is charged. The rates and the home concession are a separate subject, and for this article it is enough to know that the amount depends on the price, the use of the property and the buyer's circumstances.

Duties Act 2001 (Qld), section 19; Queensland Revenue Office pages on key dates and unpaid tax interest, read in October 2026. Longer lodgement periods apply to some contracts settled electronically.

The duty still comes before the register

The starting point has not moved. The Queensland Revenue Office puts it in one line on its page about lodging and paying transfer duty: generally, a transfer of land cannot be registered if it has not been stamped. Assessment and payment come first, registration second. What has changed is the meaning of "stamped". On paper it is an endorsement placed on the document. In an electronic settlement, the Revenue Office says the transfer "is endorsed electronically" once the duty and any interest have been paid or accounted for under the rules that apply to the firm handling it.

The law behind this is the Duties Act 2001, which imposes the duty, and the Taxation Administration Act 2001, which governs assessments, interest, penalties and reassessments. Section 17 of the Duties Act makes the parties to a dutiable transaction liable for the duty. The Revenue Office adds, on its page about unpaid tax interest, that the parties are liable for the interest and any penalties as well. The liability stays with the parties, not with their solicitor, even when the solicitor does all the work.

Two ways to have the duty assessed

Someone has to work out the amount. The Revenue Office describes two routes on its page about how to lodge.

The first is a registered self assessor. This is a person or firm the Commissioner of State Revenue has registered to assess transfer duty on transactions, lodge them online, collect the money and endorse the documents without sending anything to the Revenue Office for a decision. The Revenue Office says most Queensland solicitors and settlement or lodging agents are registered. It adds two things a buyer may not expect: a self assessor is not an agent of the Revenue Office, and may charge a fee for the service.

The second route is to lodge the documents with the Revenue Office itself, by post or by email, and wait for a notice of assessment. Its published service standard is 10 working days for a standard assessment and 30 working days for a complex one, counted from the day it holds everything it needs. It also says it cannot fast-track an assessment to meet a settlement date.

The choice matters for this guide because of one sentence on the same page. Lodging through a self assessor "can allow settlement through the electronic conveyancing network". Lodging directly with the Revenue Office cannot be used to settle that way.

In a purchase handled by a law practice that is registered, then, the firm assesses the duty. The Revenue Office's page on self assessor obligations says a registered firm must keep everything it used to assess a client's duty for at least five years after the transaction, and that registration can be suspended or cancelled if lodgement, payment, endorsement or record-keeping obligations are not met.

The online system and the transaction number

Self assessors work in the Revenue Office's online portal, QRO Online. Every transaction lodged there receives a transaction number, generated automatically. The Revenue Office's page on lodging says a number cannot be reused, even one that was allocated and then cancelled. It is the reference the firm and the Revenue Office use for the assessment from then on.

Electronic settlement adds a second system. The transfer itself is prepared in a workspace on an electronic lodgment network, the platform through which the lawyers and banks on each side prepare documents, line up the money and lodge with the land registry. The Revenue Office's "getting started" page for electronic conveyancing lists two approved service providers, PEXA and Sympli, and sets out how the two systems are tied together before a firm does its first matter. The firm registers as a self assessor, registers as a subscriber with a provider using the same legal entity and the same ABN, records its subscriber ID in QRO Online, and enters its seven-digit QRO Online client number on the provider's platform. The page warns firms not to create a transfer in a workspace until both identifiers are in place.

From then on, the two systems exchange data on each matter. The Revenue Office's tutorials are explicit about the direction of travel: the transaction must be started in the workspace, because one started in QRO Online cannot be linked to a workspace afterwards. The duty information typed into the workspace carries over to QRO Online and, in the words of the Revenue Office's requirements page, forms the basis of the transfer duty assessment.

From workspace to assessment, step by step

The Revenue Office publishes a tutorial for the usual case, a contract of sale followed by a transfer, which the Duties Act calls a relevant transfer agreement. Reduced to its essentials, the sequence looks like this.

Two details in the tutorial stand out. First, the fields that come from the workspace, such as the property and the parties, cannot be corrected in QRO Online. They are changed in the workspace, and the firm then selects "Verify" so the draft assessment is refreshed with the new data. Second, the tutorial tells the firm to compare the liability the system calculates with its own figure, and to review the data and any concession if the two differ. The assessment is the firm's responsibility; the system's arithmetic is a check, not a substitute.

If an error is found after submission, the route is slower. The requirements page asks the firm to email the Revenue Office's self assessment team at least 24 hours in advance with the transaction number, the contract and any concession claim forms, and says urgent requests are prioritised but an immediate response is not guaranteed. The tutorial itself opens with a warning that choosing the wrong transaction type may delay settlement and lead to interest.

The public guidance stops short of describing every screen the platform shows. What it does establish is the dependency: the duty record is built from the workspace's own data under one transaction number, and the endorsement is given electronically.

How the money reaches the State

This is where the phrase "paid at settlement" needs unpacking, because the Revenue Office's tutorial sets out three payment methods, and only one of them moves money at the moment of settlement.

Under the third method the duty does appear in the settlement's financial figures, as an amount directed to the buyer's law practice. The tutorial is firm on one point: the Revenue Office's own bank or BPAY details must not be entered in the workspace. In other words, on the Revenue Office's published instructions, the State is not paid directly out of the settlement. The money lands in the firm's trust account at settlement and the firm sends it on.

The firm selects the method in the workspace. For a buyer the visible difference is timing: whether the duty is part of the total funded on settlement day, or an amount the firm asks for beforehand. How the purchase money itself moves between banks on the day is a different mechanism.

The dates that count

Three dates govern a duty liability, and they are easy to confuse with the contract's own dates.

The first is when the liability arises. Section 16 of the Duties Act fixes that time by reference to a schedule listing each kind of dutiable transaction, with special provisions for transfers lodged electronically. For a buyer the Revenue Office's plain-language version is simpler: documents must be lodged within 30 days of signing a contract, with more time allowed in some circumstances that are explained in its public ruling DA019.1.

The second is the lodgement due date. Section 19 of the Act gives the parties to an ordinary dutiable transaction 30 days after the liability arises. For a contract that will settle electronically, the Revenue Office's key dates page states a different, longer period: the later of 60 days after the contract date and 30 days after the date the contract became unconditional. The unconditional date is only relevant, the page says, where the condition depended on something outside the parties' control, such as finance or a pest inspection, and the parties made reasonable efforts to satisfy it. For a transfer lodged electronically without a contract behind it, the period is 30 days after the transfer was executed.

The third is the payment due date, and it is tied to lodgement, not to settlement: 14 days after the day the firm submits the transaction in QRO Online. The Revenue Office's own example shows how the dates stack. A contract is signed on 1 March and is unconditional from the start. The lodgement due date is 30 April. If the firm submits on 30 April, payment is due on 14 May. If the same contract only became unconditional on 15 April, the lodgement due date moves to 15 May and, lodged that day, payment is due on 29 May.

One consequence surprises people. Lodging early does not buy time; it brings the payment date forward. In the Revenue Office's example, a contract dated 1 March and lodged on 5 March has a payment due date of 19 March, although the lodgement deadline itself remains 30 April. It is one reason an assessment is not necessarily submitted the day the contract is signed.

If the dates are missed, unpaid tax interest applies under the Taxation Administration Act. The Revenue Office says it accrues daily on duty not paid by its due date, can also apply where a transaction is lodged late, and is charged at 12.43% for the 2026-27 financial year, a rate it announced on 26 June 2026 to apply from 1 July 2026. The amount shown as the liability in QRO Online includes any interest already assessed.

What the buyer signs or declares

A self assessor assesses on the strength of what the client tells it, and the Revenue Office expects that to be on its forms. Its page on what to lodge, last updated on 17 July 2026, lists them by number.

The dutiable transaction statement and the concession claims are alternatives: the Revenue Office says Form D2.2 is required with all transfer duty lodgements unless one of the concession forms is provided instead. In a self-assessed matter the form is not sent anywhere. The self assessor toolkits tell firms to retain it on file, and add that the concession details entered in QRO Online must match the client's declaration. The client's declaration is therefore the foundation of the electronic assessment.

Two further documents a buyer signs around the same time, the client authorisation and the verification of identity, are not duty forms and assess nothing.

Concessions, exemptions and foreign buyers

The Revenue Office's requirements page draws a line that matters here. A contract-based transfer settled electronically can include the home, first home, first home vacant land and family business concessions, and can be aggregated with other transactions under section 30 of the Duties Act where several dealings form one arrangement. It cannot include an exemption, or a transfer by direction. An electronic transfer that is not made under a contract, by contrast, can include the exemptions a self assessor is permitted to assess, with one named exception relating to retirement villages. Whether an exemption can travel through a workspace therefore depends on the case.

A concession changes the amount, not the process. The firm selects the concession type in QRO Online, the system calculates the reduced liability, and the firm checks it against its own figure. An exempt or nil-duty transaction is still lodged: the Revenue Office says all eligible transactions must go through QRO Online, including those on which no duty is payable.

Foreign buyers of residential land face additional foreign acquirer duty, which the Revenue Office's self assessor toolkit puts at 8% where the liability arose on or after 1 July 2024. The toolkit, last updated on 31 July 2026, says such transactions may be completed by electronic conveyancing. The firm enters the value of the residential land separately, the system applies the additional duty to the foreign acquirer's share, and the electronic endorsement covers the full amount; the additional duty is not recorded separately. Any concession reduces only the ordinary duty. Each non-Australian party's identity details are also collected: the toolkit says a transferor receives an automatic email from QRO Online asking them to complete the annexure online, while the transferee's details are entered by the self assessor.

When the transfer goes in on paper

Not every transfer is settled on a network. Some transactions fall outside Queensland's e-conveyancing requirement, and the Revenue Office's requirements page notes that a transaction in which a party uses one name only is currently out of scope for electronic conveyancing.

On paper, the older sequence still applies in full. The Revenue Office lists what goes in for a transfer of land: the Titles Queensland Form 1 Transfer and Form 24, Form D2.2 or a concession form in its place, an identity details annexure for each non-Australian party, the original agreement if there is one, and a covering letter. A self assessor can assess and endorse these in its own office. A person lodging directly posts or emails them to the Revenue Office, receives a notice of assessment, pays, and gets the documents back the way they were sent. Only then can the stamped Form 1 and Form 24 be lodged with Titles Queensland.

The Revenue Office says it does not forward documents to another agency for registration, does not return them before the duty is paid and does not accept documents or payments in person. It also observes that lenders may want a stamped transfer at or before settlement, so the published 10 working days need to be counted backwards from the settlement date.

What the property information form tells the State

Alongside the transfer travels a second document that buyers rarely notice. On paper it is Form 24, Property Information (Transfer). Titles Queensland's Land Title Practice Manual, in the part updated on 20 March 2025, describes its electronic counterpart as an electronic conveyancing document in the form approved by the Registrar, which must accompany an electronic transfer and be digitally signed for both the transferors and the transferees. No attachments are allowed with the electronic version.

The manual explains that the registry collects this information on behalf of other agencies and that each receives only what concerns it. The form records the buyers' names, dates of birth, later addresses and whether each is a foreign person; the possession and settlement dates; the price and how it is made up; the property's description and use; and whether a home has a safety switch and compliant smoke alarms. A group of questions is aimed squarely at duty: whether there is a written agreement and its date, whether the parties are related, whether the price is below the unencumbered value, whether the sale is part of a larger arrangement, and the GST position.

The recipients named in the manual include the Queensland Revenue Office for duty and land tax, the State Valuation Service for its sales database, the local government and the water retailer for their rating and billing records, the Electrical Safety Office and the Queensland Fire Department. The manual notes that dates of birth are used for the Revenue Office's purposes only.

After settlement: reassessments

A self assessment is not the last word. The Revenue Office says the Commissioner can reassess transfer duty, generally within five years under the Taxation Administration Act, upwards where a concession or exemption condition was not met or the consideration turns out to be higher, and downwards in cases such as a cancelled agreement or a concession approved later. A buyer who received a home or first home concession and then fails an occupancy condition must give notice on Form D2.4 within 28 days, and the Revenue Office warns that failing to do so is an offence.

The ink stamp has gone, but its job has not: a number in one system tells another that the State has been accounted for.

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 →