Nineteen council areas to get new land values in 2027, Logan included

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Landowners in 19 Queensland local government areas will receive a new statutory land valuation in 2027, according to the program published on the Queensland Government's land valuation pages and dated 5 August 2026. The list runs from two of the largest councils in the south-east, Logan City and the City of Moreton Bay, to a block of shires across the north-west, and the values will be struck as at 1 October 2026 and take effect on 30 June 2027.

A statutory valuation is not a market appraisal and nobody can sell a house for it. It is the figure on which a council bases general rates and on which the Queensland Revenue Office assesses land tax, which is why a list of council names published in August is worth an owner's attention seven months before any notice arrives.

Queensland Government, "Land valuations in 2027", page dated 5 August 2026.

The areas on the list

The program names 19 councils. Eight lie in the south-east, on the Darling Downs and along the coast; eleven are western and north-western councils covering very large areas.

The grouping in the table is ours, not the State's, but it shows the shape of the program. Logan and Moreton Bay are two of the big residential councils on Brisbane's southern and northern edges, and Toowoomba and Mackay are major regional cities. At the other end, Boulia, Burke and Croydon are sparsely populated shires where valuations matter chiefly to rural holdings.

Brisbane, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Ipswich, Townsville and Cairns are not on the list. Owners there will keep the valuation they already have for another year, unless a change to an individual property triggers a separate notice.

What the valuers will do between now and March

The published program describes the work ahead in one sentence: over the coming months, valuers from the State Valuation Service will gather on-the-ground information and carry out desktop assessments and research on property sales since each area was last valued.

The key date is 1 October 2026. Every valuation in the 2027 program will express what the land was worth on that day, whatever happens to the market afterwards. A sale in September 2026 is evidence; a sale in February 2027 is not, even though the notice will reach the owner later than that.

The State's general page on annual valuations sets out the usual rhythm: a valuation date of 1 October, notices issued in March, and an effective date of 30 June. The 2027 program page confirms the first and the third of those dates and does not yet give an issue date. This year's round is the nearest guide. The Queensland Government's summary of the 2026 valuations says they were issued on 11 March 2026, covered 15 local government areas and more than 560,000 properties, and were struck as at 1 October 2025.

The 2027 program is therefore larger by count of councils, 19 against 15, though the State has not published how many properties it covers.

What is valued, and what is left out

The figure on a valuation notice is the value of the land alone. The Queensland Land Court's guidance on valuation appeals puts it in a phrase: land is valued on its unimproved value. The house, the shed, the pool and the driveway are not in it.

Councils describe the figure they receive as the unimproved or site valuation, the two bases used for rural and non-rural land respectively. The State's objection forms reflect the split, with one form for non-rural land and another for rural land, and the Land Court's guidance notes that an owner may claim a deduction for site improvements such as clearing or drainage.

This is the source of a common confusion in March each year. An owner who has renovated may find the valuation has barely moved, and an owner who has done nothing may find it has jumped, because what moved was the price of land in the street and not the condition of the house.

Why a new value does not set next year's bill

Two taxes use the valuation, and both soften it before it reaches a bill.

For land tax, the Queensland Revenue Office says the taxable value of each parcel is the lesser of its statutory valuation and its averaged value, which is generally the average of the valuation for the current tax year and the two years before it. A new value that takes effect on 30 June 2027 will therefore count for one third of the averaged value used in the 2027-28 assessment, with the two older values making up the rest. The effect of a sharp rise arrives over three years.

For council rates, the valuation is only one of the inputs. A council sets its own rate in the dollar for each category of land every year, and the State's valuation pages make the point directly: a rise in a property's value does not automatically mean a rise in rates. Several councils also average valuations over three years. Brisbane City Council, for example, says it averages a property's past three valuations to find the figure it rates on, and uses the current valuation instead where that is lower.

Councils can go further. Townsville City Council says in its 2026-27 budget material that it has capped rate increases for owner-occupied residential properties at 20 per cent, a measure it describes as protection for owners whose land values rose significantly. Whether a council on the 2027 list does something similar is a decision for its budget in mid-2027.

The 60 days that follow a notice

An owner who thinks a valuation is wrong has a fixed window. The Queensland Government's objections page says an objection must be lodged within 60 days of the issue date on the notice. For the 2026 round, issued on 11 March, the period closed on 11 May 2026.

An objection can be lodged online or on paper, by the owner or by someone acting with the owner's written consent, and it has to state acceptable grounds and supply evidence. In practice that means sales of comparable land around the valuation date. An argument that the rates are too high is not a ground; an argument that similar blocks in the same street sold for less on or about 1 October is.

The department checks each objection against the requirements of the Land Valuation Act 2010. If something is missing it may send a correction notice, which gives the owner 28 days to fix it. For land valued above $5 million an objection conference with an independent chairperson is mandatory, and below that figure a conference is at the department's discretion. A late objection can be accepted within one year only in narrow circumstances, which the page lists as including the owner's incapacity or an extraordinary emergency.

If the decision goes against the owner, the next step is the Land Court. The court's guidance says an appeal must be filed within 60 days of the date on the objection decision notice.

What owners in the 19 areas can do now

Nothing is required of anyone yet, and for most owners nothing ever will be beyond reading a notice. Three small steps are available in the meantime, all of them drawn from the State's own pages.

The first is delivery. The Queensland Government says owners can register to receive their valuation by email on the day of issue, and that close to half of the State's landowners already do. Since the 60 days run from the issue date and not from the day a letter is opened, an emailed notice gives an owner the whole period.

The second is the current figure. The State publishes existing valuations and sales data through its online search, and an owner who knows what the land is valued at today will understand next March's notice more quickly.

The third is the calendar. The values will be struck on 1 October 2026. An owner in Logan, Moreton Bay, Toowoomba or any of the other areas who sees comparable vacant or lightly improved land sell nearby in the months around that date is looking at the evidence the valuers will use, and the evidence an objection would need.

A program that changes every year

Queensland does not revalue every council area annually. Each year a subset is chosen, which is why the State publishes a list at all, and why some areas go several years between valuations. The published program for 2027 does not set out the reasons each area was selected.

For the property industry the list is a planning document. Valuers and property lawyers who act in objections now know where next autumn's work will be. Councils on the list know that their 2027-28 budgets will be framed on new values, with the redistribution of rates between suburbs and categories that follows. And land tax payers with holdings in the 19 areas know that the three-year average on their 2027-28 assessment will have one new number in 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.

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