Stamp duty on a business property: the cash bill nobody budgets for

Most people budget for a deposit when they buy business premises. Fewer budget for the tax that arrives with the keys. Stamp duty on a commercial purchase can run to tens of thousands of dollars, it is due close to settlement, and it is calculated on the general schedule rather than any of the concessional rates you may have seen advertised for homes.

Below is how it works for a business buyer, a real worked calculation, where the traps sit and how to make the cash side of the purchase add up.

What is stamp duty on a business property?

Stamp duty is the older name for transfer duty: a tax each state and territory charges when ownership of land or certain assets changes hands. The money goes to the state, not to the lender or the seller, and it is paid in addition to the price.

Three things make it different from the other costs in a purchase:

• It is set by your state or territory. There is no national schedule. A purchase of identical value will cost different amounts depending on where the land sits.
• It is a one-off cash cost. You can’t spread it across the loan term the way you can with an equipment finance repayment.
• It is based on the higher of price or value. If the contract price looks low against what the revenue office thinks the property is worth, duty may be assessed on the higher figure.

Business buyers usually pay on the general rates. Queensland’s Revenue Office states that its main schedule applies to “transactions involving dutiable property, including transfers of commercial or investment property”, and that the home concession applies only to a home you live in. Other states draw the same line in their own words.

How is the duty calculated?

States use stepped brackets: a fixed amount for the bracket you’ve reached, plus a rate on the dollars above its lower edge. Here is the Queensland general schedule as published on the Queensland Revenue Office’s rates page (last updated 25 June 2026):

Dutiable value	Duty payable
Up to $5,000	Nil
$5,000 to $75,000	$1.50 per $100 above $5,000
$75,000 to $540,000	$1,050 plus $3.50 per $100 above $75,000
$540,000 to $1,000,000	$17,325 plus $4.50 per $100 above $540,000
Over $1,000,000	$38,025 plus $5.75 per $100 above $1,000,000

Two worked examples on that schedule:

• An $800k workshop. Start with $17,325. The amount above $540,000 is $260,000, which is 2,600 lots of $100 at $4.50, or $11,700. Total duty: $29,025.
• A $1.2m medical suite. Start with $38,025. The amount above $1,000,000 is $200,000, which is 2,000 lots of $100 at $5.75, or $11,500. Total duty: $49,525.

Note how quickly the cost climbs. Moving from an $800k to a $1.2m purchase adds $400k to the price and about $20,500 to the duty bill.

New South Wales and Victoria publish their own schedules on the Revenue NSW and State Revenue Office Victoria sites, and they differ in brackets, thresholds and premium rates. We’ve deliberately not copied them here, because tables like these move with state budgets. Use your state’s official calculator, or ask your conveyancer to run the figure on your actual contract.

Does the lender fund the duty?

Usually not, and this is where purchases quietly fall over. A lender lends against a share of the property’s value (see what LVR is and why lenders care). If you buy a $1.2m property and the lender will advance 65 per cent, you need the other $420k of the price, plus duty, legal costs, valuation and loan fees, from somewhere else.

For the $1.2m Queensland example, a rough cash requirement looks like this:

Item	Indicative amount
Deposit (35 per cent of $1.2m)	$420,000
Stamp duty (general schedule)	$49,525
Legal and conveyancing	A few thousand dollars
Lender and valuation fees	Varies by lender
Due diligence reports	Varies by property

That’s before a working-capital buffer for the first few months of operating at the new site. The loan term and repayments are a separate conversation, which our guide to commercial property loans for first-timers covers.

Banks are often the cheapest source of commercial property finance, and if your numbers fit their policy a bank offer is worth taking seriously. A bank will usually expect to see the duty and fees covered by genuine savings or other equity, and will ask where the money came from.

Where do business buyers get caught out?

Buying shares instead of land. Taking over a company or unit trust that owns the premises can look like a share deal, yet it can attract landholder duty. New South Wales flags a $2m landholding threshold on its transfer duty page. Check this before agreeing to buy into a business with property on its balance sheet. Our guide to due diligence before buying a business covers the wider checks.

Assuming a concession applies. Victoria lists a regional commercial, industrial and extractive industries property concession, and a family farm exemption and young farmer relief. They’re narrow, with conditions on use, location and holding periods. A concession you assumed and didn’t get is a five-figure surprise.

Overlooking the contract’s moving parts. Chattels, goodwill, GST treatment and apportionments between land and other assets can all change what’s dutiable. A contract that splits the price differently could change the duty, but it has to reflect the real deal. Let the conveyancer and your accountant decide the split.

Forgetting the ongoing taxes. Duty is paid once. Land tax and, in some cases, payroll tax recur. Our guides on land tax and business property and payroll tax by state cover those.

Treating the premises as the whole decision. Sometimes the answer is that leasing and keeping the cash for stock, staff and equipment wins. We compare the two in buying your business premises vs leasing.

How can you cover the cash gap?

If the deposit and duty add up to more than you hold in cash, the realistic options are:

1. Use equity in property you already own. A second charge or a loan against a home or investment property can supply the deposit and costs. It adds security risk, so read the risks of using your home as business security first.
2. Bridge until another asset sells. If a sale is already under contract, a short-term bridging facility can cover the gap.
3. Restructure the purchase. A larger deposit by a partner or investor, a vendor-finance arrangement, or a staged purchase can reduce the day-one cash. Vendor terms are covered in vendor finance when buying a business.
4. Re-size the target. A property $150k cheaper saves the deposit, the duty and the interest. It’s not glamorous advice, but it is what keeps a first purchase solvent.

If you’d like to see what fits your numbers, tell us about the purchase. It’s a short form and nobody pulls your credit file just because you asked.

A sensible order of operations

1. Get the state’s duty figure before you make an offer, not after. Most revenue offices publish a calculator.
2. Ask your lender what it treats as your contribution and whether duty can come from equity.
3. Build the cash plan with a buffer: deposit, duty, legal, valuation, fees, moving costs and three months of working capital.
4. Check concessions with the state office, in writing if the dollars are material.
5. Confirm settlement timing so the cash is available on the day, not the week after.
6. Run the repayment numbers with the loan repayment calculator so the premises still pay their way after duty.

Ready to see how the purchase could be funded?

If the property stacks up but the cash side is tight, that’s a conversation worth having before you sign, not after. Our enquiry form takes around a minute, and asking won’t touch your credit score. Nothing goes out to a crowd of lenders: a real person reads what you’ve told us, thinks about how the deposit and duty could be covered, and calls you.

The more accurate the form is on price, deposit, the property you’d put up and anything already borrowed, the faster the right option comes up.

Check how your property purchase could be funded →