The $1 that costs QLD first home buyers $30,000

TL;DR: Queensland’s $30,000 First Home Owner Grant stops at a home value under $750,000, and it is a hard cliff rather than a phase out. At $749,999 you get the full $30,000. At $750,000 you get nothing. It is new homes only, and the value includes the land and any contract variations. The transfer duty concessions behave completely differently: a new home attracts zero transfer duty at any price on contracts dated 1 May 2025 or later, while an established home is duty free to $700,000 and loses the first home concession entirely above $800,000. The federal 5% Deposit Scheme caps at $1,000,000 in Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast, and Queensland’s Boost to Buy caps at $1,000,000. Every one of these thresholds is assessed against your contract date, not your settlement date.

A first home buyer in Brisbane right now can qualify for a federal deposit scheme at $1,000,000, a Queensland shared equity scheme at $1,000,000, pay zero transfer duty on a new home at any price at all, and still miss the $30,000 First Home Owner Grant by a single dollar.

Four schemes. Four different caps. They were designed at different times for different purposes, and nothing forces them to agree.

Watch: the QLD first home owner grant $750,000 cap explained

The Courier Mail reported this week that Place Advisory wants Queensland’s $750,000 grant threshold lifted to $850,000, with brokers and buyer’s agents backing the call. That is a policy argument for others to have. Our interest is narrower and more useful to you: if you are signing a contract in the next few months, which cap actually bites, and what does it cost you to get it wrong?

Here is the map.

What are the four price caps for QLD first home buyers?

Read that table again and you will spot the thing most coverage misses.

What changes if the home is new rather than established?

Almost everything. This is the biggest fork in the road for a Queensland first home buyer, and it turns on one thing: whether anyone has lived in the home before you.

On a new home you pay no transfer duty. Not at $750,000, not at $900,000, not at $1.2 million.

The first home (new home) transfer duty concession reduces your duty to nil and it has no value cap. If your contract is dated 1 May 2025 or later and you meet the conditions, you pay zero transfer duty on a new home regardless of price.

This matters because it corrects a common shorthand. You will hear that a first home buyer over the threshold “gets charged duty and denied the grant on the same purchase”. That is true of an established home. It is not true of a new one. Buy a brand new townhouse in Brisbane at $900,000 and you pay no transfer duty at all. You simply do not get the $30,000 grant, because the grant stops at $750,000 and the duty concession does not stop anywhere.

On an established home the picture is different. Duty is nil up to $700,000, then the first home concession phases out and disappears entirely above $800,000. Above that you fall back to the ordinary home concession, which is worth far less. Our full breakdown of the QLD first home concession walks through the numbers, and if you want the wider picture including the general rate and the foreign buyer surcharge, start with how QLD stamp duty actually works.

What does the $30,000 grant actually require?

Three things trip people up, and none of them are about price.

It is new homes only. The property must never have been previously occupied or sold as a place of residence. A renovated Queenslander, however beautifully done, is not a new home. Houses, units, duplexes, townhouses, kit and modular homes and manufactured homes in parks can all qualify.

The $750,000 is the value of the home including the land and any contract variations. This is the one that catches people. You sign at $735,000, then you upgrade the kitchen and add a covered deck through variations, and you have quietly walked past the threshold. The grant is assessed on the finished value, not the figure on the front page of the contract.

The date on your contract decides the amount. The $30,000 rate applies to contracts signed on or after 20 November 2023. For owner builders it runs off the date the foundations are laid.

How does the 5% deposit scheme cap work in Brisbane?

The Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme, previously the First Home Guarantee, changed substantially on 1 October 2025. Income caps were removed, places became unlimited, and the price caps went up.

For Queensland the cap is $1,000,000 for the capital city and regional centres, and the government counts Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast as regional centres, so they get the same $1,000,000 figure as Brisbane. Everywhere else in Queensland the cap is $700,000. Minimum deposit is 5%, or 2% under the single parent and legal guardian stream, and there is no lenders mortgage insurance.

So a Paradise Point or Wynnum buyer sits on the same federal cap as a buyer in Paddington. Our earlier post on the fast tracked 5% deposit scheme was written before the October 2025 expansion, so treat the caps above as the current position.

What is Boost to Buy and who can still use it?

Boost to Buy is the Queensland shared equity scheme. The State contributes up to 30% of the price on a new home or 25% on an existing one, you need a 2% deposit, and the price cap is $1,000,000. Income caps are $155,000 for a single applicant and $232,000 for two adults or a single applicant with dependants.

One practical point that matters more than the eligibility rules: places are finite. Round 2 for South East Queensland has been fully allocated, with appointments continuing in regional Queensland. Do not build a purchase plan, or a contract, around funding that is not currently available to you.

Why do the four caps not line up?

Because they were never designed as a set. The grant threshold has sat at $750,000 while the federal scheme moved to $1,000,000 and the new home duty concession had its cap removed entirely. Place Advisory and several brokers quoted in The Courier Mail argue the grant threshold should move to $850,000 or higher to match. Queensland Treasury’s position is that the $750,000 threshold remains competitive with other states and sits inside a broader package.

That argument will play out where it plays out. What you can control is which side of each line your contract lands on.

How do the schemes stack on one purchase?

This is the part worth getting right before you sign anything.

• New home under $750,000. Best case. $30,000 grant, zero transfer duty, and the federal 5% deposit scheme available on top if the property is inside the relevant cap.
• New home between $750,000 and $1,000,000. Still zero transfer duty and still inside the federal cap in Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast. No grant.
• New home above $1,000,000. Still zero transfer duty. No grant, and outside the federal deposit scheme and Boost to Buy.
• Established home at $700,000 or under. Zero transfer duty under the first home concession. No grant, because the grant is new homes only.
• Established home between $700,000 and $800,000. Partial duty concession, reducing as the price rises. No grant.
• Established home above $800,000. No first home concession. The ordinary home concession applies instead, and it is worth considerably less.

The jump from “new” to “established” moves more money than most price negotiations do.

What should you check before you sign the contract?

These are the conditions that decide whether the concession survives, and every one of them is assessed against the contract, not against your intentions.

You must move in within one year of settlement, and that period is not extendable. For the new home concession there is no discretion to extend it.

Do not lease out the property, or part of it, before you move in. Rules also apply to renting rooms afterwards, and they have changed in your favour in recent years. We covered that in the rules on renting rooms without losing the concession.

Check who is on the contract. If you buy with someone who has held an interest in a residence before, anywhere in Australia or overseas, it can reduce or remove the concession for the whole purchase.

Watch the citizenship and residency requirement. From 1 August 2026 the new home concession requires you to be an Australian citizen, a permanent resident, or a specified foreign retiree.

The contract date, not the settlement date, sets the rules that apply to you. 20 November 2023 for the $30,000 grant rate. 9 June 2024 for the current established home thresholds. 1 May 2025 for the uncapped new home concession. If your contract is dated before the relevant change, the older rules follow you all the way to settlement.

Buying land to build on is its own set of rules. The first home vacant land concession works differently again, and we set it out in stamp duty abolished for first home buyers on land.

What is the short version?

The $750,000 grant cap gets the headlines because $30,000 is a real number and missing it stings. But for most Queensland first home buyers the bigger decision is made earlier and more quietly: new or established. That single choice changes your transfer duty position by tens of thousands of dollars, and it is locked in the moment you sign.

Get the contract looked at before you sign it, not after. Every one of these thresholds is decided on the contract date, and there is no version of this where it is cheaper to fix afterwards.

If you want the whole thing in one place, our free QLD first home buyers guide covers the process end to end, and what conveyancing actually costs in QLD sets out our standard fees with no surprises.