Stamp duty for pensioners and downsizers

Where older buyers get help

The picture for older buyers is patchy, and it has moved in three jurisdictions since the middle of 2025. The table records what each office states for a pensioner or downsizer buying a home to live in.

Victoria: pensioner and concession card holders

For contracts from 1 July 2023, the State Revenue Office Victoria gives an eligible pensioner or concession card holder buying a home a full exemption up to $600,000 and a reducing concession up to $750,000. The scheme can be used once, and anyone eligible for both it and the first home buyer exemption must choose one. Its thresholds are the same as the first home ones, so the duty is identical whichever of the two is used.

Below $550,000 the comparison is with the principal place of residence rate, which any owner-occupier gets; above it, with the general scale. Above $750,000 nothing is saved. The Victorian pensioner page has the card types and the detailed conditions.

ACT: no cap since 1 July 2026

The ACT Revenue Office's Pensioner Duty Concession Scheme now removes conveyance duty entirely for an eligible pensioner, whatever the price. Before 1 July 2026 the scheme had a value cap. The effect is largest on dearer homes: at $1,200,000 an owner-occupier would otherwise pay $46,758 under the owner-occupier rates. The ACT pensioner page sets out who is eligible.

South Australia: seniors downsizing relief

RevenueSA's notice of 28 April 2026 describes relief for buyers aged 60 and over, for contracts from 25 March 2026. The buyer sells their principal place of residence and buys a new home, an off-the-plan apartment or land to build on, with a smaller land area than the home sold. The relief is capped at $103,830, which is the duty on $2,000,000 under South Australia's scale. RevenueSA's notice lists further conditions that this site has not reviewed, so the table below only shows the cap against the duty at each price, not an eligibility verdict.

Up to $2,000,000 the cap is never reached. A first home buyer is in a different scheme altogether: South Australia's first home relief already removes duty on new homes at any price.

Tasmania: a concession that closed

The State Revenue Office of Tasmania offered a duty concession to pensioners downsizing to a new home. It applied to sales settled by 30 June 2025, and there is no replacement in 2026-27. A Tasmanian downsizer now pays $20,373 on a $550,000 home, the same as anyone else.

Everywhere else: the owner-occupier rate, if there is one

In Queensland the Queensland Revenue Office says plainly that there are no additional concessions for seniors card or pensioner concession card holders. A downsizer still benefits from the home concession rate available to any owner-occupier. NSW, Western Australia and the Northern Territory publish no pensioner scheme on the pages we read, and NSW and the Territory have no owner-occupier rate either, so a pensioner pays the same as an investor. Western Australia's concessional rate for a principal place of residence is the one help a WA downsizer can count on, and it stops at $200,000: a $190,000 unit costs $4,628 instead of $4,655. In Victoria a downsizer without a pensioner or concession card still gets the principal place of residence rate up to $550,000, which is why the Victorian table above compares with that rate at the lower prices.