New home grant
The New Home Grant is available for purchases made before 1 July 2017.
- The New Home Grant (NHG) offered $5,000 towards the purchase of your new home or land.
- It applied to homes valued at less than $650,000 at the time of purchase, and for land valued at $450,000 or less.
The NHG was available for:
- new homes that hadn’t been previously occupied
- homes bought off the plan
- vacant land won which you intended to build your home.
For vacant land, you must have started construction and lay foundations within 26 weeks of the purchase date.
How to apply
To apply for the NHG, please download and complete the form (PDF, 324 KB) for homes purchased between 1 July 2014 and 30 June 2017.
If there are multiple buyers, each buyer needs to complete an application individually.
What’s considered a ‘new home’?
The grant is only available for new homes. To qualify as a new home, your property must never have been:
- sold before you purchased it
- lived in before you moved in, including by the builder or a tenant.
Your home is also considered new if it was substantially renovated before you bought it.
You might be eligible for the NHG if
- most or all of the house was removed or replaced
- it was the first time the home was sold after the renovations
- it had never been lived in since being renovated, including by the builder or a tenant.
Eligibility requirements
The NHG is open to individuals, companies or trusts.
You can be an investor or owner/occupier.
Foreign residents can apply for the grant, so long as they meet the Foreign Investment Review Board requirements for investing in Australia.
For purchases made after 30 June 2014, you can only apply for the NHG once for each financial year.
You cannot apply if
- you bought an existing home to knock down and replace
- your new home has been used for any purpose other than residential
- someone else has previously received the NHG for the same property
- your agreement or transfer is replacing one made before 1 July 2012 for substantially the same property.
The agreement or transfer of vacant land must also be for the whole of the land.
Where a trustee is acquiring the land, it must hold at least 50% of the land for the benefit of:
- Australian citizens
- Australian residents or
- Australian-owned bodies.
Receiving payment of the grant
You’ll receive the grant as a reduction in the amount of transfer duty you need to pay.
- If you owe less than $5,000 in transfer duty, you don’t have to pay any and we will deposit the remainder of your grant in your bank account.
- If you’ve already paid transfer duty, we’ll deposit the full $5,000 in your bank account.
Making false claims
There are substantial penalties for providing false or misleading information when applying for the NHG. We regularly check applications for inaccuracies and compare your information to data from other government agencies and businesses.
Find out more
Contact us for more information on the NHG and how to apply.