ACT first home buyers
ACT First Home Owner Grant
The ACT does not pay a First Home Owner Grant. First home buyer assistance in the territory is the Home Buyer Concession Scheme, a stamp duty concession that removes conveyance duty entirely for eligible buyers purchasing their first home.
That surprises a lot of Curtin buyers, because national comparison articles still list a grant that ended years ago. This page explains what the Home Buyer Concession Scheme actually offers, who qualifies, how it interacts with Curtin's property market, and how Your Mortgage Broker Curtin helps first home buyers structure the purchase around it.
What It Is Worth Right Now
The headline figure is not a cash payment but the duty you never pay, and from 1 July 2026 that now applies to every eligible buyer at any price. The 2026-27 ACT Budget removed both the income threshold and the property price cap, so a buyer who meets the prior-ownership and occupancy rules pays no conveyance duty whether the home is new, established, or land they intend to build on. On an established house in Curtin, that concession is routinely worth tens of thousands of dollars in duty that would otherwise be added to your purchase costs, which is why understanding the scheme matters more here than chasing a grant that does not exist. The value depends on your transaction date: transactions dated before 1 July 2026 were tested against the earlier income thresholds and price cap, and the ACT Revenue Office holds the historical rules for those.
Who Qualifies
Eligibility now turns on who you are and what you have owned before, not what you earn, following the 2026-27 Budget changes. The core tests, straight from the scheme's own page:
No prior ownership
Aged 18 or over
No income test
No price cap
A genuine intention to occupy
Property in the ACT
Which Properties It Covers
Because the price cap is gone, the property-type table is now the simplest way to see where the concession applies:
| Property type | Concession available | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Established home | Yes | Any prior-owned dwelling, no price limit from 1 July 2026 |
| New home | Yes | Newly built, never occupied, no price limit |
| Vacant land to build on | Yes | You must intend to build a home on the block |
| Investment purchase | No | The 12-month occupancy rule must be met by at least one buyer |
| Company or trust purchase | No | Buyers must be individuals aged 18 or over |
Why The Rule Bites Here
The concession now applies at every price, but Curtin's market gives it a particular shape. This is where the rule connects to the actual stock a first home buyer will be looking at:
The Median and the Old Cap
Under the earlier rules, Curtin's established housing stock regularly tested against the price cap, because the suburb is dominated by separate houses: 83.8 per cent of its 2,023 dwellings, with 46.4 per cent offering four or more bedrooms, the family format that prices highest. From 1 July 2026 that tension disappears, since the cap is gone, so the concession now reaches exactly the established family homes that first buyers actually want in Curtin rather than only the smaller, cheaper end of the market.
Where New Stock Actually Sits
If you specifically want a new dwelling, Curtin's supply is thin: just 151 dwelling approvals across the last five years, and only 23 in 2021-22. The suburb is 6.8 kilometres from the CBD and largely built out, so genuinely new stock tends to appear as replacement dwellings or small developments rather than broad releases. A buyer set on a brand-new home in Curtin itself may wait a long time, which is why the scheme's coverage of established homes matters as much as its coverage of new ones.
The Gap Between Eligible and Desirable
There is no longer any gap between what qualifies financially and what Curtin costs, because eligibility is not price-tested. The real gap is between the concession's eligibility and a lender's willingness to lend: a first buyer with a small deposit still faces deposit requirements, lenders mortgage insurance thresholds and serviceability tests that operate entirely separately from duty. A median household here carries a mortgage repayment of about $2,600 a month, and that is the scale of commitment a first purchase in this suburb represents once the duty saving is banked.
What It Means for Your Search
Practically, the change means you should shop on the property, not the concession. Every eligible Curtin buyer pays no duty, so the differentiator between two buyers chasing the same Hughes or Lyons house is deposit strength and borrowing capacity, not who squeaks under a cap. That reframes your preparation: confirm your eligibility under the prior-ownership and occupancy rules, then put your energy into the loan side of the transaction, where our first home buyer process does the heavy lifting.
How It Stacks With Duty Relief
The scheme is the duty relief, which is where many buyers get confused. Here is how the pieces fit, or fail to:
No grant underneath
New versus established makes no difference
The Commonwealth deposit scheme is separate
Earlier transactions saw different rules
Duty relief is upfront, not refunded
How it works
How To Apply And When Money Arrives
The claim runs through your conveyance, not a separate application form, and there is no cheque at the end of it. The sequence, per the Revenue Office's claim page:
- 1
Confirming Eligibility First
Work through the rules before you sign: no property ownership by any buyer or their domestic partner in the last five years, all buyers aged 18 or over, and a willingness to occupy for 12 months from within a year of settlement. Your Mortgage Broker Curtin walks Curtin first home buyers through this at the same time as the loan pre-assessment, because an eligibility surprise after exchange is an expensive one.
- 2
Claiming Through the Conveyancer
The concession is claimed on the transfer at the time duty would otherwise be assessed, handled by your conveyancer or solicitor through the ACT Revenue Office process. You do not lodge anything separately, and the transaction documents carry the concession claim, so choosing a conveyancer who knows the scheme matters.
- 3
What Happens at Settlement
There is no later payment to wait for. The concession applies at the transaction itself, so where a non-eligible buyer would see a duty notice, an eligible buyer sees none, and the money that would have gone to duty stays in your settlement funds. That is the entire mechanics of it.
- 4
Where the Broker Fits
The concession handles duty, but your loan still needs structuring: deposit size, lenders mortgage insurance exposure, and which lender's policy reads your situation best. That is the work we do across the wider service set, and it is worth doing before you make an offer on a Curtin property rather than after.
Worth knowing early
What Gets An Application Knocked Back
Most refused claims fail on one of a handful of predictable points, all visible before you commit:
- Prior ownership somewhere in the last five years A buyer or their domestic partner owned property, anywhere at all, inside the five-year window. It does not matter where the property was or whether it was the buyer's main residence.
- Occupation that never starts or falls short Nobody lives in the home for the required 12 months, or occupation begins more than one year after settlement, breaching the residency commitment.
- Reading the old rules into a new transaction Assuming an income limit or price cap still applies to a contract dated on or after 1 July 2026, when both were removed, or assuming none applied to an earlier transaction, when both did.
- Expecting a cash grant Budgeting around a payment that the ACT simply does not make, because the assistance is duty relief at the transaction and nothing else.
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Questions answered
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is the ACT First Home Owner Grant worth?
Nothing, because the ACT no longer pays one. The old grant scheme ended years ago. Today's assistance is the Home Buyer Concession Scheme, which removes stamp duty entirely for eligible first home buyers.
Can I get the grant on an established home?
There is no grant, but the duty concession does cover established homes. From 1 July 2026 an eligible buyer pays no conveyance duty whether the property is new, established, or vacant land they plan to build on.
What is the property price cap for the grant?
There is no price cap for transactions dated on or before 1 July 2026 onwards. The 2026-27 ACT Budget removed the cap, along with the income test, so no eligible first home buyer pays stamp duty.
Do I have to live in the property to keep the grant?
The concession carries an occupancy rule rather than a clawback of cash. At least one buyer must own and live in the home as their principal place of residence for at least 12 months, starting within one year of settlement.
Is the grant different from stamp duty relief?
Yes. A grant is a cash payment; stamp duty relief reduces or removes the duty payable at settlement. The ACT offers the second form only, through the Home Buyer Concession Scheme run by the ACT Revenue Office.
How long does the grant take to arrive?
It never arrives, because there is no cash payment. The concession applies to the transaction itself through your conveyancer or solicitor, so the duty is simply never assessed rather than refunded later.
Mortgage broker for Curtin and the suburbs around it
Get In Touch
If you are weighing up a first purchase in Curtin and want the concession and the loan worked through together, call (02) 9072 0640 to speak with the same broker who handles your file from first call to settlement, or read more about how we work.