Australia’s NSW to increase duties on foreign homebuyers

AUSTRALIA’S New South Wales (NSW) will raise some duties on overseas buyers of homes in the country’s most populous state as lawmakers look to address the worst housing crisis in living memory.

The state government will lift the foreign purchaser surcharge to 9 per cent from 8 per cent, it said in a statement on Saturday (Jun 15). The owner land tax duty for overseas buyers will increase to 5 per cent from 4 per cent.

There are an estimated 20,000 foreign-owned residential properties in NSW, equivalent to around 0.6 per cent of the state’s housing stock, the government said.

The new measures are expected to return A$1.68 billion (S$1.5 billion) over the next four years in additional revenue, funds which will be directed to addressing the housing crisis, according to the statement. 

“These are modest adjustments against the backdrop of a generational housing crisis,” state Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said in the statement. “We intend to pull every lever we can to confront the housing crisis and build the homes the people of NSW need.”

The increase in duties is expected to encourage more properties to be made available to NSW residents and to ensure that overseas investors buying homes in the state are also contributing to the cost of building other houses and the necessary infrastructure to support them, according to the statement.