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Stamp duty on a modular, transportable or kit home

From Modular Living Australia — the independent knowledge base Last updated: 8 Oct 2026

Stamp duty, called transfer duty in New South Wales and Queensland, is charged on dutiable transactions over land, so for a modular, transportable or kit home it is the shape of the transaction that decides the bill, not how the home was made.^[1][2] In New South Wales, where a buyer has made improvements to land before it is transferred, the land is valued for duty as if those improvements had not been made, and first home buyers buying vacant land to build on can get an exemption or concession in New South Wales and Queensland.^[1][3][4]

Stamp duty — called transfer duty in New South Wales and Queensland, and land transfer duty in Victoria — is the tax most buyers of a factory-built home ask about first and find the least written about. The question that keeps recurring is a reasonable one: if the home is built in a factory and trucked to your block, are you buying a house or are you buying goods?

The answer determines the bill, and it does not turn on how the home was made. It turns on the shape of the transaction.

Duty is charged on land, not on the house §

Every state's duty is imposed on dutiable transactions over land and interests in land. In New South Wales, duty on an agreement for sale is determined by reference to the dutiable value of the property agreed to be sold or transferred^[1].

Nothing in that framework charges duty on the manufacture of a building. A contract with a builder to construct a home is not itself a transfer of land. What the revenue offices are interested in is whether, at the point land changes hands, a house is coming with it — and who put it there.

That produces a rule most people find counter-intuitive. If you buy bare land and then have a home built on it, duty is worked out on the land as it was. New South Wales states this directly: where a transferee has made improvements to land before the land is transferred, the unencumbered value is determined as if those improvements had not been made^[1]. Victoria has an equivalent public ruling dealing with the valuation basis where improvements were made by the transferee before the date of contract^[5]. Queensland works from the same starting point: transfer duty applies when property such as land or rights to land is sold, bought or transferred^[2].

But if the seller of the land is also responsible for procuring the construction, duty is assessed on the land and the improvements — the value of the completed thing. New South Wales gives the example squarely: a house and land package under which the buyer contracts with the seller of the land to receive a completed house on settlement is assessed as an agreement to transfer improved land, whether that is one contract or two interdependent contracts with linked settlement^[1].

The three shapes, and what each costs §

This is the practical reason the modular sector's usual structure — buy your block, then engage a manufacturer under a separate contract — sits on the favourable side of the line. The duty is assessed against the vacant land. The value the factory adds later is not caught.

It is also the reason the arrangement can lose that treatment. Where the land vendor and the home supplier are the same party, or the two contracts are interdependent and settle together, the transaction starts to look like the house and land package described in the New South Wales ruling^[1]. If a builder offers you a package deal on a block they control, this is worth raising with a conveyancer before you sign, not after.

Homes on a site you do not own §

A separate situation arises where the dwelling is placed on a site in a residential park or land lease community and you never acquire the land at all. Queensland's home transfer duty exemption material deals with this directly, addressing manufactured homes acquired for positioning on a site under a site agreement where the transaction does not involve an agreement for the transfer of ownership of land, subject to principal place of residence requirements^[6].

The underlying logic is the same as everywhere else: no land is changing hands, so the land duty framework has nothing to attach to. Land lease communities and manufactured home estates carry their own costs — site fees, exit arrangements, and rules about selling — which are covered separately on this site and which usually matter more to the total picture than duty does.

First home concessions and vacant land §

Every state runs first home duty concessions, and most of them include a stream for vacant land bought with the intention of building. New South Wales offers an exemption or concessional rate to eligible first home buyers purchasing vacant land on which they intend to build a home^[3]. Queensland's first home vacant land concession applies to land on which the buyer intends to build a residence, requires that there be no building or part of a building on the land when it is acquired, and for agreements entered into from 1 May 2025 may reduce duty on residential vacant land to nil^[4].

Two things follow for anyone planning a factory-built home.

The first is that the vacant land stream is usually the one that applies to you, not the new home stream. You are buying dirt, and building afterwards.

The second is a timing point that catches people. Queensland's concession requires no building or part of a building on the land when you acquire it^[4]. Land with an existing structure — a shed, a partly demolished dwelling, or a previously installed transportable — may not qualify as vacant.

Thresholds and rates for these concessions are indexed and are revised regularly. No current figures are published here for that reason. Check the revenue office in your state before budgeting.

What is not covered here §

• Rates and thresholds. None are published on this page. Duty scales and first home concession thresholds change and must be checked against your state revenue office at the time you sign.
• Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory. The general principle that duty attaches to land transactions applies across Australia, but no jurisdiction-specific rulings for those five were located in the sources compiled here, and none are inferred from the states above.
• GST. A separate tax with a different logic. GST on tiny homes, modules and transportable buildings is covered in its own guide.
• Foreign purchaser surcharges. Additional duty applies to acquisitions of residential land by foreign persons in several states. Not covered here.
• Whether your contract is one arrangement or two. This is the question the whole page turns on, and it is a matter of the documents and the relationship between the parties. It is a conveyancer's question, not a general information question.
• Vehicle registration duty. A tiny home on a registrable trailer may raise separate registration and duty questions not addressed here.
• Land tax and council rates. Ongoing property taxes are outside the scope of this page.

References §