Foreign & Overseas Buyers
Orientation for Australians living overseas, permanent and temporary residents, new migrants, and foreign buyers considering property in South East Queensland.
Buying property in Australia from overseas, or as a recent arrival, raises questions that a typical local buyer may never need to ask. Your requirements can depend on your residency and visa status, the state you are buying in, and the type of property you are considering.
This section is being built out to help orient overseas and foreign buyers to how the Queensland property market generally works, before getting into the detail of any specific purchase.
What this section will cover
A note on rules and costs. Requirements such as foreign purchaser surcharges, land tax, FIRB approval and first-home concessions vary by buyer status, jurisdiction and property type, and they change over time. We are not publishing specific current thresholds, fees or eligibility rules on this page, because getting that wrong would be worse than not saying it at all. When this content is published, it will be checked against official current government sources, and you should still confirm anything consequential with a conveyancer, solicitor, tax adviser or the relevant government body before acting on it.
Where to start
If you are exploring South East Queensland from overseas, a reasonable starting point is Areas & Suburbs for general orientation, or Find Property For Me if you already have a reasonably clear idea of what you are looking for.