CGT calculator NSW

NSW raises no capital gains tax, and neither does any other state or territory. The tax sits in your federal income tax return, at federal marginal rates, with the federal 50% discount after a 12-month hold. A seller in Parramatta and a seller in Perth work the same sum and reach the same number.

The 50% discount, the marginal brackets, the main residence exemption and the carry-forward of capital losses are all federal rules. Move from Newcastle to Nimbin, or to another state entirely, and the calculation does not change a cent.

The table below is the resident rate stack an NSW gain lands on for the 2026-27 income year. These are the federal brackets that apply to the taxable income of every Australian resident.

NSW transfer duty at purchase and land tax on an investment holding are state taxes under state law, with their own thresholds and their own timetables. No NSW rate enters the federal capital gain, and no figure for a state levy appears on this page.

The agent's commission and the legal bills are a different matter: they are selling costs and purchase costs, and the worked example below carries them in the proceeds and the cost base, where the federal sum wants them.

You buy a terrace in Sydney's inner west on 4 February 2022 for $620,000, with $22,000 of purchase costs, and you spend $15,000 on capital improvements while it is tenanted. On 21 August 2026 you exchange contracts at $805,000 and pay $28,000 of selling costs.

That makes a cost base of $657,000 against net proceeds of $777,000, a capital gain of $120,000. Held four and a half years, the terrace clears the 12-month test easily, the 50% discount removes $60,000, and the net capital gain is $60,000. On other income of $75,000 the gain stays inside the 30% bracket, so the tax on the gain is $19,200, and $1,200 of that is Medicare levy.

The main residence exemption is federal too. Live in the home for the whole time you own it and the gain is exempt; the calculator carries a main home switch that zeroes it. Rent the place out from the first day, as in the example above, and the whole gain is taxable.

The dates that matter are the contract dates. Exchange triggers the CGT event on the sale side, not settlement, and the 12-month count leaves out both the acquisition day and the day of the sale contract.

Capital losses brought in from earlier years work here exactly as they do everywhere else. They net against the year's gains before the discount is applied, and the calculator's income panel takes the figure.