Negative gearing calculator, updated for the 2026 rules.
The rules changed on Budget night 2026, and they split investors into three groups who are now taxed differently. Answer three questions and this works out which one you're in — then what the property actually costs you a week, after tax.
From 1 July 2027, negative gearing in Australia is limited to eligible new builds, for residential property acquired after 7:30pm AEST, 12 May 2026 — under the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Act 2026. Property held, or under an exchanged contract, before that moment is grandfathered and keeps the current treatment until it is sold. Super funds and widely held trusts were excluded. The same Act also replaces the 50% capital gains tax discount with cost base indexation and a 30% minimum rate on gains accruing from 1 July 2027.
Last updated 13 August 2026. Sources: ATO, Queensland Revenue Office transfer duty rates.
First — which rules apply to you
When did you buy it, or when will you?
The cut-off is 7:30pm AEST, 12 May 2026. A contract exchanged before then counts as held.
New build or established?
Knock-down rebuilds and renovations that don't add a dwelling aren't 'new'.
How is it held?
Super funds and widely held trusts were excluded from the change.
What you paid, or expect to pay.
What it rents for, or should. We'll tell you honestly at appraisal.
Before this property. It sets what the deduction is worth.
The loan
Repayments
Your regime
Affected from 1 July 2027
Established, acquired after 7:30pm AEST, 12 May 2026. It gears normally until 1 July 2027, then the loss is quarantined.
After tax, from 1 July 2027
−$250/wk
Until 1 July 2027 it still gears normally at −$86/wk. After that the $23,315 loss is quarantined against future rental income or capital gains instead of your salary.
What the change costs you
$164/wk
$8,511 a year. The loss isn't lost — it's deferred, and it still counts against rental income or when you eventually sell.
Indicative only and not personal tax advice. Depreciation is estimated, not surveyed, and capital gains tax isn't modelled. Rules as at 13 August 2026. LINK Advisors, registered tax agent 25504639, can work through what it means for your actual position.
What is negative gearing?
Negative gearing is when the cost of holding an investment property — loan interest, management fees, council rates, insurance, repairs and depreciation — adds up to more than the rent it earns. The shortfall is a rental loss. Where the property qualifies, that loss comes off your taxable income, so you pay less tax on everything else you earn.
When the rent covers the costs instead, the property is positively geared — there's no loss to claim, and the surplus is added to your taxable income. The calculator above handles both, and tells you which one you're looking at. The important thing it adds is the bit most calculators still ignore: since the 2026 change, whether you can use the loss at all now depends on when you bought and what you bought.
What actually changed, and who it applies to.
Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Act 2026 passed both houses on 25 June 2026 and was enacted the following day. It limits negative gearing to eligible new builds for residential property acquired after 7:30pm AEST, 12 May 2026, commencing 1 July 2027.
Grandfathered
Held, or under an exchanged contract, before 7:30pm AEST, 12 May 2026. Nothing changes. You keep the current treatment until you sell, with no time limit on it.
New builds
Eligible new dwellings were carved out. Negative gearing still applies, and so does the more favourable capital gains treatment. Rebuilds and renovations that don't add a dwelling don't count.
Affected
Established property bought after the cut-off. It gears normally until 1 July 2027. After that the loss is quarantined — carried forward against rental income or a future capital gain rather than your salary.
Super funds including SMSFs, and widely held trusts, were excluded from the negative gearing change altogether. Separately, and less widely reported, the same Act replaces the 50% capital gains tax discount with cost base indexation plus a 30% minimum rate on real gains accruing from 1 July 2027 — across all assets, not just property.
Rules as at 13 August 2026. Enacted 26 June 2026. A second tranche of legislation was still in consultation in August 2026.
How to calculate negative gearing: a worked example.
A $750,000 Brisbane house on a 20% deposit, renting for $650 a week, held by someone earning $150,000. Every figure below comes out of the calculator above.
- Rent, 50 weeks at $650
- $32,500
- Loan interest, interest only
- −$37,200
- Management at 7.7%
- −$2,503
- Council rates and water
- −$2,200
- Landlord insurance
- −$1,600
- Repairs and maintenance
- −$2,000
- Cash shortfall before tax
- −$13,003
- Less depreciation, Division 43
- −$10,313
- Taxable rental loss
- $23,315
The same loss, under each regime
Grandfathered, or a new build
The $23,315 loss comes off the $150,000 salary, saving $8,511 in tax. Out of pocket $86 a week.
Established, bought after the cut-off
Identical until 1 July 2027. After that the loss is quarantined and the salary offset stops, so it costs $250 a week — $0 a week worse, or $0 a year.
Note the depreciation line. It is not cash, but it enlarges the loss — which helps while the loss is deductible, and simply banks a larger carried-forward balance once it is quarantined.
What you can claim against the rent.
The deduction is what turns a cash shortfall into a rental loss, and the depreciation line is the one investors most often leave on the table. Everything below is already in the calculator above.
Deductible while it's rented
- →Loan interest — the interest only, never the principal
- →Property management fees, and the letting fee on a new tenancy
- →Council rates and water charges
- →Landlord insurance
- →Body corporate levies, on a unit or townhouse
- →Repairs and maintenance that restore, rather than improve
- →Land tax, once you are over the Queensland threshold
- →Depreciation — capital works at 2.5%, plus plant on a new build
- →Borrowing costs, spread over five years or the loan term
Not deductible, or not yet
- –The principal portion of the repayment — it buys you equity, not a deduction
- –Improvements and renovations, which are capital and depreciate instead
- –Second-hand plant and equipment in an established property, since 9 May 2017
- –Stamp duty, which goes to the cost base and reduces the capital gain later
- –Costs for any period the property was genuinely unavailable to rent
- –Your own labour on the property, however many weekends it took
How much you can actually claim depends on your income, not just the property: the same rental loss is worth more against a higher marginal rate. That is why the calculator asks for your income and runs the tax twice rather than applying a flat percentage.
What a geared property costs a week, after tax.
For a grandfathered or new-build property, where the loss still comes off your salary. Every figure comes out of the same function the calculator above runs, at a 4.5% gross yield, a 20% deposit, 6.2% interest only, 2 weeks vacancy and a 7.7% management fee.
| Purchase price | $90,000 income | $120,000 income | $150,000 income | $200,000 income |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $600,000 | −$101 | −$101 | −$81 | −$59 |
| $750,000 | −$107 | −$107 | −$87 | −$60 |
| $900,000 | −$112 | −$113 | −$93 | −$62 |
| $1,100,000 | −$119 | −$122 | −$102 | −$64 |
| $1,400,000 | −$130 | −$134 | −$114 | −$67 |
After-tax weekly position = rent less loan interest, management, holding costs and vacancy, plus the tax saved on the resulting rental loss including Division 43 depreciation. A minus sign means out of pocket.
On a $750,000 Brisbane property at a $120,000 income, a grandfathered or new-build purchase costs about $107 a week after tax at these settings.
What the change costs, if your property is affected.
The same properties again, this time as an established purchase made after the cut-off. The figures below are the weekly difference between offsetting the loss against your salary and carrying it forward — in other words, what 1 July 2027 costs you.
| Purchase price | $90,000 income | $120,000 income | $150,000 income | $200,000 income |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $600,000 | $122 | $122 | $142 | $164 |
| $750,000 | $144 | $144 | $164 | $191 |
| $900,000 | $166 | $165 | $186 | $217 |
| $1,100,000 | $197 | $194 | $214 | $252 |
| $1,400,000 | $242 | $237 | $258 | $305 |
The difference between the two treatments of the same rental loss, so it tracks what the deduction was worth. It broadly rises with income, though not perfectly: a loss large enough to drag a lower income down into the low income tax offset can be worth more than the same loss against a higher one. The loss itself is deferred, not lost.
On a $750,000 Brisbane property at a $120,000 income, the 2026 negative gearing change costs an affected investor about $144 a week, or roughly $7,500 a year.
Queensland transfer duty on an investment purchase.
Calculated on the published Queensland Revenue Office brackets, with no home concession — investors don't get one. It's the largest single line in the cash you need at settlement, and the one most calculators approximate.
| Purchase price | Transfer duty | As % of price |
|---|---|---|
| $600,000 | $20,025 | 3.34% |
| $750,000 | $26,775 | 3.57% |
| $900,000 | $33,525 | 3.72% |
| $1,100,000 | $43,775 | 3.98% |
| $1,400,000 | $61,025 | 4.36% |
General transfer duty rates, no home or first-home concession. Foreign buyers pay an additional 8% surcharge on the dutiable value.
Queensland transfer duty on a $750,000 investment purchase is $26,775 — about 3.6% of the price, and payable on top of your deposit.
Questions we get asked.
What is the new rule on negative gearing in Australia?
From 1 July 2027, negative gearing is limited to eligible new builds for residential property acquired after 7:30pm AEST, 12 May 2026. If you hold a property bought before that moment, nothing changes for you until you sell it. If you buy an established property now, you can still offset the loss against your salary until 1 July 2027, after which the loss is quarantined against future rental income or capital gains instead.
Am I grandfathered under the negative gearing changes?
If you held the property — or had exchanged a contract on it — before 7:30pm AEST, 12 May 2026, yes. Grandfathered properties keep the current treatment until they are sold, and there is no time limit on that. The test is the contract date, not the settlement date, which catches people who exchanged before the cut-off and settled after it.
What counts as a new build?
A genuinely new dwelling. Knock-down rebuilds and substantial renovations that do not increase the number of dwellings do not qualify, and the property must not have sold before — unless the first owner was the builder and left it unoccupied for no more than 12 months. Eligible new builds keep both negative gearing and the more favourable capital gains treatment.
How do I calculate negative gearing?
Take the rent you collect, subtract the deductible costs — loan interest (never the principal), management fees, rates, insurance, repairs, land tax and depreciation. If the result is negative, that is your rental loss. Where the property still qualifies, the loss comes off your other income and you save tax at your marginal rate. The calculator above runs the full income tax computation twice, with and without the loss, which is more accurate than applying a single flat rate.
Is negative gearing actually worth it?
It was never the point on its own — a loss is still a loss, and the tax saving only ever returns a fraction of it. Gearing made sense when capital growth outran the after-tax holding cost. That maths still works for grandfathered and new-build properties. For an affected established purchase, the holding cost rises from 1 July 2027 and the growth has to do more of the work, which is exactly what the calculator prices.
What happens to the loss if I can't offset it against my salary?
It is deferred, not destroyed. A quarantined loss is carried forward and offset against future rental income, or against the capital gain when you sell. So a property that runs at a loss for years and then sells well can use the accumulated losses at that point — the benefit simply arrives later, and later is worth less.
Does the capital gains tax change affect me too?
Probably, and it is the part most coverage skipped. The same Act replaces the 50% CGT discount with cost base indexation plus a 30% minimum tax rate on real gains accruing from 1 July 2027, and it applies to all CGT assets, not just property. This calculator deliberately does not model it: a sale after that date has to split the gain either side of the date, and a second tranche of legislation was still in consultation. LINK Advisors can work it through properly.
How much is stamp duty on a Brisbane investment property?
Queensland charges general transfer duty with no home concession for investors. On a $750,000 purchase it is $26,775. The table on this page shows duty across a range of prices, and the calculator adds it to the cash you need at settlement along with legals and any lender's mortgage insurance.
Keep reading.
The guides behind the numbers in this calculator.
What property management actually costs
The fee, itemised, and what moves it.
Buying your first investment property
The order to do things in, and what it costs to get in.
Cash flow or capital growth?
The trade-off the calculator above is really about.
Getting more out of a rental
The levers that move the top line, not the tax.
Our management fee, published
7.7% to 8.8% including GST, on the page.
What will it actually rent for?
An indicative weekly range before you give us anything.
A number on a screen, or the actual answer.
This calculator uses published rates and your estimates. What it can't know is what the property will really rent for, what the depreciation schedule will really find, or how your income and structure change the tax. That's three conversations, and at LINK they happen in one building.
LINK Living tells you what it rents for, and manages it.
LINK Advisors handles the tax position and the structure.
LINK Advance structures the loan behind it.
Indicative estimates only, general in nature, and not personal tax, financial or credit advice. Depreciation is estimated rather than surveyed and capital gains tax is not modelled. Rules as at 13 August 2026. Tax questions go to LINK Advisors, registered tax agent 25504639.