Queensland keeps the $30,000 grant, and Help to Buy just opened to more buyers

Six weeks ago, Queensland first home buyers were racing a deadline. The state's boosted $30,000 First Home Owner Grant was scheduled to halve to $15,000 for contracts signed from 1 July 2026, and we covered the countdown as buyers scrambled to sign in time.

The deadline never arrived. In the 2026-27 Queensland Budget, handed down on 23 June, the government locked the $30,000 grant in for another four years — and made the state's zero transfer duty for first home buyers on new homes permanent. The Queensland Revenue Office now simply lists $30,000 for eligible contracts signed from 20 November 2023, with no end date published. Anyone who rushed a contract in June lost nothing; anyone who missed the date lost nothing either. And it caps a winter in which the supports for first home buyers quietly got better across the country.

What Queensland locked in

• $30,000 First Home Owner Grant for new homes (buying or building) valued under $750,000 — extended four years in the Budget, roughly a $72 million commitment. It remains the largest first home grant in the country, tied with Tasmania's.
• Zero transfer duty for first home buyers on new homes, permanently. The concession, in place since 1 May 2025 with no price cap, has already saved more than 3,500 buyers over $66 million between them. On established homes, the full concession still applies up to $700,000, phasing out at $800,000.
• Supply money behind it: the Budget doubled the Residential Activation Fund to $1 billion and committed $5.73 billion over four years to social housing — the pipeline that determines whether grants meet homes to spend them on.

Stacked together, an eligible Queensland buyer on a new build can now collect the $30,000 grant and pay zero stamp duty — support that routinely clears $50,000 on a typical purchase. Our Queensland first home buyer guide walks through eligibility for both, and the stamp duty calculator shows what the duty concession is worth at your price point.

Help to Buy opened wider on 1 July

The federal government's shared-equity scheme also grew this winter. From 1 July 2026, Help to Buy's income caps rose to $103,000 for singles and $165,000 for joint applicants and single parents, with 10,000 new places released for the 2026-27 year. The mechanics are unchanged: the government contributes up to 40% of the price on a new home (30% on an existing one), you buy with as little as a 2% deposit, and you can buy the government's share out over time.

Housing Australia's own numbers show the scheme has moved well past the pilot stage — more than 7,200 applications since its December launch, with around 4,800 households settled or house-hunting, a median deposit of just $30,000, and 86% of participants first home buyers. Shared equity is not for everyone: the government shares your capital growth in proportion to its stake, which is a real cost in a rising market. Our Help to Buy guide works through the trade-off honestly, and our explainer on the 5% Deposit Scheme — which has no income test at all since its late-2025 expansion — covers the alternative where you keep 100% of the home.

NSW moved too, more quietly

The NSW Budget, handed down the same day as Queensland's, left its first home buyer settings steady — duty exemption to $800,000 and concessions to $1 million, worth about $20,400 to the average eligible buyer, plus a $10,000 payment for new-home purchases. The state's housing effort went to the supply side instead: abolishing the 9% foreign purchaser surcharge for large build-to-rent and retirement projects, topping up its pre-sale finance guarantee for community housing, and $5.2 billion of enabling water infrastructure in Western Sydney. Buyers won't feel those this spring, but they are aimed at the shortage that sits underneath every affordability number. See the NSW first home buyer guide for the current settings.

What it means for you

• Queensland buyers: the $30,000 grant plus zero duty on new builds is locked in — no deadline pressure, so take the time to buy well. Start with the QLD guide.
• If you signed in June to beat the deadline: you lost nothing — the grant amount is the same either side of 1 July.
• Middle-income buyers everywhere: Help to Buy's higher caps ($103k single / $165k joint) bring a lot more people into shared-equity range. Compare it against the 5% Deposit Scheme before choosing — the ownership outcomes differ sharply.
• Timing the market matters less than knowing your numbers: with values soft and rates possibly at their peak, run the borrowing power calculator and see what the supports are worth stacked together in your state via our state-by-state schemes guide.