Victorian First Home Owner Grant: Amount, Eligibility and How to Apply

How much is the First Home Owner Grant in Victoria?

The grant is $10,000. It is a one-off payment, not a loan, and it is not repayable provided you meet the residence requirement. It is paid once per eligible transaction, not per applicant, so a couple buying together receives $10,000 between them rather than $10,000 each.

The amount does not scale with the price of the property. A qualifying $450,000 apartment and a qualifying $740,000 house attract the same $10,000.

If your lender lodges the application as part of settlement, the money is normally applied at settlement and can go towards the funds you need on the day. If you apply afterwards, it is paid to you once the SRO processes the claim.

Who is eligible?

You must be at least 18 at settlement or at completion of construction, and at least one applicant must be an Australian citizen or permanent resident. New Zealand citizens are eligible for settlements from 26 November 2025 regardless of visa status. Every applicant must be a natural person — a company or trust cannot claim it.

The prior-ownership tests are assessed across you and your spouse or partner, which catches people out more than any other rule. You are ineligible if either of you:

• has already received the First Home Owner Grant anywhere in Australia;
• owned a home or other residential property in Australia before 1 July 2000; or
• lived in a home in Australia that either of you owned or part-owned on or after 1 July 2000, for a continuous period of at least six months.

Note the shape of that last test. Owning an investment property you never lived in does not automatically disqualify you, provided you did not occupy it for six continuous months. Conversely, a partner who owned and lived in a home years before you met can disqualify the pair of you. Check the full criteria on the SRO eligibility page before you rely on it.

Which properties qualify — and the value cap

The property must be newly constructed or never occupied, and valued at $750,000 or less. That covers a new build, a house-and-land package, an off-the-plan apartment, and a home you build on land you already own. It does not cover an established home, however recently it was built, if someone has lived in it.

The $750,000 cap applies to the value of the home, not the land alone. For a build, that means land value plus the contracted build cost. A block at $420,000 with a $360,000 build contract totals $780,000 and falls outside the cap, even though neither figure exceeds it on its own — a common and expensive surprise.

There is no partial grant. The cap is a cliff: at $750,000 you receive the full $10,000, and a dollar above it you receive nothing. That makes the contract price worth negotiating hard when you are close to the threshold — moving from $755,000 to $750,000 is a $5,000 reduction that returns $10,000, and it may also bring you inside the stamp duty concession range at the same time.

First home buyer stamp duty concessions in Victoria

Stamp duty relief is separate from the grant, and for most buyers it is worth considerably more. A first home buyer pays no duty on a home with a dutiable value up to $600,000, and a reduced amount between $600,001 and $750,000. Above $750,000, standard duty applies.

Unlike the grant, the duty concession applies to established homes as well as new ones. So a first home buyer purchasing an established house at $580,000 gets no grant but pays no stamp duty — often the larger saving of the two.

The concession between $600,001 and $750,000 tapers rather than cutting off abruptly, so the saving shrinks as the price rises. Confirm the exact figure for your purchase price with the SRO's first home buyer duty page and its calculator, or use our stamp duty calculator for an estimate across states.

How to apply for the grant

Most people apply through their lender. Banks and approved agents lodge the application as part of settlement, which is the fastest route and means the money is available on the day. Ask early — not every lender is an approved agent.

If your lender is not an approved agent, or you have already settled, apply directly to the State Revenue Office. Either way you must lodge within 12 months of settlement or completion of the build. Miss that and the grant is gone.

After you move in, at least one applicant must occupy the home as their principal place of residence for a continuous 12 months, beginning within 12 months of settlement or completion. Australian Defence Force personnel are exempt. If you do not meet the residence requirement, the grant is repayable.

Can you use the grant as part of your deposit?

Usually yes at settlement, but not as evidence of savings beforehand. Where your lender lodges the application, the $10,000 is applied to the funds required on settlement day, so it genuinely reduces what you have to bring.

What it generally cannot do is satisfy a genuine savings requirement. Many lenders want to see a portion of the deposit accumulated over three to six months, and a grant is not savings you accumulated. It also arrives too late to fund the deposit you pay when you sign the contract, which is typically due well before settlement.

Plan on the grant reducing your settlement shortfall, not your deposit. Our deposit savings goal calculator and borrowing power calculator will tell you what you actually need in hand.

Other Victorian and federal schemes you may also qualify for

The grant and the duty concession stack, and both can sit alongside federal support. The main federal programs are the Home Guarantee Scheme, which lets eligible buyers purchase with a small deposit while avoiding lenders mortgage insurance, and the First Home Super Saver scheme, which lets you save a deposit inside superannuation at concessional tax rates.

Victoria has at times run additional shared-equity and off-the-plan measures. These change with each state budget more often than the grant does, so check the SRO directly rather than relying on any third-party summary, including this one.

Eligibility rules differ between schemes: income tests, price caps and property-type rules are not aligned, and qualifying for one does not imply qualifying for another. Work through each separately.

One sequencing point worth planning around: the First Home Super Saver scheme needs to be started well before you buy, because contributions must be made and then released, and the release process takes time. If you expect to purchase within a few months it is generally too late to be useful, whereas the grant and the duty concession are claimed at or after settlement and need no advance action beyond confirming you qualify.

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