Last reviewed: August 2026
What the First Home Buyer Scheme Actually Covers
The Australian First Home Buyer landscape is made up of several separate schemes and concessions, federal and state, and it is common for buyers to only be aware of one or two of them. Here is the full picture.
First Home Guarantee
Allows eligible first home buyers to purchase with as little as a 5% deposit without paying Lenders Mortgage Insurance, subject to place availability, price caps, and income eligibility criteria that vary by location.
Stamp duty concessions and exemptions
Administered at the state level, these can reduce or remove the transfer duty payable on your purchase depending on the property price and your eligibility.
First Home Super Saver Scheme
Allows eligible buyers to save part of their deposit inside superannuation, taking advantage of the lower tax treatment inside super, then withdraw those contributions for a first home purchase.
First Home Owner Grants
A one-off payment available in most states for eligible buyers purchasing or building a new home, subject to price caps and other conditions.
Why it pays to check all of them together
These schemes are not mutually exclusive, and combining the ones you are eligible for can meaningfully change what is achievable for your first purchase. The eligibility rules and caps for each also change periodically, so it is worth confirming current details rather than relying on what applied even a year ago.
A common misconception worth clearing up
Because these schemes come from different levels of government, and sometimes from different departments within the same government, eligibility for one does not automatically mean eligibility for another. A buyer might qualify for the federal First Home Guarantee based on their deposit and income, while a co-purchaser who has previously owned an investment property (even one they never lived in) could disqualify the pair from a state stamp duty exemption. Each scheme has its own definition of what counts as a disqualifying prior property ownership, which is exactly why checking them individually, rather than assuming a blanket first home buyer status, matters.
How we help
We check your eligibility against every current scheme, federal and state, so you are not leaving anything on the table without realising it.
Useful tools and resources
For the current federal scheme, see Housing Australia's First Home Guarantee page. For NSW stamp duty concessions, see Revenue NSW's Assistance Scheme page.
To see what these schemes could mean for your deposit and stamp duty, try our Stamp Duty Calculator and Purchasing Power Calculator.
