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Scheme price caps by state: what your home can cost in 2026.
$1,500,000
Sydney and major NSW centres
$1,000,000
Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast
$950,000
Melbourne and Geelong
These are the First Home Guarantee capital city caps; the full tables below cover every state and territory, and both schemes.
Under the First Home Guarantee, the cap is highest in the capitals and the big coastal centres, and lower across the rest of each state. Help to Buy uses its own table, and its New South Wales city cap is $1,300,000; both full tables are below, exactly as read from the official source on the date shown.
What a price cap actually is
A price cap is the most the home can cost while a scheme applies. Think of it like the height bar at a theme park ride: the home has to fit under the bar, and the bar sits higher in the cities and the big coastal centres than in the rest of each state.
A cap is not a promise a lender will lend you that much: what you can borrow is a separate ceiling set by your income and spending, and the lower of the two is the one that binds. The borrowing power tool estimates that side in about a minute.
First Home Guarantee price caps
The First Home Guarantee lets you buy with a deposit from 5 percent and no lenders mortgage insurance, because the government guarantees part of the loan to the lender. Since 1 October 2025 it has no income caps and no yearly limit on the number of guarantees, so where you buy, and the cap that comes with it, is the main gate left. The government also now lists it as the Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme: two names, one scheme.
| State or territory | Capital city and major regional centres | Rest of the state or territory |
|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | $1,500,000 | $800,000 |
| Victoria | $950,000 | $650,000 |
| Queensland | $1,000,000 | $700,000 |
| Western Australia | $850,000 | $600,000 |
| South Australia | $900,000 | $500,000 |
| Tasmania | $700,000 | $550,000 |
| Australian Capital Territory | $1,000,000 | One cap for all areas |
| Northern Territory | $750,000 | $600,000 |
| Jervis Bay Territory and Norfolk Island | $550,000 | One cap for all areas |
| Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands | $400,000 | One cap for all areas |
The higher figure covers these areas, straight from the official table:
- New South Wales: Sydney, Newcastle and Lake Macquarie, Illawarra, Central Coast, Mid North Coast, Coffs Harbour-Grafton and Richmond-Tweed
- Victoria: Melbourne and Geelong
- Queensland: Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast
- Western Australia: Perth
- South Australia: Adelaide
- Tasmania: Hobart
- Northern Territory: Darwin
Read from the official table at firsthomebuyers.gov.au on 25 August 2026.
Help to Buy price caps
Help to Buy works differently: your deposit starts at 2 percent, and the government contributes up to 40percent of a new home's price, or 30percent of an existing home's, in exchange for owning that share of your home. Help to Buy has income caps: $103,000 a year for a single applicant and $165,000 for joint applicants and single parents, indexed each year.
Most rows match the other table, and two rows differ. Help to Buy's New South Wales city cap is $1,300,000, and it carries one Northern Territory figure in both bands. The First Home Guarantee's New South Wales city cap is higher at $1,500,000, and it gives Darwin $750,000 against $600,000 for the rest of the territory.
| State or territory | Capital city and major regional centres | Rest of the state or territory |
|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | $1,300,000 | $800,000 |
| Victoria | $950,000 | $650,000 |
| Queensland | $1,000,000 | $700,000 |
| Western Australia | $850,000 | $600,000 |
| South Australia | $900,000 | $500,000 |
| Tasmania | $700,000 | $550,000 |
| Australian Capital Territory | $1,000,000 | One cap for all areas |
| Northern Territory | $600,000 | $600,000 |
| Jervis Bay Territory and Norfolk Island | $550,000 | One cap for all areas |
| Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands | $400,000 | One cap for all areas |
The higher figure covers these areas, straight from the official table:
- New South Wales: Sydney, Newcastle and Lake Macquarie, Illawarra, Central Coast, Mid North Coast, Coffs Harbour-Grafton and Richmond-Tweed
- Victoria: Melbourne and Geelong
- Queensland: Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast
- Western Australia: Perth
- South Australia: Adelaide
- Tasmania: Hobart
- Northern Territory: Darwin
Read from the official table at firsthomebuyers.gov.au on 25 August 2026.
Fitting under two caps is not using two schemes
A home can sit under both tables at once, and that still does not mean the schemes stack: some pairings are ruled out by the schemes themselves. These are the pairings involving the two federal schemes, from the same dated register as the tables above.
- Cannot be combined: Help to Buy cannot be combined with the First Home Guarantee: a Help to Buy applicant cannot receive help from other guarantee or shared equity schemes, so if both may fit you, you would choose one pathway.
- Cannot be combined: Help to Buy and Boost to Buy are alternatives, not a stack: Help to Buy excludes state shared equity schemes, so Queenslanders choose one or the other.
- Check before you plan on it: Whether the First Home Guarantee can sit alongside Boost to Buy has no clean official answer: check with Boost to Buy's lender before planning around both.
- Can be combined: The $30,000 grant can be combined with the First Home Guarantee: the grant helps the deposit the guarantee makes smaller.
- Can be combined: The $30,000 grant can be combined with Help to Buy: state grants sit outside Help to Buy's exclusion rules.
Queensland also runs Boost to Buy, its own shared equity scheme with a $1,000,000 cap; its places are limited and released in rounds, so check availability on the official page before you plan around it. The grants checker covers all four schemes on six quick answers and tells you which may fit you, and which pairings hold, in one pass.
Stamp duty concessions are a separate, state-run saving with their own thresholds, so this page does not restate them. Queensland also gives first home buyers a transfer duty concession. The Byrz costs check works it out for your exact price. Work out your buying costs.
Then check where your savings land against the deposit rungs the schemes use, or head back to all the tools.