Every Australian short-stay levy, and which ones are actually law

In force: Victoria, 7.5%

The Short Stay Levy Act 2024 commenced on 1 January 2025 and imposes 7.5% on a continuous stay of less than 28 days, not counting the checkout day.

The base is the total booking fee. That includes the nightly rate, cleaning fees and GST. It excludes card and payment-processing surcharges and damage-related costs. Hosts who budget 7.5% of their nightly rate consistently under-provide, because the cleaning fee is inside the calculation.

Liability depends on how the booking arrived. Platform bookings through Airbnb, Stayz, Vrbo or Booking.com are the platform's responsibility to collect and remit. A direct booking with no intermediary is yours. Lodgement is quarterly where a provider's annual short-stay booking fees exceed $75,000, otherwise annually by 30 January for the prior calendar year.

Your principal place of residence is exempt. Revenue funds Homes Victoria's social and affordable housing program, with a quarter ring-fenced for regional Victoria.

Sources: State Revenue Office Victoria, understanding the short stay levy

In force: ACT, 5% now and 7.5% from mid-2027

The Short-Term Rental Accommodation Levy Act 2025 imposes 5% of the total booking amount on bookings of not more than 28 continuous days, from 1 July 2025. The rate is legislated to rise to 7.5% from 1 July 2027, so a Canberra investment modelled on today's rate has a known step change in it.

The base is broad: accommodation, booking, cleaning and pet fees, and GST.

Two scope points make the ACT scheme narrower than Victoria's in practice. It applies specifically to un-hosted accommodation, so a stay with you or a permanent occupant on site is outside it. And it attaches to bookings made through a booking service provider, which means a direct owner booking is not caught at all. Hotels, motels, serviced apartment complexes with on-site reception, caravan parks and hostels are excluded.

Liability sits with the booking service provider in every case, not with you, and they lodge within 30 days after the end of the quarter in which the rental period ends.

Sources: ACT Revenue Office, short-term rental accommodation levy

Defeated: Tasmania's levy, and why you will still read that it starts in 2027

The Short Stay Levy Bill 2026 would have imposed 5% on the total booking fee for stays of fewer than 28 consecutive nights booked through a booking platform provider, with the platform liable to remit it and free to pass the cost to guests. Exemptions would have covered hotels, motels, inns, hostels, bed and breakfasts and caravan parks, specialist accommodation, and a dwelling usually occupied by its owner. Revenue was earmarked for first-home-buyer assistance.

It is not law and it will not become law in this form. The bill was introduced on 16 April 2026, passed all three readings in the House of Assembly on 7 May 2026 with amendment, and reached the Legislative Council on 15 May 2026. The upper house debated it on 2 and 3 September 2026, amended it in committee, and negatived it at the third reading on 9 September 2026. The vote was 6 to 6 and the President's casting vote defeated it. The parliament's own progress table records the result; Royal Assent and commencement stay blank.

If the government wants a levy it must introduce a new bill and start again. Until that happens there is nothing to model. The '2027 start date' that several sites still publish was never in the bill, and now there is no bill.

Sources: Parliament of Tasmania, Short Stay Levy Bill 2026 progress

No levy: NSW, Queensland, WA, NT

None of these has a short-stay levy in force or a bill before parliament that we can find. Each uses different levers instead: New South Wales runs a registration scheme and night caps, Queensland leans on council differential rating, and Western Australia uses registration plus planning approval thresholds.

Queensland is worth a specific note because the rates mechanism gets described as a levy. It is not a percentage of your turnover. Brisbane moves a whole-home short-stay property used for more than 60 days a year into a higher 'Transitory Accommodation' differential general rates category, which changes your annual rates bill, not your per-booking economics.

The one to watch: South Australia

South Australia has no levy in force, but it is the most likely place for the next one. A Legislative Council select committee had 'potential taxes or levies that could be applied to short stay accommodation' expressly within its terms of reference, and its report, tabled on 16 September 2025, recommended fees or levies as part of a wider registration scheme.

That is a recommendation awaiting a government response, not a law. If it becomes one, it will appear on our change log before it appears in most coverage.

Sources: Parliament of South Australia, Select Committee on the Short Stay Accommodation Sector

The 28-day line, and why some hosts sit on it

Both live schemes stop at 28 days. Victoria's applies to a continuous stay of less than 28 days; the ACT's to a booking of not more than 28 continuous days. A genuinely longer stay is outside the levy.

That produces a real commercial effect at the margin. A 26-night booking and a 29-night booking are taxed differently, which pushes some operators towards monthly stays, corporate and relocation guests. It is also why splitting a long stay into two short bookings is a bad idea: the levy follows the substance of the arrangement, and both revenue offices have anti-avoidance machinery behind them.

Common questions

Related

• Calculate a levy on a specific booking
• Every government fee, by jurisdiction
• Victoria state framework
• Tasmania state framework