Every state · Buying and selling

Conveyancing fees

Half of a conveyancing quote is a negotiable professional fee. The other half is government registry charges that are published, fixed, and identical no matter who you hire. Almost no quote shows you which is which — so here is the fixed half, verified from each registry’s own schedule.

FY 2026-27 rates · verified

Rates verified 28 Aug 2026 against the official sources — how we check.

Your tally

Fixed government share

$365.46

Charged by NSW Land Registry Services whoever you hire. Any quote should show this separately from the professional fee.

Professional fee $1,500Government $365.46

How it’s made up

Professional fee (your quote)$1,500

Transfer registration$182.73

Mortgage registration$182.73

Before searches and PEXA$1,865.46

Title searches, council and water certificates and the PEXA fee sit on top — usually a few hundred dollars more.

Registry fees are each registry’s published FY 2026-27 schedule, verified 2026-08-28. The professional fee is your own input — conveyancing is deregulated and we assert no market rate for it. Search and certificate costs vary by council and are not included. General information only — not legal advice.

Why two quotes are so hard to compare

Ask three firms for a conveyancing quote and you will get three numbers that are not measuring the same thing. One quotes the professional fee alone. One quotes a bundled figure with disbursements estimated inside it. One quotes low and lists disbursements as “at cost, to be advised”. None of them is necessarily wrong, but you cannot compare them until you separate the halves.

The government half is knowable. Every land registry publishes its lodgement fees, and they do not change based on who lodges the document. So the honest comparison is: take each quote, subtract the fixed registry charge shown above, and compare what is left. That remainder is the actual price of the service, and it is the only part anyone is competing on.

Registry lodgement fees at $800,000, every state

Transfer plus one mortgage registration, from each registry’s FY 2026-27 schedule. The spread is wider than most buyers expect, and it is a pure jurisdiction difference — the same work, the same document, a different charge.

Registry lodgement fees at $800,000, every state
State	Transfer	Mortgage	Total	Registry
New South Wales	$182.73	$182.73	$365.46	NSW Land Registry Services
Victoria	$1,976.30	$129.20	$2,105.50	Land Use Victoria
Queensland	$3,134.76	$248.04	$3,382.80	Titles Queensland
Western Australia	$375.10	$225.10	$600.20	Landgate
South Australia	$8,228	$204	$8,432	Land Services SA
Tasmania	$256.76	$167.58	$424.34	Land Titles Office (Land Tasmania)
ACT	$496	$184	$680	Access Canberra
Northern Territory	$181	$181	$362	NT Land Titles Office

You cannot deduct it, but you do not lose it either

A common assumption on an investment purchase is that the legals come off the rent at tax time. They do not. The ATO puts conveyancing costs squarely on its list of acquisition and disposal costs you cannot claim a deduction for, alongside the purchase price, stamp duty on the transfer and a buyer’s agent’s fee.

The money is not wasted, though — it moves rather than disappears. Those costs form part of the property’s cost base, so they reduce the capital gain whenever you sell. In the ATO’s own example a buyer’s $350 surveyor and $750 stamp duty turn a $170,000 purchase into a $171,100 cost base. Keep the invoices; they are worth something at the other end.

What sits on top of both halves

Beyond the professional fee and the registry lodgement, expect title and plan searches, council and water certificates, and the electronic settlement charge. Individually they are small; together they are usually a few hundred dollars. They vary by council and by how many searches your contract needs, which is why no calculator can pin them exactly — but a quote that omits them entirely is understating the total, not saving you money.

Stamp duty is separate again, and much larger than any of this. If you have not costed it yet, the stamp duty calculator for your state includes these same registry fees in its all-in figure.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a conveyancer cost?

A conveyancing quote has two halves that behave completely differently. The professional fee is what the conveyancer or solicitor charges for their work — deregulated, negotiable, and varying by firm and complexity. The disbursements are costs they pay on your behalf, and the largest of those are government land-registry fees that are published and fixed. This page cannot tell you the first number, because nobody can. It tells you the second one exactly.

What does a conveyancer do?

They move legal ownership from the seller to you. In practice that means reviewing the contract and vendor statement before you sign, ordering title and planning searches, checking what is actually being sold, calculating the settlement adjustments for rates and water, preparing the transfer, lodging your stamp duty, and attending settlement so the money and the title change hands at the same moment. On a normal purchase you will hear from them a handful of times and the rest happens quietly.

Do I need a conveyancer to buy a house?

Not legally in most of Australia — you can do your own conveyancing, and DIY kits exist. In practice almost nobody does, because the searches, the adjustments and the lodgement deadlines are unforgiving and a mistake is expensive in a way the fee is not. Note that in some jurisdictions the work must be done by a solicitor rather than a licensed conveyancer, so check locally before assuming you have a choice of provider.

What is the difference between a conveyancer and a solicitor?

A licensed conveyancer handles property transfers only, and usually costs less. A solicitor can do the same work and also advise on anything that turns legal — a disputed contract, a deceased estate, a family transfer, a title defect. For a straightforward purchase either is fine. If anything about the contract is unusual, a solicitor is the safer choice.

Are conveyancing fees negotiable?

The professional fee is, and firms quote quite differently for the same work. The disbursements are not — they are government charges passed through at cost. That is exactly why a quote should show them separately: comparing two bundled totals tells you very little, while comparing two professional fees against the same fixed disbursements tells you everything.

What are disbursements in conveyancing?

Money your conveyancer pays out on your behalf and bills back at cost: land-registry lodgement fees, title and plan searches, council and water certificates, and the electronic settlement (PEXA) charge. The registry lodgement fees are the biggest and the most checkable — at $800,000 in New South Wales they come to $365.46. Searches and certificates are smaller and vary by council.

Sources

Registry lodgement fees are taken from each registry’s own published schedule for FY 2026-27, verified 2026-08-28. Professional fees are not sourced because there is no schedule to source — conveyancing is deregulated.