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Your fee · The ATO’s rules

Quantity surveyor cost

The interesting question is not what the report costs — it is whether the report will find anything. On a second-hand purchase the fittings half of the claim usually does not exist, and that single test decides whether the fee comes back in months or never.

Leave the second box unticked for an ordinary established purchase — that is the case where the fittings claim disappears.

Year one

Tax saved in year one

$4,625

Against a $441 fee after its own deduction — recovered in 0.1 of a year.

What the schedule finds

Capital works, apportioned$12,500
Fittings, first year$0
Capital works over 40 years$500,000
The fee, after deducting it$441
Deduction in year one$12,500
Where the year-one deduction comes from

A breakdown of the first-year deduction into the apportioned capital works claim on the building and the decline in value on fittings, where fittings are claimable at all.

Fittings are excluded on an established purchase, so this is the building only.

The surveyor’s fee is a market quote and is your own input — no average is asserted. Rates and tests are the ATO’s. Construction before 16 September 1987 attracts a different rate or none, and this tool returns no rate rather than guessing. General information only — not tax advice.

The test that decides whether the fee is worth paying

A schedule has two halves. The building — capital works — is claimable at 2.5% a year for 40 years where residential construction started after 15 September 1987, and that half survives almost any purchase. The fittings are the half that often does not.

The ATO allows decline in value on new depreciating assets. That extends to assets that came with a newly built or substantially renovated property, but only where nobody was previously entitled to claim on them and either nobody lived there before you, or you acquired the property within six months of the building or renovation work.

Buy an established house and you fail that. The dishwasher, the carpet and the blinds are somebody else’s used assets, and no schedule can conjure a deduction for them. It does not make the report pointless — the building claim is usually the bigger number anyway — but it does change the payback, which is why the tick box above is the most important field on the page.

The whole list is gated on the property being available

Before any of this applies, one condition has to be met. The ATO frames rental deductions as expenses incurred for the period you rent your property or it is genuinely available for rent, and lists a property that was not genuinely available among the things you cannot claim for at all.

There is a carve-out for the run-up, but read what is in it: interest on loans, council rates, water and sewerage rates, land taxes and emergency service levies incurred during renovations to a property you intend to rent out. Holding costs, in other words. A surveyor’s report is not among them, and the detail that settles the reading is on the deductions list itself — the property agent’s entry is written as “fees and commissions (including before the property is available to rent)”, while the quantity surveyor’s entry carries no such words. One was extended deliberately; the other was not.

So the report is still worth getting early. Just do not expect the fee to shelter tax in a year where the property earned nothing, and if it was available for only part of the year, expect to apportion.

Apportionment, and the trap in year one

The deduction follows the days the property was rented or genuinely available, not the days you owned it. The ATO’s own example takes a townhouse with a $500,000 construction cost, computes $12,500 for a full year at 2.5%, and then reduces it to $4,178 because the property was only available for 122 days of that year.

So a schedule bought in May will not return anything like a full year’s benefit in that first return. It returns it in the second, and in the thirty-eight after that.

It is a deferral, not a gift

The part the marketing leaves out: capital works deductions you claim reduce the property’s cost base, so the capital gain is larger when you sell. You are moving tax from now to later rather than removing it.

That is still usually worth doing — money now is worth more than the same money in a decade, and the gain may attract the discount — but it belongs in the decision. If you are selling in two years, the sums look very different from holding for twenty.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a quantity surveyor cost?
It is a quoted professional fee with no published schedule, so no average is printed here — put the quote you were given into the tool and it will tell you how long it takes to earn itself back. Worth knowing before you compare quotes: the fee is deductible, so the sticker price is not the real cost. At a 37% marginal rate a $700 report costs you $441, which the calculator nets off before working out the payback.
Is the surveyor's fee itself tax deductible?
Yes. The ATO's rental properties guide lists quantity surveyor's fees among the expenses you can claim an immediate deduction for in the year you incur them. Do not confuse it with the other surveyor, though: the same guide gives an example of buyers paying a land surveyor $350 on the transfer of the property and says plainly that it is not deductible against rental income at all — it goes into the cost base instead. Same word, opposite treatment.
Does it have to be a quantity surveyor?
No, and this is the option nobody selling schedules mentions. Where you cannot precisely determine construction expenditure, the ATO accepts an estimate from any appropriately qualified person, and names a clerk of works, a supervising architect who approves payments at project stages, and a builder experienced in estimating costs on similar projects — as well as a quantity surveyor. It also rules people out: valuers, real estate agents, accountants and solicitors generally do not have the qualifications or experience, so an estimate from your accountant will not do.
What if the property is not rented yet?
Then the deduction is not there yet either. The ATO frames the whole rental list as expenses you incur for the period you rent your property or it is genuinely available for rent, and separately says you cannot claim where the property was not genuinely available. There is a carve-out for the period before it is available, but it names holding costs only — interest, council, water and sewerage rates, land tax and emergency service levies incurred during renovations to a property you intend to rent. Note also that the one item on the deductions list explicitly extended to that period is the property agent's fee, which says so in brackets; the surveyor's fee does not. Set the days field to zero and the calculator stops assuming the fee is deductible.
What is a depreciation schedule actually claiming?
Two separate things that behave differently. Capital works is the building itself — for residential construction that started after 15 September 1987, 2.5% of the construction cost each year for 40 years from completion. Plant and equipment is the removable stuff: the dishwasher, the carpet, the blinds, each declining over its own effective life. The first is usually the larger and steadier claim; the second is the one that often is not available at all.
Can I claim depreciation on a second-hand apartment?
The building, generally yes. The fittings, generally no. The ATO allows decline in value on new depreciating assets, including those bought with a newly built or substantially renovated property where nobody was previously entitled to the deduction and either nobody lived there before you, or you bought within six months of the work. An ordinary established purchase fails that, which removes the plant half of the claim and roughly halves what a schedule is worth.
My place was built in 1975 — is a schedule still worth it?
Possibly, but not for the reason the sales pages give. The 2.5% rate is tied to construction starting after 15 September 1987; earlier construction attracts a different rate or none, and the ATO publishes a date table for it. What can still be claimable is later structural work — an extension, a rewire, a new bathroom — done after the qualifying date, even where the original building does not qualify. That is a question for the surveyor, and the calculator returns no rate rather than guessing one.
Do I claim a whole year in the first year?
Only if the property was earning for a whole year. The deduction is apportioned by the days it was rented or genuinely available, which is why the calculator asks. The ATO's own example runs a $500,000 townhouse at 2.5% for $12,500 a year, then scales it to $4,178 because the owner only had it available from 1 March to 30 June.
Does claiming depreciation cost me later?
On capital works, yes, and it is rarely mentioned upfront. Capital works deductions you have claimed reduce the cost base of the property, so the capital gain when you sell is correspondingly larger. It is a deferral of tax rather than a pure saving — worth having, since a dollar now beats a dollar later and the gain may be discounted, but not the free money it is sometimes sold as.

Keep tallying

Every year

Negative gearing calculator

Where the depreciation claim lands: rent against interest, rates and the tax effect.

Open calculator →

At the end

Capital gains tax calculator

The other side of the deferral — what the reduced cost base does to the gain.

Open calculator →

Sources

  • The 2.5% rate, the 15 September 1987 date, the 40-year period, apportionment by days and the $500,000 / $12,500 / $4,178 worked example — ATO, Work out your capital works deductions, last updated 22 June 2026.
  • The new-assets test for plant and equipment, and the six-month rule — ATO, Depreciating assets in rental properties, last updated 21 May 2026.
  • Cost base reduced by capital works claimed — ATO, Cost base adjustments for capital works.
  • “Quantity surveyor’s fees” on the immediate-deduction list, the non-deductible land surveyor’s fee on transfer, and who else is qualified to estimate construction costs — ATO, Rental properties 2025 — rental expenses, last updated 29 May 2025.
  • Deductions run for the period the property is rented or genuinely available for rent, the pre-availability carve-out for holding costs, and the apportionment rules — same ATO guide, Types of rental expenses and Expenses before the property is genuinely available for rent.
  • Surveyors’ fees are quoted professional prices with no published schedule, so none is asserted — the fee above is your input.