First Home Owner Grant Western Australia: The Complete 2026 Guide

Western Australia runs three separate financial assistance schemes for first home buyers — and almost every buyer confuses at least two of them. Before you start calculating what you can afford, you need to understand exactly which grants apply to your situation, because the eligibility rules for each are completely different.

Grant 1: The First Home Owner Grant (FHOG) — $10,000 for New Builds Only

The WA First Home Owner Grant pays a one-off $10,000 to eligible first home buyers. The critical detail: it is only available for new homes. Buyers purchasing an established property receive nothing from this scheme. This is one of the most common and expensive misconceptions in the WA market.

Who qualifies?

• At least one applicant must be an Australian citizen or permanent resident
• Neither the applicant nor their spouse/de facto partner can have previously owned residential property in Australia before 1 July 2000, or occupied property they owned after that date for six continuous months or more
• You must intend to live in the property as your principal place of residence for at least six months within the first year

The price caps (updated May 2026)

The WA Government split the state geographically at the 26th parallel:

• South of the 26th parallel (including Perth): Total value of home and land must not exceed $800,000 (increased from $750,000 in May 2026)
• North of the 26th parallel (Pilbara, Kimberley): Cap is $1,000,000, reflecting the extreme cost of remote construction with cyclone-rated materials

For a house-and-land package, total value is calculated by adding the land cost to the full value of the building contract — including any post-contract variations. Buyers sometimes miss that variations can push them above the cap after they have already signed.

Is the FHOG means-tested?

No. The FHOG is not assessed against your income or assets. Only the property value matters. However, the application is assessed by RevenueWA after you provide documentation of the purchase.

When is the $10,000 paid?

For construction contracts, the grant is typically paid to the builder or lender at the first progress payment — usually when the slab is poured. It is not cash in your bank account before you start.

Grant 2: The Home Buyers Assistance Account (HBAA) — Up to $2,000

The HBAA is WA-exclusive and frequently overlooked. It reimburses first home buyers for incidental purchasing costs — things like settlement agent fees, valuation fees, and mortgage registration costs — up to a maximum of $2,000.

The eligibility conditions are strict:

• The property must be an established home (not new construction — this is the opposite of the FHOG)
• Purchase price must be $500,000 or less
• Applicants must be first home buyers using a mortgage (not cash buyers)
• Only available to Australian citizens or permanent residents

The $500,000 price cap was raised from $400,000 in early 2025, aligning it with the stamp duty exemption threshold for established homes.

The compounded benefit

A buyer purchasing an established home at $499,000 gets two simultaneous benefits:

1. Full stamp duty exemption under the First Home Owner Rate (which gives full exemption up to $600,000 from May 2026)
2. HBAA reimbursement of up to $2,000 for incidental costs

Combining these two concessions at this price point — zero stamp duty plus a $2,000 reimbursement of transactional costs — is one of the more underappreciated advantages in the WA system for buyers targeting established homes under $500,000.

Grant 3: The Federal First Home Guarantee (FHBG)

This is a federal scheme, not state-administered, but it works concurrently with the WA programs.

The FHBG allows eligible buyers to purchase with a 5% deposit through a participating mainstream lender, without paying Lenders Mortgage Insurance. The federal government guarantees up to 15% of the loan, eliminating the LMI requirement that would otherwise apply to a high LVR loan.

Key changes effective October 2025:

• Income caps abolished entirely. Previously capped at $125,000 for singles and $200,000 for couples. No longer applicable.
• Place limits removed. The previous 35,000 national places cap is gone. The scheme is now an open entitlement.
• Perth property price cap raised to $850,000 (from $600,000)
• Regional WA cap raised to $600,000 (from $450,000)

The FHBG does not pay you money — it enables you to borrow more with a smaller deposit through a commercial lender at competitive rates. Compare this to Keystart, which requires only 2% deposit but charges a higher interest rate.

How the Grants Stack (and Where They Cannot)

One source of buyer confusion is whether these schemes can be combined:

A buyer building a new $700,000 house-and-land package in Baldivis could access the FHOG ($10,000), full stamp duty exemption under the FHOR (new builds treated differently from established homes), and the federal FHBG if they meet the 5% deposit requirement — a meaningful stack of benefits.

The Residency Requirement (And What Happens If You Leave)

Both the FHOG and the Keystart loan require you to occupy the property as your principal place of residence. For the FHOG, you must live there continuously for at least six months within the first year of completion.

Breaching this — for example, by renting out the property within the first year — can trigger a requirement to repay the grant with penalties. If your circumstances are genuinely uncertain (e.g., work in fly-in fly-out roles with irregular site rotations), it is worth discussing the specific residency rules with RevenueWA before completing your application.

The Complete WA First Home Buyer Grant Strategy

The practical implication of all this:

• Targeting a new build under $800,000: pursue the FHOG + FHOR stamp duty concession + FHBG or Keystart
• Targeting an established home under $600,000: pursue FHOR full stamp duty exemption + FHBG or Keystart
• Targeting an established home under $500,000: pursue FHOR stamp duty exemption + HBAA ($2,000 rebate) + FHBG or Keystart

The Western Australia First Home Buyer Guide at /au/western-australia/first-home/ walks through every scenario in detail, including the exact calculations of what each grant saves you at different price points, the application process and documentation required for each program, and a worked example of the total upfront costs for a first home buyer in Perth across multiple price brackets.

Understanding these programs precisely — and specifically which properties qualify for which benefits — can save you $10,000 to $25,000 in upfront costs. It is worth getting right before you sign anything.

See more Australia guides →