Absentee owner surcharge and vacant residential land tax notifications due by 15 January 2020

Published on 07 January 2020

Notifications for vacant residential land tax and the absentee owner surcharge are due by 15 January 2020. If you made a notification last year, you only need to make a new one if your circumstances have changed.

Vacant residential land tax

If you own a property in one of 16 council areas that was unoccupied for six months or more in 2019, you must notify us via our vacant residential land tax portal.

You can use our online tool to determine whether you have to pay vacant residential land tax.

Absentee owner surcharge

An absentee owner surcharge applies to Victorian land owned by an absentee individual, corporation or trust. If you are an absentee owner, you must notify us via our absentee owner notification portal. Once you have notified us that you are an absentee owner, your land tax assessment will include the absentee owner surcharge.

The absentee owner surcharge is an additional amount that applies over the land tax you pay at general and trust surcharge rates.

You can use our online tool to determine whether you have to pay absentee owner surcharge.

From the 2020 land tax year, the absentee owner surcharge is 2%.

The absentee owner surcharge is an additional amount that applies over the land tax you pay at general and trust surcharge rates.

The surcharge was 1.5% from 1 January 2017 and 0.5% for the 2016 land tax year.