Key takeaways
- Australia has no inheritance tax and no estate duty — federal or state. Beneficiaries pay nothing for receiving the property.
- Singapore is also 0%, having abolished estate duty in 2008. Against home, this is parity, not an advantage — the gap is against the UK (40%) and Japan (55%).
- Capital gains tax applies when the property is sold. The cost base resets to market value at the date of death, so only growth after death is assessable.
- An inherited dwelling sold within two years of death is generally CGT-free. This two-year window is the single biggest planning lever available.
- Since 30 June 2020 foreign residents generally get no main residence exemption at all, and no 50% CGT discount on gains accrued while non-resident — so a Singaporean beneficiary is taxed harder than an Australian on identical property.
Australia does not have an inheritance tax. There is no federal estate duty, no death duty, and no state-level inheritance tax anywhere in the country. Your beneficiaries will not pay a cent simply for receiving your Australian property.
That is the headline, and it is genuinely good news. It is also where most articles on this subject stop — and where the expensive part begins. The tax arrives later, when the property is sold, and for a Singaporean family it arrives on harsher terms than most owners expect.
How Australia compares
| Country | Inheritance tax | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | 0% | No federal or state inheritance tax. CGT applies on later sale. |
| Singapore | 0% | Estate duty abolished in 2008. |
| Thailand | Up to 10% | Applies to estates above THB 100 million. |
| Indonesia | Up to 20% | Progressive; varies with estate size and relationship. |
| Vietnam | Up to 20% | Rate depends on relationship to the deceased. |
| United Kingdom | Up to 40% | Charged on estates above £325,000; reliefs available. |
| Japan | Up to 55% | Progressive; exemptions for smaller estates. |
Note what this table actually shows. Singapore is also at 0%. If you are comparing Australia against home, inheritance tax is parity, not an advantage. The advantage is against the UK and Japan, which matters only if your family holds assets there.
Anyone selling you Australian property on the strength of "no inheritance tax" is selling you a feature Singapore already has.
The part that actually costs money: capital gains tax
Inheriting is free. Selling is not.
When your beneficiary sells an inherited Australian property, capital gains tax applies to the gain. For property the deceased acquired after 20 September 1985, the cost base generally resets to the market value at the date of death. Growth during your ownership is not taxed at that point — only growth after you die.
On a property worth A$900,000 at your death and sold for A$1,050,000 three years later, the assessable gain is A$150,000, not the full appreciation since you bought it.
There is also a two-year window. If an inherited dwelling is disposed of within two years of death, the capital gain is generally disregarded. Sell in year three and you are exposed.
Where Singaporean families get caught
Here is the part that rarely appears in Australian property marketing, and it is the most important thing on this page.
Since 30 June 2020, foreign residents have generally been unable to claim the main residence exemption on Australian property at all. Not a reduced exemption — none. The narrow exception requires that you were a foreign resident for six years or less and that a specific life event occurred: a terminal medical diagnosis, the death of a spouse or child under 18, or a relationship breakdown. Ordinary long-term non-residency does not qualify.
Foreign residents also do not receive the 50% CGT discount on gains accrued while non-resident. An Australian resident selling the same property with the same gain would be taxed on half of it.
Stack those together for a typical Singaporean family:
- You are a foreign resident, so no main residence exemption.
- Your children are foreign residents, so no main residence exemption for them either.
- Neither of you receives the 50% discount on the non-resident portion of the gain.
- If the property sells more than two years after death, the full gain since death is assessable.
The absence of inheritance tax is real. The CGT position is where the money actually goes, and it is worse for foreign owners than for Australians holding identical property.
What this means in practice
The two-year window is your main lever. If beneficiaries intend to sell, doing so within two years of death is materially cheaper than selling in year three. That is a decision to make before it is needed, not during probate.
Residency at the time of sale matters more than at purchase. A beneficiary who has become an Australian tax resident before selling is in a substantially different position from one selling from Singapore. If a child is likely to study, work or migrate to Australia, timing the sale around that changes the outcome.
Probate costs have risen. Victoria substantially increased Probate Office fees from 18 November 2024, with larger estates seeing several-fold increases. It is not a death tax, but it is a real cost arriving at the worst possible moment. Check the current schedule with the Supreme Court of Victoria rather than relying on older figures.
Buying into this today
If you are considering an Australian purchase with succession in mind, one constraint shapes everything: foreign buyers cannot purchase established dwellings until 30 June 2029. That leaves new-build and off-the-plan property bought directly from a developer, with FIRB approval, which is required for every residential purchase by a foreign person regardless of price.
FIRB application fees are tiered by property value and reviewed annually, so budget from the current ATO schedule rather than any figure you read in an article, including this one. Victoria also levies an 8% foreign purchaser duty surcharge and an annual absentee owner land tax surcharge.
None of this makes Australian property a poor holding. It does mean the real comparison against a Singapore purchase is total cost across the life of the asset — acquisition surcharges, holding surcharges, and the eventual CGT position of your beneficiaries — rather than the headline that Australia has no inheritance tax.
If you want that modelled against your own situation, send me your numbers and I will walk you through it honestly, including the cases where staying in Singapore is the better answer.