Capital Gains Tax (CGT) Calculator

Take the sale proceeds and subtract the cost base (purchase price, buying costs such as stamp duty and brokerage, capital improvements, and selling costs) to get your gross capital gain. Subtract any capital losses. If you are an individual who held the asset for more than 12 months, halve what is left using the 50% CGT discount. Add that net gain to your other taxable income and tax the whole amount at your marginal rate. The difference between the tax with the gain and the tax without it is the cost of the sale, and it includes the 2% Medicare levy, any surcharge, and any study loan repayment the higher income triggers.

An Australian resident individual who has owned a CGT asset for more than 12 months before the CGT event can reduce the capital gain by half, so only 50% of it is added to taxable income. Trusts get the same 50%; complying super funds get one third; companies get nothing. The discount is applied after capital losses have already been taken off, which is the step most people get the wrong way round.

For a sale (CGT event A1) it is the date the contract is signed, not the date money changes hands. That single fact decides two things: which financial year the gain falls in, and whether the asset was owned for more than 12 months. A property under contract on 20 June that settles in August is taxed in the June year, and a share bought on 1 March one year and sold under a contract dated 1 March the next is one day short of the discount. Enter the two contract dates above and the holding period is worked out for you.

Before. Section 102-5 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 applies losses at step 1, against the gross gain, and the discount at step 3, against what survives. The order changes the answer a lot: a $100,000 gross gain with a $40,000 carried forward loss is ($100,000 minus $40,000) times 50% = $30,000, not ($100,000 times 50%) minus $40,000 = $10,000. Losses only ever offset capital gains, never salary or business income, and anything unused carries forward indefinitely.

Yes, and that is why an accountant's figure is usually higher than a bracket-only estimate. The net gain becomes part of taxable income, so the 2% levy applies to it, the Low Income Tax Offset tapers away, and a gain can push a single earner over the surcharge threshold ($105,000 for FY 2026-27) so the surcharge applies to their whole income for the year, not just the gain. A study loan behaves the same way, because the net capital gain is part of repayment income. The figures on this page include all four.

Yes, and it is the single biggest thing missing from most online CGT estimates. Capital works deductions claimed under Division 43 (typically 2.5% of construction cost a year) come off the cost base when you sell, so a property held ten years with $60,000 of claimed capital works has $60,000 more assessable gain than a calculator that only ever adds costs will show. Enter the total you have claimed in the capital works field above. Plant and equipment depreciation is handled separately through a balancing adjustment rather than the cost base.

Cost base is the purchase price plus stamp duty, legal and conveyancing fees, building and pest inspections, buyer's agent fees and capital improvements, plus the selling costs (agent commission, marketing, legal), less any capital works deductions already claimed. Sale proceeds minus that cost base is the gross gain. Holding costs such as interest, rates and insurance go in the third element of the cost base only for the years you could not claim them as a deduction, which for a rented property is usually none of them.

The home you live in is generally exempt, and this calculator does not model that exemption: it assumes the whole gain is assessable. If you rented the place out, ran a business from part of it, or lived elsewhere and used the six-year absence rule, only part of the gain is exempt and the apportionment depends on the days and the floor area involved. Land over two hectares is also only partly covered.

Each disposal is its own CGT event, including swapping one coin for another, spending crypto on goods, and bridging between chains. The cost base is what you paid plus transaction and exchange fees, and the proceeds are the Australian dollar market value at the time of the disposal even when no dollars moved. The 50% discount applies to a parcel held more than 12 months, and parcels are matched individually, so a year of active trading is a year of separate calculations rather than one net number.

Three things, and each one is expensive. There is no tax-free threshold, so the foreign resident rates apply from the first dollar at 30%. The 50% discount is denied on this page in full, which is the usual outcome for an asset acquired after the 2012 rule change; an asset owned since before it can qualify for a partial discount that is not modelled here. And the purchaser must withhold an amount at settlement and remit it to the ATO, which is a credit against the final bill rather than an extra tax. Switch the residency selector above to see the difference on your own figures.

The likely reasons, in the order they usually bite: the contract date put the gain in a different year; capital works deductions reduced the cost base and were not entered here; a carried forward loss from an earlier year was applied; your other income was not what you estimated, which changes the bracket the gain lands in; or a concession applies that this page does not model, such as the main residence exemption, the small business concessions, or the rules for assets acquired before 20 September 1985. This is an estimate for one disposal by one individual, and it is not a substitute for a return prepared by a registered tax agent.