Building a new house in Australia cost an average of $474,939 in 2024-25, excluding land, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. That single number hides a range that runs from under $390,000 in South Australia to over $645,000 in the ACT, and from about $2,200 per square metre for a project home to more than $8,000 per square metre for an architect-designed residence in Sydney.
This guide gives you the dated, sourced ranges and shows what each one includes, so you can compare them with a builder's quote on the same basis. All figures are in Australian dollars. GST treatment is stated on every table because the two main sources treat it differently.
The short answer
| Measure | Figure | GST | Source and date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average cost of a new house, Australia, 2024-25 | $474,939 | Included | ABS Building Activity, released 8 April 2026 |
| Average house approval value, 2025-26 financial year | $517,430 | Included | ABS Building Approvals, released 30 July 2026 |
| Project home, 3 bedroom brick veneer, single level, per m2 | $2,228 to $2,965 | Excluded | BMT Construction Cost Table, 2026, Sydney base |
| Custom home, 4 bedroom, per m2 | $3,120 to $4,393 | Excluded | BMT, 2026, Sydney base |
| Architecturally designed residence, per m2 | $4,645 to $8,318 | Excluded | BMT, 2026, Sydney base |
| Custom-built dwellings, Sydney, per m2 | $2,500 to $7,600 | Excluded | RLB Rider Digest 2026, Q4 2025 rates |
Both ABS figures exclude land and landscaping. The ABS approval value includes site preparation; the Building Activity figure covers materials, labour, engineering, architectural services and fitted fixtures. The quantity surveyor rates from BMT and RLB are per square metre of gross floor area, exclude GST, and exclude land, professional fees and site works outside the building footprint. Add 10 percent to a QS rate before comparing it with a builder's contract price.
Cost per square metre by build quality
The per-square-metre figures below are published by two quantity surveying firms for Sydney and exclude GST. Apply the regional factors in the next section for other cities.
| Build type (BMT, 2026) | Low $/m2 | Medium $/m2 | High $/m2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Project home, 3BR weatherboard, single level | 2,091 | 2,341 | 2,896 |
| Project home, 3BR brick veneer, single level | 2,228 | 2,483 | 2,965 |
| Project home, 3BR full brick, single level | 2,316 | 2,572 | 3,216 |
| Project home, 3BR brick veneer, two level | 2,324 | 2,568 | 3,167 |
| Custom home, 4BR brick veneer, single level | 3,120 | 3,267 | 4,112 |
| Custom home, 4BR full brick, single level | 3,490 | 3,987 | 4,393 |
| Custom home, 4BR brick veneer, two level | 3,167 | 3,579 | 4,154 |
| Custom home, 4BR full brick, two level | 3,500 | 4,018 | 4,387 |
| Architecturally designed executive residence | 4,645 | 5,947 | 8,318 |
Source: BMT Quantity Surveyors, Construction Cost Table, 2026 edition, Sydney base, per m2 of gross floor area, excluding GST. Checked 7 October 2026.
The spread between a low-finish project home and an architectural residence is almost four to one in the same city. Finish level and design complexity move the number more than any other factor you control.
RLB's Rider Digest 2026 gives custom-built single and double storey dwelling rates for seven capitals at Q4 2025, also excluding GST:
| City | Low $/m2 | High $/m2 |
|---|---|---|
| Adelaide | 2,200 | 4,000 |
| Brisbane | 3,150 | 5,800 |
| Canberra | 2,150 | 4,200 |
| Darwin | 2,450 | 4,500 |
| Melbourne | 2,700 | 6,900 |
| Perth | 3,100 | 5,100 |
| Sydney | 2,500 | 7,600 |
Source: RLB Rider Digest 2026, Sydney edition (PDF), rates at Q4 2025, published January 2026. RLB's indicative total for a 325 m2 custom-built house in Sydney is $750,000 to $2,500,000 excluding land and GST.
Regional variation
BMT publishes regional factors to apply to its Sydney rates: Cairns 95 to 108 percent, Brisbane 98 to 110 percent, Canberra 92 to 105 percent, Melbourne 92 to 105 percent, Hobart 90 to 102 percent, Adelaide 90 to 102 percent, Perth 93 to 105 percent, Darwin 90 to 98 percent. Note that RLB's Q4 2025 table puts Brisbane's low end above Sydney's, which reflects the Queensland labour market at that date rather than a long-run rule.
Regional and rural Australia is not covered by either QS table. Duo Tax, a quantity surveying firm, published a secondary guide on 11 September 2025 putting regional project homes at roughly $1,400 to $2,500 per m2 excluding GST, against $2,100 to $4,000 in Sydney. Treat that as indicative; remote sites carry transport, labour availability and service connection costs that no per-m2 rate captures.
Construction systems change where the money goes
Per-square-metre benchmarks assume conventional construction. Alternative systems shift the cost mix rather than removing it. Ambient Sustainable Living, a Perth builder working with structural insulated panels, publishes that its SIP homes deliver 10 to 20 percent cost savings against traditional construction through reduced waste, streamlined labour and faster completion, and claims around 70 percent energy efficiency improvement from continuous insulation and thermal-bridge elimination. Source: Ambient Sustainable Living, SIP builder Perth, checked 8 October 2026. Those are the builder's own claims for its system, not independent measurements, and no quantity surveyor table above prices SIP construction separately. Treat them as a prompt to ask any builder what their system does to the shell cost, the programme and the running cost, with evidence.
Disclosure: Contractor Scale, which operates Bracen, provides marketing services to this builder. The statement is quoted from the builder's own published page, checked 8 October 2026, and is the builder's description of its own pricing or construction method, not a Bracen assessment.
Average cost of a new house by state
The ABS publishes the average cost of new private-sector houses by state. These are the mean of actual projects across all builders, regions and finishes, so they sit at the project-home end of the QS ranges.
| State | 2023-24 | 2024-25 | Avg floor area 2024-25 | Implied $/m2 (our calculation) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | $520,907 | $565,749 | 236.1 m2 | 2,396 |
| Victoria | $433,431 | $485,292 | 253.5 m2 | 1,914 |
| Queensland | $450,807 | $458,868 | 230.9 m2 | 1,987 |
| South Australia | $371,627 | $389,949 | 218.1 m2 | 1,788 |
| Western Australia | $380,874 | $407,114 | 256.8 m2 | 1,585 |
| Tasmania | $411,797 | $420,756 | 165.8 m2 | 2,538 |
| Northern Territory | $471,006 | $475,310 | 206.5 m2 | 2,302 |
| ACT | $563,824 | $645,052 | 298.2 m2 | 2,163 |
| Australia | $443,333 | $474,939 | 241.5 m2 | 1,967 |
Source: ABS Building Activity, Australia, December 2025 release, "Average cost of new houses" and "Average floor area" data cubes, released 8 April 2026. Values include GST and exclude land and landscaping per the ABS methodology. The implied per-m2 column divides one ABS average by another; it is our calculation and a sanity check, not an ABS statistic.
Two things stand out. Victoria's average rose 12 percent in a year while Queensland's rose under 2 percent. And Tasmania's small average floor area pushes its implied rate above New South Wales even though its average house costs far less.
What regional builders publish
National benchmarks are one input. Builders in regional markets publish their own planning ranges, and the gap between those and the QS tables shows what a specific market and specification add.
| Market | Published range | GST | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ballarat, VIC | Custom homes $3,200 to $4,800 per m2 in 2026; a typical 250 m2 home about $800,000 to $1,200,000 excluding land | Included | Murphy James Builders, Custom home construction costs, published 15 September 2026 |
| Bendigo, VIC | Custom homes $2,800 to $3,500 per m2 in 2025 | Included | BLJ Building, Custom home construction costs, 2025 |
| Illawarra, NSW | Standard single storey $2,800 to $3,500 per m2; standard double storey $3,200 to $4,200; architecturally designed $4,000 to $5,500; luxury $5,500 to $6,500 or more | Not stated | Adlington Homes, How much does a custom home cost in the Illawarra, 2026 planning guide |
Disclosure: Contractor Scale, which operates Bracen, provides marketing services to this builder. The figures are quoted from the builder's own published page, checked 7 October 2026, and are one company's regional examples, not a national average and not a Bracen quote.
Is it still getting more expensive?
Yes, but slowly compared with 2021 to 2023.
- Cotality's Cordell Construction Cost Index rose 1.0 percent in the June 2026 quarter and 2.8 percent over the year, with state growth between 0.9 percent in Victoria and 1.1 percent in New South Wales (Cotality press release, 22 July 2026).
- The ABS Producer Price Index for house construction output rose 1.2 percent in the September 2025 quarter and 0.5 percent over the year (ABS PPI, September 2025).
- Master Builders Australia put the cost of building a new house 44.8 percent above pre-pandemic levels, with materials up 37.9 percent (Master Builders Australia, 31 October 2025).
- The average house approval value reached $517,430 in 2025-26, a 5.0 percent rise on $492,931 the year before (ABS, Dwelling approvals rise in June 2026, 30 July 2026).
What the headline figures leave out
Every number above excludes items you will pay for. Budget for them separately.
- Land and any demolition of an existing house. See our knock down rebuild cost guide.
- Site costs. Soil classification, slab class upgrades, bored piers, retaining, cut and fill, rock, bushfire attack level measures and termite protection. The slab alone can differ by around $20,000 between an M-class and an E-class site on a 250 m2 home, according to a builder example published by Stroud Homes in 2019. No current, well-attributed national dollar range for site costs exists; get a soil test and a site-specific allowance before you compare builders.
- Service connections. Power, water, sewer, gas, stormwater and telecommunications.
- Council, certifier and developer fees, plus any covenant requirements on facade or materials.
- Professional fees. Design, engineering, energy assessment, survey.
- Landscaping, driveways, fencing, window coverings, loose furniture.
- GST on QS rates. ABS values already include it.
- Energy compliance. NCC 2022 requires 7-star thermal performance. The regulatory impact statement modelled an average capital cost of $1,704 per detached house or townhouse, ranging from $545 in Queensland to $3,275 in the Northern Territory (Moore and Willand, RMIT, via CSIRO Australian Housing Data, 16 September 2022). New South Wales applied 7 stars through BASIX from 1 October 2023, with modelled energy bill savings of up to $980 a year (NSW Planning Portal, BASIX standards).
Duo Tax and other quantity surveyors recommend holding a contingency of 10 to 15 percent on top of the construction estimate.
How to use these figures with a builder's quote
- Decide the build type you are actually buying. A shelf-design project home and a custom design are different products with different per-m2 rates.
- Put the quote on the same basis as the benchmark. Confirm whether it includes GST, site costs, connections and fees, and add or remove them until the scope matches.
- Divide the comparable contract sum by the gross floor area, including garage and covered areas as the quote does, and place it on the BMT or RLB range for your city.
- Ask for the provisional sums and prime cost items in writing. These are the lines that move after signing.
- Read our guide to home extension costs if you are weighing an extension against a new build.
The estimator below this article gives a modelled starting range from your answers, in Australian dollars, adjusted for your state. It does not inspect your block or replace a priced scope.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does it cost per square metre to build a house in Australia?
Quantity surveyor benchmarks put a standard single-level brick veneer project home at $2,228 to $2,965 per m2 in Sydney excluding GST (BMT, 2026). Custom-built dwellings run $2,500 to $7,600 per m2 in Sydney, $2,200 to $4,000 in Adelaide and $3,150 to $5,800 in Brisbane at Q4 2025 rates excluding GST (RLB Rider Digest 2026).
What is the average cost of a new house by state?
ABS averages for private-sector new houses in 2024-25, excluding land and including GST: New South Wales $565,749, Victoria $485,292, Queensland $458,868, South Australia $389,949, Western Australia $407,114, Tasmania $420,756, Northern Territory $475,310, ACT $645,052. The national average is $474,939 (ABS Building Activity, released 8 April 2026).
Are these figures GST-inclusive?
ABS Building Activity and Building Approvals residential values include GST. BMT and RLB per-m2 rates exclude GST. Add 10 percent to a QS rate before comparing it with a builder's contract price, and ask every builder to state the GST position in writing.
Is building getting more expensive in 2026?
Costs are rising slowly. The Cordell Construction Cost Index rose 2.8 percent in the year to June 2026, and the average house approval value rose 5.0 percent to $517,430 in 2025-26 (ABS, July 2026). The sharp increases of 2021 to 2023 have eased, but costs remain about 45 percent above pre-pandemic levels according to Master Builders Australia.
What does the 7-star energy requirement add?
The NCC 2022 regulatory impact statement modelled an average of $1,704 per detached house or townhouse to reach 7 stars, ranging from $545 in Queensland to $3,275 in the Northern Territory. In New South Wales the BASIX standard has required 7 stars since 1 October 2023. Actual costs depend on orientation, glazing and insulation choices in your design.