Make a vacant residential land tax notification
Tip-offs
If you suspect a property owner is not complying with their obligations, please use our tip-off form.
You must notify us via our online portal if you own residential land in Victoria that was vacant for more than 6 months in 2024. You are required to notify us by 15 January 2025.
Residential land includes:
- land with a home on it
- land with a home which is being renovated or where a former home has been demolished and a new home is being constructed
- land with a home on it that has been uninhabitable for 2 years or more.
Residential land does not include land without a home on it (sometimes called unimproved land), commercial residential premises, residential care facilities, supported residential services or retirement villages.
This page outlines what you should consider before making a notification, and what information you need to provide to complete the notification.
Once you have made a notification, you can log back into the online portal and update your contact details or change how you receive your assessment notice (email or post).
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Do I need to make a notification?
If you own residential property in Victoria that is vacant for more than 6 months in 2024, you need to notify us by 15 January 2025. You will also need to make a notification if you believe you are entitled to an exemption from vacant residential land tax (VRLT).
If you miss this deadline, you should notify us via the online portal as soon as possible. Failing to tell us on time, or failing to tell us at all, may lead to penalty tax. You can read about this on our revenue ruling on penalty tax and interest.
You should already have notified us if your residential property was vacant for more than 6 months in any of the calendar years 2018 to 2023 if it is in one of these municipal council areas:
- Banyule
- Bayside
- Boroondara
- Darebin
- Glen Eira
- Hobsons Bay
- Manningham
- Maribyrnong
- Melbourne
- Monash
- Moonee Valley
- Merri-bek (formerly Moreland)
- Port Phillip
- Stonnington
- Whitehorse
- Yarra
If you haven’t notified us, you should do so via the online portal as soon as possible. Failing to tell us on time, or failing to tell us at all, may lead to penalty tax.
Homes under construction or renovation
Homes will not be considered vacant for up to 2 years from the date a building permit for construction or renovation was issued. You do not need to notify us about such property.
If there are acceptable reasons for a delay in completing your construction or renovation, the Commissioner of State Revenue can extend this 2-year period under certain circumstances. You must contact us and ask for this extension.
If you have made a previous notification
If you have made a notification for a previous year and your circumstances have not changed, you don't need to make a subsequent notification.
Subsequent notifications are necessary where:
- the previously notified vacant property became occupied
- the previously notified vacant property became eligible, or ceased to be eligible, for an exemption
- the property became a residential property during the previous 2 calendar years and ownership remained unchanged during that time
- a previous uninhabitable property notification was made prior to 15 January 2023
- we requested an update of a vacant status by a specific date.
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Before you make a notification
Am I eligible for an exemption?
In some circumstances, homes that are vacant for more than 6 months in a calendar year may be exempt from VRLT. Owners of exempt homes must use our online portal to claim an exemption.
Read about when a property is eligible for an exemption.
Claim an exemption via our online portal
Are you an existing customer?
You can use your existing customer information to pre-populate your details in the portal, saving you time. To do this, you will need your State Revenue Office customer number and one of the following:
- Assessment number from a land tax assessment notice.
- Assessment number from a VRLT assessment notice.
- Reference number from a previous VRLT notification.
- Correspondence number from a letter we sent to you about VRLT.
If you have received a letter from us about VRLT but haven't received an assessment, you can pre-populate property information by using the correspondence number on your letter.
Nominate a contact person
The portal allows you to decide who receives the assessment notice and other correspondence about VRLT. You can select to have correspondence sent to the land owner or an authorised representative, such as an accountant or solicitor.
If you want correspondence sent to an authorised representative, you need to provide their full name and contact details, including email, postal address and phone number.
If you are using our online portal to make a notification on someone else's behalf and you want to nominate an authorised representative, you must also complete our change of contact details form (GEN Form 03).
Joint owners
If a vacant property is jointly owned, you only need to provide the details of one of the joint owners on the ‘Land owner details’ page of the portal. We will send all future VRLT correspondence to that owner on behalf of all joint owners, unless you nominate an authorised representative.
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Make a notification
The portal lets you notify us about multiple properties in one submission. However, if you own properties under multiple ownership structures, you will need to make a separate submission for each ownership structure. For example:
- If you need to notify us about 3 properties which you jointly own with your partner, you can let us know about all 3 properties in the one submission.
- If you jointly own one property with your partner and one property on your own, you will need to log in to the portal twice and make a separate submission for each.
- If you need to notify us about a property you own and a property owned by a company or trust, you will need to log in to the portal twice and make a separate submission for each.
Make a notification via our online portal
Only make a notification using the online portal if you are the owner of the property or have the owner's permission to make a notification on their behalf.
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Update your contact details
Once you have made a notification, you can use the online portal to update your contact details or change how you receive your assessment notice (email or post).
To do this, you will need to verify your identity on the 'welcome' page by supplying your State Revenue Office customer number and one of the following:
- Assessment number from a land tax assessment notice.
- Assessment number from a VRLT assessment notice.
- Reference number from a previous VRLT notification.
- Correspondence number from a letter we sent to you about the VRLT.
The portal allows you to change your contact details for VRLT purposes only. If you would like to change your contact details for other taxes and levies, please complete our change of contact details form.
Next Steps
Once a notification has been submitted, an email confirming that we have received the notification will be sent to the person who completed it, along with a PDF copy of the submission.
If the land owner is liable for VRLT, an assessment will be sent to them or their authorised representative via email or post, depending on which was nominated as the preferred communications channel.
Understanding your VRLT assessment
If an exemption has been claimed, the owner or their authorised representative will receive confirmation that it has been processed, or a request for more information. Either way, records supporting an exemption should be kept for 5 years.
We process assessments and exemption confirmations periodically, so we ask for your patience if you do not hear from us immediately.
Customer survey
Help us improve our service by completing a short survey about our VRLT online portal.
Last modified: 13 November 2024
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