Free Tool · Australian Investors
Property Cash Flow Calculator
Weekly and annual cash flow for an Australian rental property — before and after tax, with negative gearing computed exactly on FY2026-27 resident rates.
Weekly and annual cash flow for an Australian rental property — before and after tax, with negative gearing computed exactly on FY2026-27 resident rates.
Enter 0 if the property is owned outright.
2 weeks is about 96% occupancy — a realistic planning figure for most metro rentals. Regional and seasonal markets often run higher.
Typically 5–9% of rent plus GST. Enter 0 if self-managing.
Usually $0 while your total land holdings sit under your state's threshold. Estimate it with our Land Tax Calculator.
Pest control, gardening, compliance checks, accounting for the property, etc.
Salary and other taxable income. This sets the marginal rate your gearing result is taxed or refunded at.
From a quantity surveyor's schedule — a non-cash deduction. Leave 0 if you don't have a schedule.
Last reviewed 12 July 2026 · rates and thresholds verified against official FY2026-27 sources.
Rental yield tells you what a property earns relative to its price. Capital growth tells you what it might be worth later. Cash flow answers the only question your bank account cares about: after the rent comes in and every bill, loan payment and tax adjustment goes out, how many dollars are left each week — or how many do you have to tip in? Two properties with identical 4.5% yields can produce wildly different cash flow once you account for the loan structure, strata fees, land tax and, critically, your own tax bracket. Yield is a property metric; cash flow is a you-plus-property metric. The same house can be comfortably cash-flow positive for an owner with no debt and heavily negative for a buyer borrowing 80% at today's rates. That is why this calculator asks for your taxable income — the after-tax number genuinely depends on it.
The calculator keeps two separate ledgers, because your bank account and the ATO disagree about what counts.
The cash ledger. Rent collected (52 weeks minus your vacancy allowance) less the cash expenses — management, rates, water, insurance, repairs, strata, land tax, other — less the actual loan payment. On an interest-only loan that payment is simply loan × rate. On a principal-and-interest loan it is the full amortising repayment, including the principal component: money that genuinely leaves your account every month even though the ATO does not treat it as an expense. The result is your pre-tax cash flow.
The tax ledger. Rent less deductible items only: the cash expenses, the interest portion of the loan (never the principal), and depreciation — which reduces taxable income without costing a cent in cash this year. The result is the property's taxable result. If it is negative, the property is negatively geared and the loss reduces the tax you pay on your salary. We then compute your tax bill twice — once on your income alone, once with the property's result included — using the full FY2026-27 resident rate scale. Because both bills are computed exactly, the benefit is correct even when the loss drags your income across a bracket boundary, which a single "loss × marginal rate" shortcut gets wrong.
After-tax cash flow = pre-tax cash flow + the tax benefit (or minus the extra tax, if the property makes a profit). Divided by 52, that is the weekly figure in the hero box — the number to sanity-check against your household budget.
Negative gearing is routinely sold as if the tax refund were the point. It is not — the refund is a partial rebate on a genuine loss. If your property loses $16,595 on the tax ledger and you earn $95,000, the deduction returns roughly 32 cents per dollar of loss (30% bracket plus 2% Medicare): about $5,310 back at tax time. You still spent the other $11,285. Put bluntly: you spend $1 to get back your marginal rate; the investment must grow to win. The strategy only pays off if capital growth outruns the accumulated after-tax shortfall, plus stamp duty on the way in, agent fees on the way out, and capital gains tax on the profit. That can absolutely happen — it has for many Australian investors — but it is a leveraged bet on growth, not a tax trick that manufactures wealth by itself.
There is one genuinely attractive corner case: when a large non-cash depreciation deduction creates a paper loss while the actual cash position stays positive. You collect a refund without a weekly out-of-pocket cost. This is why new builds are marketed so aggressively on their depreciation schedules — and why you should verify the numbers with a real quantity surveyor's report rather than a sales brochure.
The negative gearing reform announced in the 2026-27 Federal Budget is now law. From 1 July 2027, negative gearing deductions for residential property are limited to new builds. The key carve-out is grandfathering: properties held at 7:30pm AEST on 12 May 2026 are exempt, so existing holdings keep negative gearing. An established home purchased after that cut-off cannot be negatively geared from 1 July 2027 — its rental losses will no longer reduce the tax on your other income. New builds remain fully deductible.
Two things follow for this calculator. First, its tax benefit computation remains correct for FY2026-27 for every property, and beyond that for grandfathered holdings and new builds — which covers most investors reading this today. Second, the exit maths also changes: the 50% CGT discount is replaced by cost-base indexation plus a 30% minimum tax rate on gains that accrue after 1 July 2027 (gains accrued before then keep the current treatment), so the whole-of-life case for a negatively geared established home now rests on different numbers at both ends. If you are weighing an established-home purchase today, price in a future without the gearing refund. Source: ATO new-legislation guidance on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Act 2026, verified 5 July 2026.
The calculator uses the Australian resident rates that apply from 1 July 2026:
The 15% rate on the second band is new this financial year (it was 16% in FY2025-26) and is already legislated to fall again to 14% from 1 July 2027 — worth knowing, because it slightly reduces the future value of negative gearing deductions in that band. On top of the scale we add the Medicare levy as a flat 2% of taxable income. That is a deliberate simplification: the real levy phases in from zero across a low-income band, and offsets and the Medicare levy surcharge can move your bill in either direction. For most full-time earners the flat 2% is accurate; near the thresholds it slightly overstates tax.
Depreciation comes in two flavours. Division 43 capital works lets you claim 2.5% of the original construction cost per year for 40 years on residential buildings constructed after mid-September 1987 — often thousands per year on newer stock. Division 40 plant and equipment covers items like ovens, carpets, blinds and air-conditioners, each depreciated over its effective life. One important catch: since 9 May 2017, buyers of established homes generally cannot claim Division 40 deductions on second-hand assets that came with the property — only on items they buy new themselves. Brand-new builds are unaffected. To claim either, you need a depreciation schedule from a qualified quantity surveyor; it typically costs a few hundred dollars, is itself deductible, and usually pays for itself in the first year. Enter the annual figure from that schedule in the depreciation field — it lowers your taxable result without touching your cash flow, which is exactly why it matters.
Advertised rent assumes 52 paying weeks. Real properties change tenants, sit empty between leases, and occasionally need a week of work before re-letting. The default here is 2 weeks (about 96% occupancy) — a fair planning figure for metro markets with normal demand. Holiday areas, single-industry towns and oversupplied apartment precincts can run materially worse. Every vacant week costs you a full week's rent and keeps almost all expenses running, so if the deal only works at 52/52 occupancy, it does not work.
Rent $570/week with 2 weeks vacancy gives $28,500 of annual rent. Management at 7% costs $1,995; add rates $2,000, water $1,200, insurance $1,800 and maintenance $1,500 for total cash expenses of $8,495. Interest-only at 5.5% on $520,000 is $28,600. Cash out is therefore $37,095 against $28,500 in — a pre-tax cash flow of −$8,595, about −$165 a week.
Now the tax ledger. With an $8,000 depreciation schedule, deductions total $8,495 + $28,600 + $8,000 = $45,095, so the taxable result is −$16,595. For an investor on $95,000, tax (including flat 2% Medicare) falls from about $20,920 to about $15,610 — a benefit of $5,310. After-tax cash flow: −$8,595 + $5,310 = −$3,285 a year, roughly −$63 a week. Note the shape of the deal: the tax system converted a $165/week pre-tax cost into a $63/week after-tax cost, but the $63 is still real money leaving your pocket every week while you wait for growth.
This page provides general information only and is not personal tax or financial advice. Rules and rates change — confirm current settings with the ATO and Moneysmart, and speak with a registered tax agent about your own position before relying on any figure here.