Capital Gains Tax Calculator FY2026-27
Enter what you paid for an asset, what you sold it for, your buying and selling costs, and whether you owned it for 12 months or more, to see your gross capital gain, the 50% discount (if eligible), any capital losses applied, and the extra tax the gain adds via your marginal rate.
Calculate your capital gains tax
Gross capital gain: $70,000
Net gain after losses: $70,000
50% discount applied: Yes
Taxable gain: $35,000
CGT payable: $11,200
Effective rate on your gross gain: 16%
This is general information, not financial or tax advice — consider a registered tax agent or financial adviser for guidance specific to your situation.
Estimates for general information — not financial or tax advice. Method, rates and sources are published below.
CGT payable by gain size and holding period (income $90,000, FY2026-27)
Taxable gain and CGT payable for a range of gain sizes, computed from the engine above, for someone with $90,000 of other taxable income and no capital losses. The 12-months-or-more column is always roughly half the under-12-months column, because the 50% discount halves the taxable gain before it's stacked on other income.
| Capital gain (before discount) | Held under 12 months | Held 12 months or more | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Taxable gain | CGT payable | Taxable gain | CGT payable | |
| $50,000 | $50,000 | $16,350 | $25,000 | $8,000 |
| $100,000 | $100,000 | $35,850 | $50,000 | $16,350 |
| $200,000 | $200,000 | $82,850 | $100,000 | $35,850 |
How this is calculated
Your gross capital gain is what you sold the asset for, minus your buying and selling costs, minus what you originally paid — never less than $0 here (a genuine loss on the asset itself isn't a gain to discount; it becomes a capital loss you'd enter against a future gain instead). Per the ATO, any capital losses are then subtracted from that GROSS gain before the 50% CGT discount is applied, not after — subtracting losses from an already-discounted gain would understate the benefit the discount is meant to give. If you've owned the asset 12 months or more (as an Australian resident), the remaining amount is halved; otherwise the full remaining amount is taxable.
That taxable gain is added to your other taxable income, and CGT payable is the resulting increase in total tax — the same marginal-rate stacking the income tax calculator and negative gearing calculator use, which already includes the 2% Medicare levy. If the taxable gain is large enough to push your income across a bracket boundary, part of it is taxed at one rate and part at the next — the portions are added together, not averaged.
| Taxable income | Marginal rate | Combined with 2% levy |
|---|---|---|
| $0 – $18,200 | 0% | 2% |
| $18,200 – $45,000 | 15% | 17% |
| $45,000 – $135,000 | 30% | 32% |
| $135,000 – $190,000 | 37% | 39% |
| $190,000 and over | 45% | 47% |
Sources
- ATO — How to calculate your CGT (worked examples, calculation steps) — verified 2026-07-10
- ATO — CGT discount (eligibility, exclusions, loss-before-discount ordering rule) — verified 2026-07-10
- ATO — new tax cuts for every Australian taxpayer (FY2026-27) — income tax brackets — verified 2026-07-09
Assumptions used here follow the same general approach as ASIC's MoneySmart calculators and may not reflect every personal circumstance — see "What this doesn't model" for specifics.
What this doesn't model
- The main residence exemption — most people pay no CGT at all on the home they live in. This calculator always treats a sale as a taxable gain; if your main residence exemption applies, don't use this page's result for that sale.
- The indexation method for assets acquired before 21 September 1999 — instead of the 50% discount, those assets can have their cost base adjusted for inflation up to that date, which sometimes gives a smaller gain than the discount would (see the ATO's CGT calculation steps). This calculator always uses the discount method.
- Companies, trusts and complying superannuation funds, which use different rules — companies can't use the CGT discount at all, complying super funds get a 33.33% discount (not 50%), and trusts have their own flow-through rules — see the ATO's CGT discount page. This calculator assumes an Australian resident individual throughout.
- Foreign and temporary residents, who generally can't use the full 50% discount for gains made after 8 May 2012 (an apportioned discount may apply for part-Australian-resident ownership periods instead).
- Carrying forward a net capital loss to future years — this calculator only applies the capital losses you enter for this calculation; it doesn't track a running balance across financial years.
If any of these apply to you, your actual CGT payable will differ from the figures above.
Frequently asked questions
How much CGT will I pay when I sell an asset?
It depends on your gain, any capital losses, whether you've held the asset 12 months or more, and your other taxable income — there's no flat CGT rate. In this page's example, a $70,000 gross gain (held over 12 months, no losses) becomes a $35,000 taxable gain after the 50% discount, adding $11,200 to tax owed on $90,000 of other taxable income — an effective rate of 16% on the original gross gain.
Do I pay CGT when I sell my home?
Usually no. Your main residence is generally exempt from CGT under the main residence exemption, so most people never need this calculator for the home they live in. There are exceptions — for example if you used part of it for rental or business, or the land is over 2 hectares — check your eligibility against the ATO's main residence exemption guide, linked in "What this doesn't model" below. This calculator does not apply that exemption for you — if your home genuinely qualifies, its sale doesn't belong in this calculator at all.
How does the 12-month discount work?
If you're an Australian resident individual and owned the asset for at least 12 months before the sale (or other CGT event), you only pay tax on half the gain — the other half is discounted entirely, not just taxed at a lower rate. The difference is large: the same $70,000 gain held over 12 months produces a $35,000 taxable gain ($11,200 CGT payable in this example); held under 12 months, the full $70,000 is taxable ($24,150 CGT payable) — more than double, for an identical gain. The ATO counts ownership from the day after you acquired the asset to the day of the CGT event (for property, that's the contract date, not settlement) — see the ATO's CGT discount page (in Sources below) for the exact counting rules and exclusions.
Do capital losses reduce my CGT, and when are they applied?
Yes — capital losses (carried forward from previous years, or from other assets sold at a loss this year) are subtracted from your gross gain BEFORE the 50% discount is applied, not after. The ATO's own words: "If you have any capital losses from other assets, you must subtract these from your capital gains before applying the discount." In this page's example, adding a $4,500 capital loss to the $70,000 gain reduces the net gain to $65,500 first, THEN the discount applies to that — giving a $32,750 taxable gain ($10,480 CGT payable, $720 less than with no loss at all). If the discount were applied first and the loss subtracted after, the result would be a different (lower) taxable gain — that's not how the ATO does it.
What if my capital losses are bigger than my capital gain?
You pay no CGT this year — the taxable gain and CGT payable both come out as $0 on this page. The excess loss isn't wasted: the ATO lets you carry a net capital loss forward to offset capital gains in future years (it can never be deducted against other income like salary). This calculator doesn't track that carried-forward balance across years — if you have unused losses from previous years, add them to "Capital losses" here yourself each time you use it.