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Infrastructure charges: the five-figure line nobody budgets for

Guide

Oct 14, 2026

Split one Brisbane lot into two and council will send you a charge of $18,793.33. Urban Utilities will send a second one for about the same again. Neither is a fee for anything done on your site. Both are due before you can sell the new lot.

First-time subdividers budget for the surveyor, the town planner, the civil works and the agent. The infrastructure charge is the line that gets left out, because it does not appear until after the approval. This is how it works in Queensland, with figures current at October 2026.

What it is

An infrastructure charge is your contribution to shared, or “trunk”, infrastructure: the main roads, water mains, sewers, stormwater, parks and land for community facilities that serve an area. It is set under chapter 4 of the Planning Act 2016.

It is not a charge for the pipe to your lot or the driveway crossover. Those are your own works and you pay for them separately.

Section 120 of the Act only allows a charge for extra demand. One more lot or one more dwelling means one more share.

How much

The state sets a ceiling and updates it each 1 July. From 1 July 2026 the prescribed amounts are:

$38,029.25 for each dwelling with three or more bedrooms
$27,163.80 for each dwelling with one or two bedrooms

That was a 3.7% rise on the year before. The ceiling is indexed to a Queensland road and bridge construction price index, not to consumer prices, so it follows civil construction costs.

There is no separate state rate for a new lot. Every South East Queensland council charges a new residential lot at the three-bedroom rate.

Each council adopts its own charges by resolution, up to the ceiling. In practice every council below sets its residential charge at, or indexed toward, the maximum. The differences are in who collects it and how up to date the published figure is.

Council	Current resolution	Published charge per new lot	Who collects
Brisbane	No. 15 2026, from 1 July 2026	$18,793.33 to council, plus Urban Utilities’ share	Half council, half Urban Utilities
Moreton Bay	No. 10, from 5 October 2022	$31,080.00 base at July 2022, indexed since	60% council, 40% Unitywater
Sunshine Coast	No. 9 2022	$30,677.65 base at March 2021, indexed since	54% council, 46% Unitywater
Ipswich	No. 1 2025, from 1 July 2025	Tracks the state maximum	Council and Urban Utilities, split varies by area
Logan	No. 12 2025, from 1 September 2025	$36,670.70	Council only
Gold Coast	No. 1 of 2025, from 1 July 2025	$34,452.65 base at July 2024, indexed since	Council only
Redland	No. 3.4 2026, from 15 April 2026	$36,670.70	Council only

Where the table shows a base, the amount on your notice will be higher. Those resolutions index the base every quarter up to the ceiling. Treat any published figure as a floor and ask council for a current quote.

Two notices, not one

In Brisbane, Ipswich, Moreton Bay and the Sunshine Coast, water and sewerage belong to a separate business. Council charges for transport, stormwater and parks. Urban Utilities or Unitywater charges for water and sewerage, on its own notice, with its own due date.

People budget for the council notice and miss the second. In Brisbane the two halves are close to equal. Urban Utilities’ published base for one Brisbane lot is $18,335.20 before indexation.

On the Gold Coast and in Logan and Redland, council runs water and sewerage, so there is one notice.

The credit for what is already there

You are charged for extra demand, so what exists on the site counts in your favour.

In Brisbane, under section 16 of the resolution, the credit is the greatest of the existing lawful use, a previous lawful use, or one share for each existing lot. Split one lot into two and you have two lots of demand, one lot of credit, and a charge for one.

Three things to know:

It is the greatest of those, not the sum. One lot with one house on it earns one credit, not two.
In Brisbane you have to claim it with evidence, on council’s form.
A credit can reduce the charge to nil. It is never paid out.

Other councils use the same idea with different conditions. Logan, for example, gives no credit where an earlier charge on the land was deferred or left unpaid.

When you pay

The charge is created by the approval, not the application. Council issues an infrastructure charges notice with the approval or soon after.

Section 122 of the Planning Act sets when it falls due:

Subdivision: when council approves the plan of subdivision. In practice you pay before council will seal the plan.
Building work: when the final inspection certificate or certificate of occupancy is given.
A change of use: when the change happens.

For a subdivision that puts the bill at the end of the job, when the civil works are paid for and nothing has sold. Councils can agree to different timing or instalments, but that takes a written agreement.

It grows while you wait

The amount on the notice is not the amount you pay. Every council above indexes a levied charge from the date of the notice to the date of payment, capped at the ceiling in force on the day you pay. Urban Utilities has done the same since 31 March 2025.

An approval that sits for two years before plan sealing will cost more than the notice says. Brisbane requires a current quote before payment.

What you can and cannot challenge

You have 20 business days from the notice to make representations or appeal, under sections 125 and 229 of the Planning Act.

You can challenge mistakes: the wrong use category, the wrong number of lots or bedrooms, a missed credit, or an error about an offset. You cannot challenge the rate itself.

Check the notice the week it arrives. The window is short, and a credit you did not claim is not one council has to find for you.

Offsets and discounts

If your approval requires you to build trunk infrastructure that serves other properties, its cost is offset against your charge. On a small infill subdivision this is rare. Frontage works and your own connections are not trunk and earn nothing.

Discounts exist, but few are aimed at a small residential project. Brisbane’s current reductions are for community housing providers and community organisations. Its earlier discounts and its build-to-rent deferral have closed to new applicants. The Gold Coast does not charge for a secondary dwelling of 80 m² or less. Redland charges secondary dwellings at a reduced rate in some cases. Logan charges a house with a secondary dwelling for both.

The state’s $2 billion Residential Activation Fund pays for trunk infrastructure to open up land. It does not reduce an individual notice.

What it is not

Infrastructure charges sit beside a group of smaller costs that are easy to confuse with them. For a Brisbane lot:

Plan sealing: $600 per request plus $450 per lot on the plan (council fees, 2026-27).
Water connection: $273 per service to assess, and $3,522 in base works for a water connection on the same side of the road. More if the main is across the road.
Sewer connection: $3,002 in base works where the connection is within the site.
Telecommunications: an NBN developer charge capped at $600 per single dwelling premises, plus your own pit and pipe.
Electricity: design and connection costs that depend on the site.

The Urban Utilities figures are from its 2025-26 price list, which stays in force until the next one starts.

A worked example

One residential lot in Brisbane, split into two, approved after 1 July 2026.

Item	Amount
Demand: two lots, less a credit for one existing lot	One lot
Council infrastructure charge	$18,793.33
Urban Utilities infrastructure charge, published base before indexation	$18,335.20
Plan sealing: $600 plus two lots at $450	$1,500
Water connection: assessment and base works	$3,795
Sewer connection: assessment and base works	$3,275

That is about $45,700 before electricity, telecommunications and any road crossing, and before indexation between the notice and the day you pay. The two infrastructure charges cannot together exceed $38,029.25 at today’s ceiling.

Before you rely on any of this

These figures were checked against each council’s resolution and the Planning Regulation in October 2026. They change every July, and some change every quarter. Before you sign a contract, ask council and the water business for a written estimate for the site. Several councils publish a calculator.

BDRCK puts an indicative charge under the council’s adopted resolution into the feasibility from the first run, so the line is there before the approval is. The notice is still the number that counts.

This is general information, not advice.