Selling isn’t the only way an investment property changes hands. Property gets given to an adult child, added into a sibling’s name, or handed to a parent — and each of those moves can carry a tax bill even though no buyer and seller ever negotiated a price. This guide sets out what’s settled about capital gains tax (CGT) on a family transfer, and where a registered tax agent needs to get involved.

Does capital gains tax apply if I transfer an investment property to a family member?

Yes. Transferring an investment property to a family member is a CGT event — the trigger for capital gains tax, most commonly associated with a sale — in the same way selling it to a stranger is. It doesn’t matter that the two of you agreed a mates’ rates price, that no money changed hands at all, or that the transfer was framed as a gift rather than a sale: the transfer itself is what triggers CGT, not the amount paid.

How the property moves	Is it a CGT event?
Selling at market price	Yes
Selling below market price	Yes
Gifting the property outright	Yes
Adding a family member to the title	Yes, for the share transferred

What differs between these scenarios is the figure the calculation uses, not whether CGT applies at all. A family sale is rarely struck at arm’s length — an open-market negotiation where neither side controls or influences the other — and a straight gift involves no sale price to work with in the first place. For both, s116-30 of the tax law substitutes the property’s market value: if no money changed hands you’re taken to have received market value, and if what you received was more or less than market value and the transfer wasn’t at arm’s length, market value again replaces the actual figure. In an ATO example, a parent sold a rental property to their adult child for the $120,000 still owed on the mortgage while a professional valuation showed $450,000 — the parent’s capital gain was calculated on the $450,000, not the $120,000 received. Two narrow exceptions to this substitution rule exist; they’re covered in the rollover section below.

What counts as a “family transfer” for CGT purposes?

There’s no special family carve-out that removes a transfer from the CGT rules simply because the parties are related. A CGT event is defined by what happens to the asset — a disposal, a change of ownership — not by who’s on either side of it. Spouse, adult child, parent, sibling: the same basic trigger applies regardless of the specific relationship, subject only to the narrow exceptions covered below.

The three common shapes a family transfer takes are a sale at an agreed price, an outright gift, and adding a relative to the title as a co-owner. Each is still a disposal for CGT purposes, even where only part of the property moves — adding one family member to a title you previously held alone is a disposal of the share that now sits in their name.

Does the 12-month CGT discount start again for the person who receives the property?

For an Australian resident individual, the CGT discount reduces a taxable capital gain by 50% where the asset has been held for at least 12 months, excluding both the day of acquisition and the day of the CGT event — as at July 2026, for CGT events before 1 July 2027. That 12-month clock runs from when the person selling the asset acquired it, not from some earlier point in the asset’s history.

The practical consequence for a family transfer: whoever receives the property starts their own holding period from the date of the transfer. If they go on to sell it themselves later, their eligibility for the 50% discount depends on how long they personally have held it — not on how long the original owner held it before handing it over.

Do any rollover rules mean a family transfer isn’t a CGT event?

Two situations sit outside the ordinary rules above. Transferring the property to a former spouse because of a marriage or relationship breakdown may fall outside the market value substitution rule entirely, and transferring it to the trustee of a special disability trust for no payment lets the transferor disregard the gain or loss altogether.

The relationship-breakdown case works through a rollover: where it applies, the person giving up the property disregards their capital gain or loss, and the person receiving it inherits the giver’s cost base — broadly, what the property is deemed to have cost for tax purposes — and acquisition date, rather than starting fresh. It only applies to a transfer made under a court order, or a formal agreement or arbitral award recognised under the Family Law Act (or an equivalent state, territory, or foreign law) — an informal handover between separating partners doesn’t qualify. Whether a specific transfer meets those conditions depends on the exact instrument and the parties’ circumstances, which is a question for a family lawyer as well as a tax agent.

A transfer that happens because the owner has died is treated differently again. The legal personal representative or beneficiary is taken to have acquired the property on the day the owner died, and any gain or loss the estate makes in passing it to a beneficiary is disregarded. The cost base the beneficiary inherits is usually the deceased’s own cost base, but resets to the property’s market value at the date of death if it was the deceased’s main residence, wasn’t being used to produce income, and the deceased wasn’t an excluded foreign resident.

Tax outcomes depend on your circumstances — speak with a registered tax agent before acting.

Does this apply to transferring Brix instead of a directly held property?

A Brix is a different kind of asset to a directly held investment property, which is why this question doesn’t have a one-line answer. A Brix is a fractional economic interest in a property — a financial product under the Corporations Act, not ownership of the property itself — and selling Brix does not transfer legal title; the owner remains the registered legal owner throughout. Whether, and how, a Brix holding can pass between family members at all isn’t something this guide can confirm from published material, and how any such transfer would be taxed depends on the structure and your circumstances.

The reliable path for a Brix-specific question is the Product Disclosure Statement and Target Market Determination at mybrix.com.au, together with a registered tax agent — not reading the directly-held-property rules above as though they map onto a fractional interest.

Where can you get reliable information?

For the full mechanics behind the calculation touched on here — capital proceeds, cost base, the discount, and how each piece fits together — see our guide to capital gains tax on property in Australia. For how fractional property investment is taxed more generally, see our guide to fractional property investment and tax in Australia. A registered tax agent remains the right place to confirm how any of this applies to a specific transfer.