Understanding Your Rates and Utilities

Rate in the Dollar and Minimum General Rate

• To offset State Government 2025 land valuation increases, Council has reduced the rate in the dollar by 18%.
• This year ratepayers will see a rate increase of 4%.
  Note: this is applicable to category 1 (principal place of residence) with an average valuation increase, some ratepayers’ increases will be higher and some lower.
• 32% of category 1 (principal place of residence) residential ratepayers will receive either no increase or even a decrease in rates, dependent on their land valuation.

Rate Capping, Discounts and Rebates

• Council offers a 5% early payment discount on rates to Category 1 ratepayers who pay their rates by the due date.
• Not-for-profit organisations continue to receive a full-rate rebate of 100% of general rates and a partial rebate on water charges.
• Not-for-profit sporting organisations continue to receive a partial-rate rebate of 50% of sewerage charges.
• Council has capped rate increases for all Category 1 properties at 20%.
  What is rate capping? Rates are calculated using your land value and the relevant category’s rate in the dollar or minimum general rate. If your land value has increased significantly, without capping, your rates would also increase by a substantial amount. To reduce the impact on residential homeowners, Council has limited the increase in rates to 20% for Category 1 – Residential Principal Place of Residence.
• Pensioner Transport Subsidy Scheme will cease from 1 July 2025.
  • All ferry transfer vouchers issued by Council remain valid until their expiry date.
  • Pensioners remain eligible for concessions offered by the ferry provider. View current pricing on the SeaLink website.

Pensioner Concession

• The Pensioner Rates Concession remains one of the most generous in the State.
• Council has reviewed and updated the pensioner rates concession policy. Those receiving the pensioner concession before 30 June 2025 will continue to receive their current concession.
• New applicants for Council's pensioner rates concession will be eligible for either $400 per year (where all owners are in receipt of the full pension) or alternatively a concession of $200 per year.

2025 State Land Valuations

State government issued Townsville new land valuations in 2025, which saw an increase of 27% across the local government area. The average increase for Category 1 - Residential Principal Place of Residence was 27% or $46,000.

About Land Valuations

• Local governments are required by the local government regulation to use state land valuations to calculate the general rate.
• The Queensland Government provides Council with unimproved land valuations every few years. The Department of Resources revalued Townsville local government area as at 1 October 2024. Townsville property owners were notified of new land valuations from March 2025, with valuations effective from 30 June 2025.
• State Land Valuations Frequently Asked Questions (PDF, 141.6 KB)

Rating Categories

From 1 July 2025, Townsville City Council will introduce new rating categories following a review of:

• Council’s costs of providing community infrastructure and services
• whether similar land uses are charged similar rates; and
• comparisons against similar and neighbouring Councils

Key changes were made to three categories:

• Category 2T - Transitory accommodation
• Categories 3-02 to 3-70 – Multi-unit dwellings
• Category 4-02 – Heavy industry

View all rating categories and criteria in the 2025/26 Schedule of Rates and Charges.

Category 2T | Transitory accommodation

• Council has introduced a new category for residential transitory accommodation. This applies to properties used for short stay accommodation like those advertised on Airbnb, Stayz or through property managers.
• Properties that have confirmed bookings or are advertised on short-stay accommodation provider websites after 1 July 2025 will automatically fall under the new category if they are offered, available or used for more than 30 days in the financial year.
• This change is expected to generate $1 million in revenue, which Council has committed to reinvesting directly into tourism, to generate up to $32 million in visitor spending.
• This change was introduced with the aim to achieve a fairer rating system for ratepayers, with the new category aligning rates paid with commercial operators like traditional hotels and motels.

Short-stay accommodation

• Townsville has had a 28.3% increase in residential short-stay accommodation since 2022, with these properties now making up approximately 27% of the market.
• Each short-stay accommodation generates, on average, $38,000 in revenue for the property owner.

Categories 3-02 to 3-70 | Multi-unit dwellings

• New categories have been created, breaking down the previous category for multi-unit dwellings to ensure property owners are paying the same rate per unit.
• Now, the ratepayer pays the same per unit whether they own one strata-titled unit (Category 2) or 39 units within the one multi-unit dwelling (Category 3-39). This change closes a loophole to ensure a more equitable rating system for residential unit owners.

Category 4-02 | Heavy industry

Council has removed the minimum land size (previously greater than 50 hectares) for this category. With this change, 88 properties have moved from Category 4-01 Commercial to Category 4-02 Heavy Industry with an average rate increase of 62% including the state land valuation increase.

Council’s general rate’s structure is complex and needs to consider how all ratepayers directly and indirectly impact on the services and infrastructure provided by Council. The heavy industry category reflects the impost placed on Council’s road infrastructure when compared with commercial/industrial properties.

Common themes appear across similar and neighbouring Council’s including the existence of separate categories for intensive commercial/industrial activities such as large shopping centres, extractive industries, major industry (for example, port, sugar mill, theme parks) and other heavy/noxious industries.

Properties included have the following land uses:

• 31 Oil depot and refinery
• 32 Wharves
• 37 Noxious, offensive industry
• 39 Harbour industries
• 40 Extractive.

Utility Charges

• Ratepayers will see an average increase of $168 per year or $3.23 per week on their utilities which includes water, waste services and wastewater (sewerage) services.
• Utilities charges combined (water, waste and sewerage) have increased by 7.7% since last financial year.
• Council has introduced a plumbing and drainage annual registration and monitoring fee which will apply to each testable backflow prevention device. The backflow annual device fee will be charged on the first rate notice issued for each financial year, at a charge of $52.50 per testable device.
• The Queensland Government Waste Levy for general waste is now $97 per tonne. Council received $4,898,398 for the 2025/26 financial year from the Queensland Government to partially mitigate impacts from the Waste Levy on households. This payment is around 70% of the amount required to be paid by Council to the Queensland Government as a levy for household waste to landfill. The Waste Utility Charge covers costs associated with managing waste in 2025/26, while the State Waste Levy Charge is the gap between the 70% rebate and the levy charged to Council by the Queensland Government. It is expected that the waste levy payment will continue to reduce by a further $3.2 million over the next 6 years.