Calculating your rates
About
Your 2025-26 rates notice includes:
- how your rates are calculated.
- 4 rates instalment amounts - the total due for 2025-26
- Calculating your rates
Rates – why we collect them
Rates fund services, and building and maintaining local infrastructure and facilities. They are paid by owners of properties in the shire. Find out what your rates pay for or review the 2022-26 budget.
Calculating rates
To work out how much you pay in rates, your property’s CIV is multiplied by the ‘rate in the dollar'.
Value of your property
Independent valuers work out the Capital Improved Value (CIV) of your property each year.
Information on property valuations
The amount of rates you pay depends on the value of your property compared to other properties in Cardinia Shire.
Rate in the-dollar: the different property categories
The rate in the dollar is calculated by dividing the total amount of rates revenue we need to collect for the year by the total value (CIV) of all rateable properties in Cardinia Shire.
To keep things fair, the rate in the dollar varies according to the type of property you own.
Rates-in-the-dollar for 2025-26
| Levy | Rate in CIV ($) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Urban residential | 0.0023158 | Land with a dwelling in the Urban Growth Corridor (except retirement village units). |
| Urban commercial and industrial | 0.0031391 | Commercial, retail and industrial properties in the Urban Growth Corridor (except for electrical substations). |
| Urban farm land | 0.0018396 |
Farms of 40 or more hectares in the urban growth corridor. For farms less than 40 hectares: By application; dependent on intensity and scale of agricultural activity. |
| Urban vacant land |
0.0043296 |
Vacant residential land in the urban growth corridor. |
| Farm land | 0.0016236 |
Farms of 40 or more hectares outside the urban growth corridor. For farms less than 40 hectares: By application; dependent on intensity and scale of agricultural activity. |
| Base rate | 0.0021648 | All properties that do not fit into the other differential categories, including retirement village units and electrical substations. |
2025-26 rates – how they were calculated
Capital improved value x rate in dollar = Council charges
+ Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund
+ waste charges
− or + credit or arrears
− Pensioner Concession
= Annual total
An example
Property value $850,000 in the Urban Residential category
$850,000 x 0.0023158 = $1,968.43 in Council charges
add Victorian Government charges and waste services charges.
Rate capping and your rates
Each year the Minister for Local Government sets a rate cap for all Councils which applies to the percentage increase of council’s total rate revenue only.
The rates cap does not apply to individual properties or other charges on your notice such as waste service charges, Victorian Government's Emergency Services and Volunteer Fund or supplementary rates.
Individual rates bills may increase or decrease by more (or less) than the rate cap percentage due to their valuation movements.
We have complied with the Victorian Government’s rates cap of 3.00% increase for the 2025/26 rating year.