Progress payments in Victoria
Here, the maximum for each stage is fixed in law, and those maximums are scheduled to change. What a progress payment is, and how the stages of a build line up, is on the main guide.
Victoria sets maximum percentages for each stage. Only 2 of the eight Australian jurisdictions do. The figures below are the law here, not a guide to it.
Victoria: what the law sets
- Build all stages
- Base 10%, frame 15%, lock-up 35%, fixing 25%
- Build to fixing
- Base 12%, frame 18%, lock-up 40%
- Build to lock-up
- Base 20%, frame 25%
- Deposit
- 5% at $20,000 or more; 10% under $20,000
- Status
- Maximums, not schedules — a contract may ask less, never more
Read from Consumer Affairs Victoria, Deposits and payments for domestic building on 26 October 2026. Consumer Affairs Victoria is the authority on what applies to a particular contract, and a figure here is a ceiling rather than an entitlement.
Victoria puts a ceiling on each stage
Victoria is one of only two jurisdictions in Australia that says what a stage may be worth. The figures are maximums rather than a schedule: a contract can ask for less at base stage, it cannot ask for more.
That makes the Victorian page the easy one to check. Add up what your contract claims at each stage and compare it with the table. A builder asking 20% at base on a contract to build all stages is asking for double what the law allows, and you can establish that from the contract alone, before anyone has dug anything.
These maximums are legislated to change, and the regulator's own page has the old date
The Domestic Building Contracts Amendment Act 2025 lets regulations set deposit limits, progress payment stages and progress payment limits — in other words, it can replace the table above. It was to commence on 1 December 2026.
It will not. The Consumer Legislation Amendment Act 2026, which received Royal Assent on 8 September 2026, substitutes 31 March 2027 for that date at section 178ZL. Consumer Affairs Victoria's own news page still says the reforms take effect by 1 December 2026; that page was last updated on 15 September 2025, a year before the amending Act was assented to.
So the table above is the law today and stays the law past 1 December 2026. If you are signing a contract that runs into 2027, the stage maximums may be different by the time you reach fixing, and the regulations that will set them had not been made when we checked.
Questions about paying a builder in Victoria
Can my builder ask for more than these percentages?
No. They are maximums set under the Domestic Building Contracts Act. A contract term requiring more than the maximum for a stage does not become lawful because you signed it.
Do the percentages include the deposit?
No. The deposit is capped separately — 5% where the contract price is $20,000 or more, 10% below that — and the stage maximums above are shares of the total price payable as each stage completes.
Have the rules changed on 1 December 2026?
No. Commencement of the 2025 amendments was moved to 31 March 2027 by the Consumer Legislation Amendment Act 2026, which was assented to on 8 September 2026. Consumer Affairs Victoria's news page has not been updated to reflect that.