Whole-house fit-out landed in Brisbane

The whole-house fit-out we priced

A four-bedroom house: kitchen, laundry, wardrobes, vanities, stone, tiles, tapware and sanitary ware, internal doors and lighting, from three or four factories consolidated in Foshan.

Landed in Brisbane, line by line

Every line from the factory gate to your site. Low, middle and high use the low, middle and high of every published rate at once. Estimate: no delivered Elje job sits behind this figure yet.

Against Brisbane prices

Supply only is the fair comparison with a landed price; installed prices include labour, which you pay either way.

The local figures are built up room by room from published cost guides (kitchen, two bathrooms and an ensuite, laundry, about 10 metres of wardrobes, 150 m2 of floor tile), then the goods share is taken at 55 to 65 percent of the installed total. No published survey prices a whole fit-out by city.

No city fit-out source; national figure used. RLB Riders Digest 2026 (Q4 2025 rates, ex GST) custom-built single and double storey dwellings in Brisbane: $3,150 to $5,800 per m2 GFA.

Is it worth it?

Usually, and by most at a mid to high spec. About $76,971 landed in Brisbane against roughly $75,000 to $175,000 for the same goods locally. At the bottom of that local range a budget fit-out costs about the same as landed; at the spec Elje prices (2-pac, stone, brand-level tapware) the gap is tens of thousands, because one container, one customs entry and one set of Elje fees carry the whole house. Estimate.

The Brisbane market

Brisbane is the base of the national renovation cost index we use (What's The Damage): kitchens $12,000 to $45,000 installed across budget to upper mid-range, bathrooms $10,000 to $35,000. Rider Levett Bucknall forecasts building costs here rising 5 percent in 2026 and 7 percent a year from 2027 to 2029, the steepest of the capitals, as the Olympics work ramps up. Plumbers charge about $80 to $200 an hour. Stone fabrication runs 15 to 20 percent cheaper per metre than in Sydney or Melbourne.

How it gets to Brisbane

Foshan factory to Nansha or Shekou, then a South China service that usually calls Sydney or Melbourne first, then about 28 km up the Port of Brisbane Motorway to the inner suburbs.

DP World, Patrick and Hutchison all run container terminals at Fisherman Islands, at the mouth of the Brisbane River.

A side-loader drops a container at the kerb in most suburbs. On a steep or narrow street, ask for the container to be unpacked at a depot and delivered on a tautliner instead.

What moves the number

• 20 ft or 40 ft. A typical four-bedroom fit-out of joinery, stone, tiles and tapware fits a 20 ft container. Add internal doors and more joinery and it needs a 40 ft, which adds about $4,500 landed at October 2026 rates.
• How many factories. Every factory means a pre-shipment inspection, about US$240 to US$310 a day.
• Consolidation. Goods from several factories are gathered at one Foshan warehouse and go in one container, under one customs entry.
• Freight timing. Carriers have announced rate increases from November 2026. The rate is set when the container is booked, not when you order.
• Elje's fees are the same whatever the size: $990 for the Project Plan and 2 percent of the order for Assured.

What it has to comply with

• One shipment, many rules: WaterMark and WELS for plumbing, AS 4586 slip ratings for tiles, illegal logging due diligence for timber and board, RCM for anything electrical, ISPM 15 for timber packaging.
• Aluminium windows and doors from China attract anti-dumping and countervailing deposits from 15 October 2026 that a certificate of origin does not remove. Price them separately.
• Nearly every fit-out product is Free of duty from China with a ChAFTA certificate of origin; without one, most are 5 percent.

Notes for Brisbane

Humid and subtropical. Ask for moisture-resistant (HMR) board on every carcass, not only in wet rooms, and PVD or 316 stainless finishes on anything outdoors.

• Brisbane is often the last east coast call on a South China service, so the sea leg runs about a week longer than Sydney or Melbourne. Plan for it.
• Queenslanders and post-war houses often have tight stairs and high floors. Ask for kitchen pieces over 1 metre to come flat-packed so they carry up the stairs.
• A licensed QBCC contractor installs and certifies the plumbing and electrical. Imported WaterMark and RCM products are installed the same way as local ones.

Questions