Whole-house fit-out landed in Sydney

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 Sydney, 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 Sydney 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 Sydney: $2,500 to $7,600 per m2 GFA.

Is it worth it?

Usually, and by most at a mid to high spec. About $76,989 landed in Sydney 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 Sydney market

Sydney is the dearest of the eight cities: about 15 percent above Brisbane on the cost index, with kitchens $13,800 to $51,750 installed, bathrooms $11,500 to $40,250 and tiling labour $46 to $115 per m2. Plumbers charge about $92 to $230 an hour, and stone fabricators 15 to 20 percent more per metre than Brisbane or Adelaide. Amber Tiles' Sydney price zone is its cheapest, so tiles are the one line where Sydney shoppers start ahead.

How it gets to Sydney

Foshan factory to Nansha, Shekou or Yantian, a direct service to Port Botany, then the M5 or the M8 to the suburbs.

DP World, Patrick and Hutchison run container terminals at Port Botany, about 15 km south of the city.

Inner suburbs: depot unpack and a small truck. Outer suburbs and new estates in the west and north-west: a container at the kerb is usually fine.

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 Sydney

Temperate and humid on the coast. Moisture-resistant board in wet rooms is enough for most of Sydney.

• Sydney has the most local showrooms and the widest local price range, so the gap to landed varies more here than anywhere else.
• Terraces and inner-city streets rarely take a side-loader. Plan on depot unpacking and a smaller truck, and a council permit if anything stands in the street.
• Port Botany charges a per-container terminal access fee of about $225 to $233, like Brisbane and Melbourne. It is on the breakdown below, not hidden in the freight rate.

Questions