We've just sold the farm. What should we do with the money?

Selling a farm, or part of one, is often the biggest financial event a family will ever have. It's also strangely quiet. The contract settles, the money lands in an account, and the phone starts ringing with people who'd like to help you do something with it (I'm aware I'm one of them).

Most of the decisions that matter don't need to be made in the first few weeks.

The real number

The first job is working out what's actually yours to invest. Start with the sale price and take off:

1. Any debt secured against the land.
2. Capital gains tax on the sale, which on land held for decades can be large.
3. Any replacement property, if you're buying elsewhere or keeping a smaller block.
4. The shares of siblings or other family members, if the land was owned across a family or split between entities.
5. Agent's fees, legal costs, and stamp duty on anything you buy.

What's left is often well below the headline figure. It may also sit across several owners, say the parents, a family trust, a company, and an SMSF, each with its own tax rules and its own people who get a say.

The tax clock

Capital gains tax on farmland changes on 1 July 2027. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Act 2026 received Royal Assent on 26 June 2026, so this is now law, with some ATO guidance and supporting detail still to come. From that date the 50% discount is replaced by indexation for inflation and a minimum 30% tax on real gains, for individuals, trusts, and partnerships. Gains that built up before that date keep the discount, with the land's value on 1 July 2027 as the dividing line.

The bigger change is for land bought before 20 September 1985. That land has been fully exempt from capital gains tax. It stays exempt for gains up to 1 July 2027, but growth after that date will be taxed for the first time. For families who've held land since before 1985, the value on that date could matter a great deal.

The main residence exemption is unchanged, and SMSFs keep their one-third discount.

Small business relief

The four small business CGT concessions survive the reform, and one of them gets more generous. From 1 July 2027 the turnover threshold for the 50% active asset reduction rises from $2 million to $10 million in aggregated turnover. For a farming business turning over more than $2 million but less than $10 million, relief that wasn't available on a sale before may be now.

The other three concessions keep their existing $2 million turnover and $6 million net asset tests. Across all four, the active asset test is where farm claims often come unstuck, particularly where the land sits with the parents and is leased to the family's farming entity. That's a conversation for the accountant well before any sale.

Three questions

Once the real number is known, the questions are about time.

1. What will you need in the next few years? Living costs, a new house, helping the kids, and a buffer for a bad year.
2. What's meant to last? The money that's supposed to outlive you and reach the next generation.
3. What would you like to be able to act on quickly? A chance to buy land back, or a family member who needs help.

Each of those suits a different kind of holding, and getting the split between them right tends to matter more than any single investment. It's also worth knowing about a common pattern: a family that's spent a lifetime with nearly everything in one asset will sometimes swap it for another single concentration, because it's familiar.

What it means

If you've just sold, or you're thinking about it, there's no prize for moving quickly. Work out the real number, understand the tax, and decide what each part of the money is for. Those answers make every later decision easier, and they're much easier to reach before the money is committed than after.

For the families who built Australia.