Resident Info

Rates in Alice Springs

Alice Springs Town Coun­cil pro­vides and main­tains a com­pre­hen­sive range of recre­ation­al, cul­tur­al, envi­ron­men­tal, human­i­tar­i­an ser­vices and facilities.

About 74 per­cent of the mon­ey need­ed to pro­vide these ser­vices comes from rates levied on prop­er­ties in Alice Springs.

Coun­cil aims to keep rates as low as pos­si­ble. Con­sid­er­ing our small pop­u­la­tion and the extra expense involved in acquir­ing goods and ser­vices in the cen­tre of Aus­tralia, Coun­cil rates com­pare favourably with those charged by many oth­er coun­cils around the country.

For the cur­rent rates brochure, click here.

Many of Coun­cil’s ratepay­ers have request­ed that Coun­cil remind them via email about upcom­ing rates instalments.

Enter your details below to sub­scribe to this mail­ing list.

Rates Email Reminder

Gen­er­al Rates

The Gen­er­al Rates are cal­cu­lat­ed as the high­er val­ue of:

• mul­ti­ply­ing the Unim­proved Cap­i­tal Val­ue of the par­cel of land by the declared rate set by Coun­cil, or

• the min­i­mum amount payable, as set by Coun­cil, mul­ti­plied by the num­ber of sep­a­rate parts or units that are adapt­ed for sep­a­rate occu­pa­tion or use.

The Unim­proved Cap­i­tal Val­ue of land used by Town Coun­cil is pro­vid­ed by the Val­uer General.

The Unim­proved Cap­i­tal Val­ue is the val­ue of the land with­out any improve­ments, that is, a vacant block with­out build­ings, fences, etc.

Val­u­a­tions are updat­ed every three years. Fluc­tu­a­tions in val­u­a­tions cause shifts in the amount of rates paid by indi­vid­ual ratepay­ers in var­i­ous areas of the town.

If you have any queries regard­ing the val­u­a­tion of your prop­er­ty, these should be direct­ed to the Val­uer General’s Office, tele­phone (08) 8943 9193.

Pay­ment of Rates

Rates and charges for each finan­cial year (1 July to 30 June) are due and payable by four instal­ments. Reminders are pro­vid­ed to each ratepay­er in the form of a Rate Notice or Instal­ment Notice issued at least 28 days before each due date.

Ratepay­ers may choose to pay the full amount of the rates and charges for the year by the first due date. Pay your full annu­al rates and charges (and any arrears) by the first instal­ment date and you could win a rates refund!

The Ear­ly Bird Draw applies only to indi­vid­u­als (being a nat­ur­al per­son, not com­pa­nies, gov­ern­ment bod­ies, or incor­po­rat­ed bod­ies), who are entered in the Ear­ly Bird Draw to win a refund on their rates (not exceed­ing $3,000). The refund does not include the cost of waste man­age­ment and col­lec­tion charges. Entry is auto­mat­ic with full pay­ment before the first instal­ment date. Win­ners are noti­fied and announced in local media.

Pan­dem­ic Finan­cial Hard­ship Assis­tance Policy

Alice Springs Town Coun­cil is com­mit­ted to assist­ing the com­mu­ni­ty dur­ing this unprece­dent­ed COVID19 time and would like to remind all ratepay­ers that there are pro­vi­sions in place for finan­cial hard­ship for rates con­ces­sions. Coun­cil has passed a Pan­dem­ic Finan­cial Hard­ship Assis­tance Pol­i­cy and to make an appli­ca­tion to this a spe­cif­ic hard­ship appli­ca­tion form for those finan­cial­ly impact­ed by COVID-19 is avail­able (click on above link). Please con­tact our Rates Offi­cer on 89500500 or via email at [email protected]​astc.​nt.​gov.​au for fur­ther information.

For more details on Coun­cil response to COVID19 — https://​alice​springs​.nt​.gov​.au/​l​o​c​a​l​s​-​s​u​p​p​o​r​t​i​n​g​-​l​o​c​a​l​/​c​o​u​n​c​i​l​s​-​c​o​v​i​d​1​9​-​r​e​s​ponse. These spe­cial mea­sures have been put in place as a result of COVID-19.

There are penal­ties for late payments

If your rate pay­ment is not received by the due date the account will be in arrears.

Penal­ties for late pay­ment on the out­stand­ing instal­ment will be cal­cu­lat­ed on a dai­ly basis from the date on which the missed instal­ment was due until the date pay­ment is made in full.

Penal­ties for late pay­ments are charged at a set per­cent­age per annum.

If you are hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ty in mak­ing the required pay­ment by the due date, please con­tact the Rates Office on (08) 8950 0500.

Due Dates

The due dates for the 2020/2021 finan­cial year are as follows:

First Instal­ment – 04/09/2020

Sec­ond Instal­ment – 06/11/2020

Third Instal­ment – 05/02/2021

Fourth Instal­ment – 09/04/2021

More infor­ma­tion about Rates for the cur­rent year is avail­able in the Rates Dec­la­ra­tion 2020 – 2021.

Ways to Pay your Rates

BPAY View: Log into your online bank­ing and reg­is­ter for BPAY View. Infor­ma­tion regard­ing how to reg­is­ter can be found on your rates notice, and is also avail­able from our BPAY View page. For more infor­ma­tion regard­ing BPAY View, vis­it the offi­cial BPay View website.

Online Pay­ments: Click here and fol­low the links to make a payment.

In Per­son: Make your pay­ment at the Civic Cen­tre from 8am to 5pm week­days by cheque, cash, Mas­ter­Card or Visa.

By Mail: Post a cheque or mon­ey order, or com­plete your Mas­ter­Card or Visa details on the Cred­it Card Autho­ri­sa­tion slip at the bot­tom of your Rate Notice, to Coun­cil at PO Box 1071, Alice Springs NT 0871. Mail pay­ments must be received on or before the due date to avoid a penal­ty for late payment.

By Phone: Phone 1300 437 967 with your Mas­ter­Card or Visa details.

By BPAY: Con­tact your par­tic­i­pat­ing bank to pay direct­ly from your cheque, sav­ings or cred­it card account. Quote the biller code and ref­er­ence num­ber as indi­cat­ed near the BPAY logo on your rates notice.

By Direct Deb­it: Com­plete an appli­ca­tion form which is avail­able from the Civic Cen­tre or down­load from our forms page. Coun­cil can then draw on your cheque or sav­ings account on the dates rates are due.

By Pay­roll Deduc­tion: Employ­ees of the NT Gov­ern­ment and some oth­er organ­i­sa­tions can pay their rates through reg­u­lar pay­roll deductions.

Please Note: Ratepay­ers remain respon­si­ble for ensur­ing pay­ments are made in full by the instal­ment due dates. Please ensure cor­rect ref­er­ence details are used when mak­ing pay­ment — fail­ure to do so may incur a charge.

If you believe you will have dif­fi­cul­ty mak­ing the required pay­ment by the due date, please con­tact the Rates Offi­cer on 8950 0500.

Noti­fi­ca­tion of Man­ag­ing Agent

If you are the prin­ci­pal ratepay­er for a prop­er­ty with­in the Coun­cil munic­i­pal­i­ty and you have instruct­ed a real estate agent to man­age your prop­er­ty on your behalf, you will need to com­plete this form to noti­fy Coun­cil of the postal address of the agent so that all future rates cor­re­spon­dence can be sent direct­ly to their office.

Noti­fi­ca­tion of Man­ag­ing Agent can be down­loaded here.

Change of Address

Avoid any prob­lems by remem­ber­ing to noti­fy Coun­cil when chang­ing your address.

The Local Gov­ern­ment Act requires ratepay­ers to noti­fy Coun­cil in writ­ing of any change of mail­ing address with­in 28 days.

A penal­ty of $3,140 for not doing so may apply. The form is on our Forms page.

Con­ces­sion for Pensioners

Aged Pen­sion­ers are enti­tled to a con­ces­sion on their rates.

Con­ces­sions for eli­gi­ble pen­sion­ers are auto­mat­i­cal­ly includ­ed in their assess­ment on the rates notice.

Enquiries regard­ing your eli­gi­bil­i­ty for pen­sion­er con­ces­sions on rates and rebates for part-year eli­gi­bil­i­ty should be direct­ed to the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry Con­ces­sion Scheme, please con­tact the NT Con­ces­sion & Recog­ni­tion Unit on 1800 777 704 or email to: [email protected]​nt.​gov.​au