Negative Gearing & Ring-Fencing (AU/NZ)
What is negative gearing?
Section titled “What is negative gearing?”A property is “negatively geared” when its running costs (mortgage interest, rates, insurance, management fees, etc.) exceed the rental income it produces — a loss. Historically, both Australia and New Zealand allowed that loss to be deducted against your other income (salary, wages) in full, reducing your overall tax bill. That’s the classic “negative gearing” strategy.
What is ring-fencing?
Section titled “What is ring-fencing?”Ring-fencing restricts that: a ring-fenced rental loss can only be offset against rental income (this property’s, or other rental properties), not against your salary or other income. If your rentals as a whole are loss-making in a given year, the loss carries forward to reduce next year’s rental income instead of your tax bill this year.
Australia
Section titled “Australia”Negative gearing (full deduction against any income) still applies to most existing residential property. A grandfather-cutoff and rules for SMSF-held and certain new-build properties change this — Property Insights models the specific rules that apply based on a property’s acquisition date, construction type, and ownership structure.
New Zealand
Section titled “New Zealand”NZ removed interest deductibility entirely in stages from 2021, then restored full deductibility from 1 April 2025 — but rental losses remain ring-fenced: a loss-making year doesn’t reduce your salary tax, it carries forward against future rental profit instead. This has applied since 2019, before the interest-deductibility changes, and is unaffected by them.
Where you’ll see it
Section titled “Where you’ll see it”Property → Cashflow/Forecast tabs — a ring-fenced property’s After-Tax Cashflow won’t show a same-year refund for a loss the way a fully-deductible AU property would. Tax tab — the carry-forward history table tracks how much ring-fenced loss (NZ) or unused finance-cost credit (UK, a related but different mechanism — see Section 24) is carried into future years.
This is general information, not tax advice — confirm your situation with a qualified accountant.