Whole-house fit-out landed in Perth

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 Perth, 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 Perth 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 Perth: $3,100 to $5,100 per m2 GFA.

Is it worth it?

Usually, and by most at a mid to high spec. About $76,860 landed in Perth 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 Perth market

Perth sits about 5 percent above Brisbane on the cost index: kitchens $12,600 to $47,250 installed, bathrooms $10,500 to $36,750. Rider Levett Bucknall puts custom houses at $3,100 to $5,100 per m2, a high floor. A 2023 average put stone benchtops at about $1,600 per m2 in Perth against $2,200 in Sydney and Melbourne. Much local stock is shipped from the east coast first.

How it gets to Perth

Foshan factory to Nansha, Shekou or Yantian, a direct service to Fremantle, the closest Australian container port to South China, then about 20 km by road.

DP World and Patrick run the container terminals in Fremantle's Inner Harbour, about 20 km from the city.

Most Perth suburbs take a container at the kerb. Hills sites and narrow coastal streets may need a depot unpack.

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 Perth

Hot dry summers and coastal wind. UV-stable finishes outside, and conditioned timber inside.

• Fremantle is the first Australian call on some South China services, and its terminal access charge is the lowest of the five ports, under $100 a container.
• Perth is a long way from the east coast showrooms and warehouses, so local stock often carries a freight cost of its own. Landed direct from Foshan skips that leg.
• Plumbing and building work is licensed through Building and Energy WA. Imported WaterMark and RCM products are installed the same way as local ones.

Questions