A 27-year-old German woman has died after falling 13 storeys at a Perth construction site on Monday afternoon.

The woman fell at the 38-storey Finbar development on Adelaide Terrace at East Perth. It is thought she was leaning over a handrail on the 15th storey when she fell to the second storey.

She was rushed to hospital as a "priority one" patient but later pronounced dead.

According to the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, the woman had been in Australia for a matter of months and was performing unskilled labour on the site.