City of Hobart: a State of the City report the council can own and update every year

Hobart’s economy passed $10 billion without its population growing. Overseas migration is the only thing keeping resident numbers steady, and the housing market is tightening for smaller homes. That changes the question for Council. The next phase depends less on how many people live in the city and more on housing choice, attracting workers and making room for the industries it wants to grow.

Hobart’s economy had just passed $10 billion for the first time. A milestone like that makes a good headline, but it doesn’t tell Council where to focus. The resident population was flat, and growth over the past five years had run well below the larger capitals. Council needed to understand what was driving the economy, and to explain it to residents, businesses and government partners from the same set of numbers.

Council wanted to understand:

• If population isn’t driving growth, what is?
• Where are the pressure points that could slow the city down?
• How is the first year of delivery tracking against Hobart’s target industries?

For each headline measure (economic output, jobs, population, unemployment, housing, spending and visitation), we also reported what sat behind the change. That included where residents were arriving from and moving to, how jobs had changed since COVID, building approvals, rental conditions, spending patterns and air passenger numbers. Wherever there was a fair comparison, we benchmarked Hobart against the other capital cities.

The report draws on NIEIR, ABS, PropTrack, CouncilIQ, Property Council and Tourism Research Australia data. It’s set up so Council’s team can update it as each new year of data is released.

• The economy is growing without more residents. Hobart’s economy reached $10 billion in 2024–25 and has grown every year for the past decade. Over the past five years, output and local jobs have both grown about 1.2 per cent a year, against 3.5 per cent output growth across the larger capitals. The population has held at around 55,900. Most of the job gains came in the post-COVID bounce, and the local workforce is estimated to have contracted slightly over the last two years. With unemployment at about 2.9 per cent and a flat labour force, the city’s next round of growth depends on its target industries and on attracting workers, not on population growth.
• Overseas migration is holding the population steady, while smaller homes get more expensive. In 2025, overseas migration added 892 residents. Over the same year, a net 953 people moved elsewhere in Australia, most of them to Glenorchy and Clarence, and deaths slightly outnumbered births. The median house price was flat at around $960,500, while the median unit price rose 17.9 per cent to about $631,000. Rents rose about 4 per cent for houses and 8 per cent for units, and rental vacancy sits at around 0.5 per cent. The price movements suggest growing demand for smaller homes, so delivering the right supply and mix of dwellings is now central to keeping the population stable.
• Investors are backing the city centre. Hobart has the tightest CBD office market in the country, at 5.2 per cent vacancy in January 2026, against a capital-city average of 13.4 per cent. With a month of 2025–26 still to count, non-residential approvals have already reached $233 million, more than 50 per cent above the previous three-year average. This supports planning now for new commercial space, so growing businesses have room to expand.
• Access is improving faster than visitation. The airport handled a record 2.8 million passengers in 2024–25, up 6 per cent, but visitor numbers to the city eased slightly as international arrivals fell from recent highs. Visitors account for close to two-thirds of the roughly $1.7 billion spent in the city’s businesses each year. The airport expansion gives the city a chance to turn better access into more visitors.
• Each target industry had real activity in its first year. Work began on the $188 million Macquarie Wharf 6, which secures Hobart as home port for Australia’s icebreaker, the RSV Nuyina, for the next 30 years. Hobart Airport is part-way through a program worth around $330 million, and its lengthened runway can now take wide-body aircraft. The University of Tasmania opened its new city campus in the restored Forestry building in Midtown in February 2026, and Marinus Link reached a final investment decision in August 2025. Reporting on these each year gives Council a clear record of delivery to share with partners.

Several projects will shape the city centre over the next few years. Macquarie Wharf 6 is due for completion in 2028, and the expanded airport terminal opens through 2026–27, with passenger numbers projected to reach 5.5 million by 2042. The newly endorsed Central Hobart Plan allows mixed-use buildings of up to 60 metres in the central precinct, and a CBD site behind the Brunswick Hotel façade is on the market for a hotel of 250-plus rooms. The Macquarie Point stadium was approved in early 2026 and adds a major construction and events program. Housing supply and a flat labour force are the main risks. With an annual report, Council can track both and adjust as things change, rather than waiting for the next one-off study.

• Council has a shared, benchmarked evidence base that community, business and government can all work from, built around a clear milestone
• Council’s team can update the report each year, replacing one-off studies with regular monitoring
• Progress on the target industries is now tracked year on year, making it easier to report delivery to partners
• The report shows where attention is needed next: the supply and mix of housing, attracting workers and room for commercial growth

If your council wants an economic report that explains why the numbers are moving, compares you fairly with your peers and can be updated in-house each year, we’d be glad to help. Get in touch to talk through what it could look like for your city.

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