GOVERNMENT TOOLS
business
CONSULTING
How Fast Is Australia Growing - and Where?
Glenn Capuano
Demographer
The Key Takeaways
-
Australia’s population reached 27.6 million at 30 June 2025, increasing by 420,125 people (1.54%) over the year. Growth has eased from the 2023 migration peak but remains historically high.
-
Net overseas migration added 305,569 people and accounted for 73% of growth, with fertility at 1.48 and population change increasingly driven by migration rather than births.
-
Western Australia is the fastest growing state (2.20%), Victoria recorded the largest increase in people (123,507), and Queensland continues to attract the most interstate migrants.
-
Most states now rely on overseas migration for the majority of their growth.
Australia’s Population to June 2025
The ABS population numbers to June 2025 are out for Australia and each state and territory. At 30 June 2025, the population of Australia was 27,614,411 people, up 420,125 from the previous year, or 1.54%.
That is down from a peak of 2.53% annual growth recorded at the height of the post-COVID migration boom in September 2023. It is also the lowest annual growth rate recorded since June 2022 (1.30%), the last quarter affected by border closures.
Growth remains high in historic terms – an increase of around 420,000 people is still the fifth highest annual growth ever recorded in Australia, after 2023 and 2024. But growth has now slipped below the previous peak years of 2008 and 2009 as the migration boom slows.
Why the ABS numbers to June release matters
This is the most important of the national population releases each year and it always comes out just before Christmas, meaning it tends to get a bit lost. It’s important because it provides the baseline population at the end of the financial year, when all smaller area populations are calculated.
These smaller area figures don’t come out until March 2026, but they will all add up to the state totals from this release.
Migration Is Driving Most of Australia’s Growth
With a low birth rate of 1.48 in 2024, most of Australia’s population growth continues to come through migration. Net overseas migration for the full year was +305,569, comprising 73% of total population growth.
The quarterly net migration for the June quarter was +50,100 people, and June is usually lower than March, as most students arrive then. International students are included in the migration figures and counted in the outflows when they leave.
This migration trend is still a bit higher than the long-term net migration assumed in Informed Decisions' population forecast assumptions, which sit at around 280,000 per year.
Net vs Gross Migration
Often when people want to show how high Australia’s migration is, they focus on the ‘gross’ or ‘in-migration’ figure. For the year ended June 2025 that was 568,312. But they leave out the ‘out-migration’, which was also substantial at 262,776, leading to the lower net migration figure above.
Governments have some control over in-migration (sometimes referred to as ‘intake’) in three streams: skilled, family and humanitarian. There is less control over emigration, which is why net migration can fluctuate substantially.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Australia had higher emigration than immigration, due to border closures and the hotel quarantine program. Part of the reason net migration was so high in the 2023 and 2024 years was that many of those who were going to leave had already emigrated during the previous couple of years, and there was pent-up demand from people waiting to migrate in.
This has now returned to ‘business as usual’, with a balance of in and out migration. Australia has been an immigrant nation for over a century, with more people coming in than leaving.
Interstate Migration Between States and Territories
Interstate migration is an important component of population change at the state and territory level. Continuing recent trends, in 2024–25 only two states – Queensland and Western Australia – had more people move in from interstate than move out. All other states and both territories had negative interstate migration.
As usual there is particularly strong outward movement from New South Wales, whose residents tend to move to Queensland.
Estimated Resident Population and annual components of change by State/Territory, March 2025
| State/Territory | ERP June 2025 | Change over previous year | % change annual | Natural Increase | Net Overseas migration | Net Interstate migration | % Overseas migration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NSW | 8,593,871 | 101,821 | 1.20% | 34,576 | 91,573 | -24,328 | 89.9% |
| VIC | 7,074,468 | 123,507 | 1.78% | 35,516 | 87,768 | -777 | 71.1% |
| QLD | 5,669,834 | 97,944 | 1.76% | 20,606 | 55,743 | +21,595 | 56.9% |
| SA | 1,902,331 | 20,167 | 1.07% | 2,727 | 18,735 | -1,295 | 92.9% |
| WA | 3,043,731 | 65,584 | 2.20% | 14,890 | 40,406 | +10,288 | 61.6% |
| TAS | 575,960 | 1,195 | 0.21% | 350 | 2,722 | -1,877 | 227.8% |
| NT | 264,411 | 3,527 | 1.35% | 2,024 | 3,608 | -2,105 | 102.3% |
| ACT | 484,792 | 6,362 | 1.33% | 2,882 | 4,981 | -1,501 | 78.3% |
| AUSTRALIA (TOTAL) | 27,614,411 | 420,125 | 1.54% | 114,556 | 305,569 | 72.7% |
State and Territory Population Change Highlights
Two states have recently hit major milestones, with Victoria's population reaching 7 million, and Western Australia reaching 3 million, though this happened in previous quarters.
Western Australia
Western Australia is the fastest growing state, at 2.20% population growth for the year. Victoria and Queensland are slightly behind at 1.78% and 1.76% respectively. Victoria and New South Wales get the largest share of overseas migrants, and Victoria has had the last two quarters of slightly positive interstate migration – the whole year is still negative, but these are the first quarters where more people have moved into Victoria than left since 2019 (pre-COVID).
Victoria
Victoria had the greatest increase in population, over 123,000 people for the year. It also had the highest natural increase (births minus deaths), about 1,000 more than New South Wales.
Tasmania
Tasmania’s population is growing very slowly, and in fact it has almost stopped, adding only 1,195 people in a year. In the June quarter (not the full year) the Apple Isle increased its population by exactly 1 person, from 575,959 to 575,960 – you may know them! (Seriously, ERP is not quite that accurate and gets revised in future quarters, but it’s an interesting fact for now.)
New South Wales
New South Wales loses the most population interstate, mainly to Queensland, resulting in a figure of almost 90% of growth coming from overseas migration. There is also a strong trend within New South Wales of movement from Sydney into regional New South Wales. With the highest housing prices in the nation, a lot of movement from Sydney is driven by people seeking more affordable housing.
Queensland
Queensland gets the largest share of interstate migrants (predominantly from New South Wales), and now also receives a significant share from overseas. It has the lowest proportion of population growth coming from overseas migration, but this is still more than half at 57%.
South Australia
South Australia continues to grow slowly, mainly from overseas migration. Interstate migration is negative for South Australia, but still not as strongly negative as it was before the pandemic.
NT and ACT
The Northern Territory and ACT were the jurisdictions with the largest share of population growth coming from natural increase, but every state and territory had a majority of growth coming from net overseas migration.
What Comes Next: Local Areas and Forecast Updates
The June 2025 release of National, State and Territory Population by the ABS provides the latest annual information on population change at a national, state and territory level.
The next update for smaller areas (such as suburbs, SA2s, LGAs), which will match these totals, is released in late March 2026. This is when governments, community groups and other users will see these populations updated across the .id toolkit, including on the Community Profile and Economic Profile tools.
All population updates are also subject to adjustment in future quarters, and a full revision of the last five years’ population numbers will happen after the 2026 Census data release in mid 2027. These revisions will feed into a full update of the base data used in .id’s population forecasts.
Get the Edge With Population Data
Looking for a competitive edge on strategy, or better data to plan for your local government area? Informed Decisions' proprietary Population Forecast combines ABS data like the above with a wide variety of information sets and analysis, so you can predict future demand for infrastructure and services.
Get insights into the impact of housing policies and changing demographics so you can make informed decisions for the future.
image: @afloimages via Canva Pro
Meet the team of experts
Our specialists have deep expertise in demographics and spatial analysis, urban economics, housing research, social research and population forecasting
Daniel Evans
Head of Customer and Commercial (Gov.)
Andrew Hedge
Senior Marketing Manager
Ben Saines
Demographic Consultant
Boris Wong
Client Engagement Manager (WA)
Crystal McDonald
Lead Housing Consultant
Daniel Corbett
Head of Product (Government)
Dieter Krusic-Golub
Sales & Account Management (VIC/SA/TAS)
Brigid Quinlan
Views Delivery
Chris Jones
Forecaster
Beth Reeve
Customer Success Manager
Georgia Allan
Customer Success Manager