Australia's population hits 27 million, migration slows slightly

Australia's population has passed 27 million, as of March 2024, while the rate of population growth due to overseas migration has slowed slightly in the latest quarter of data. Demographer Glenn Capuano breaks down the state-by-state trends and the interaction between the three components of population change: natural increase, overseas migration and interstate migration.

The latest National and State Population Growth dataset from the ABS show that, at the end of March 2024, Australia's population stood at 27,122,411 people. This represents an increase of 615,254 people in a year (2.32%) and 164,635 in a quarter. While still prodigious growth, it has pulled back a bit from the record territory seen in the 2022–23 financial year. We'll have data for the full financial year ended June 2024 data in December 2024 to complete the picture.

Overseas migration makes up most of the growth but has slowed a little

83% of the national population growth remains due to overseas migration, which was still very high. In 12 months ended March 2024, Australia added 509,754 net migrants (made up of 718,400 people immigrating to Australia and 208,700 emigrating). Since the borders reopened after COVID, immigration has increased while emigration has decreased, leading to a higher Net Overseas Migration (NOM).

The net overseas migration in just the March quarter was +133,802. That's about 25k up from the previous quarter, but March is typically the highest quarter of the year, due to university students starting their courses. Compared to the previous March it was about 30k lower.

The next release in December 2024 is the important financial year dataset (year ending June) but the data we have for three quarters of that year suggests that the full year growth will be somewhere in the high 400,000s. That would still make it the second-highest ever recorded in a full year (after 2022-23). So while growth is slowing, it's not slowing by a lot.

State and Territory trends

All the key numbers for Australia's states and territories are here.

^{Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics (March 2024), National, state and territory population, ABS Website, accessed 20 September 2024.}

All states and territories have positive growth, but Tasmania has fallen back to pre-COVID low growth rates, adding just 2,165 people or 0.38% to population in the year ended March. After the Census, the ABS revised Tasmania's population upwards by almost 25,000 people as they had underestimated mainlanders migrating there during COVID. This has now reversed, with a significant movement out of the Apple Isle. Only overseas migration is keeping Tasmania's population growth positive at the moment.

Western Australia remains the fastest growing state, at 3.11%, and all components positive. But the lion's share of this (73%) remains from overseas migration, which still sits near record levels in the west.

Victoria is the second-fastest growing, after it declined in population in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID and lockdowns. Victoria added almost 184,000 people in a year, or 2.72%.

Natural increase

Natural increase is the excess of births over deaths, and is positive for all states and territories. With our ageing population though, it will eventually turn negative, as it is for some other countries such as Japan. Tasmania is very close to this now, with an older population, the natural increase there in the last year was only +321 people - in just a few years this will likely turn negative meaning Tasmania's population would decline in the absence of migration.

The largest natural increase is in Victoria (+31,682).

.id's population forecasts show the components of population change for a local area, and there are many areas of Australia which have negative natural increase (and therefore rely on migration, either from overseas or other parts of Australia) to maintain a stable population. Check out this example for Fraser Coast in Queensland, which has natural decrease (at an accelerating rate) as a retirement destination with few births and a larger number of deaths. This local nuance in population forecasting is important. As we've seen at the national level, natural increase is still positive in all states and territories, but this is not always the case in local areas.

Overseas migration

With the huge overseas migration since the borders reopened after COVID, and lower emigration as well, Net Overseas Migration is the largest component of population change for every state and territory. At a national level it makes up 83% of all the population growth.

But in some states and territories it makes up more than 100% of the growth. Even in NSW, our most populous state, overseas migration is 100.2% of total population growth. In Tasmania it's 217% and in the NT, 195%. In South Australia it's 96%. That's because these states all have negative interstate migration, which brings the total population growth down, lower than the overseas migration. These states would have negative population growth without overseas migration, not due to more deaths than births, but because people are leaving interstate. Queensland had the lowest percentage of growth attributed to overseas migration, but it's still well over half, at 61.5%.

New South Wales had the largest numerical net overseas migration for the year, at +168,148 people. Not so long ago (prior to 2006, when overseas migration really took off) that would have been considered a moderately high level of national overseas migration.

Interstate migration

At present, this is the only one of the three components of change which is positive and negative for different states. It has to be, since it must add to zero for Australia.

There are two states which pretty much always show the same trend in this. New South Wales consistently has negative interstate migration, with the year to March 2024 being no exception; the state lost 31,183 people interstate. This was mainly to Queensland, which recorded the strongest positive interstate migration of almost the same number (+30,930 people).

The movement from NSW to Queensland has defined the interstate migration landscape for many years, and was particularly high during COVID lockdowns. Movement is predominantly from suburban Sydney into South East Queensland, but this detail can only be shown for the full financial year dataset, which comes out in March each year for the previous June. We do track this for local areas on our community profiles. Have a look at these migration figures for the Gold Coast over the last two years. Of the top 10 LGAs of migration gain, 8 of them are from suburban Sydney (one from Melbourne and one is the whole ACT).

The other states and territories tend to oscillate, and a lot changed in this landscape over COVID. Tasmania and South Australia are losing population interstate again after gaining significantly during COVID.

Victoria has at times in the past been strongly negative and strongly positive. During COVID lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, the state had a large interstate migration loss (mainly to Qld and WA), which has gradually tapered back to about neutral since then. The March 2024 quarter was the first positive interstate migration quarter for Victoria since December 2019, and it makes the year to March just slightly positive (+537 people).

Western Australia's interstate migration varies the most of any state, due to the fortunes of the mining industry. At present (and since COVID) it is strongly positive, at just over +10,000 for the year ended March. This adds to the strong overseas migration and natural increase to make WA the fastest growing state or territory.

LGA population estimates yet to come

These are state and territory level datasets only, published quarterly. As .id's community profile and economic profile tools look at local populations (usually by Local Government Area), we normally only show June quarter datasets on these, to compare with the annual release of local area data. So the only update from this release in the .id tools is a slight revision to the previously released June 2023 figures. We need to wait until next March for the June 2024 figures.