National, state and territory population, March 2025

Note: Data callouts reflect the latest available data. Latest data for Australia, Canada and New Zealand reference the year to March 2025, while the United Kingdom and the United States reference the year to June 2025.

Source: ABS, Stats NZ, Statistics Canada, Office for National Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis.

• Despite net overseas migration moderating, it continues to be the main driver of Australian population growth, due to low levels of natural increase (Chart 2).
• Natural increase (NI) (births less deaths) was 107,000 people in the year to March 2025. While this was 1.9 per cent higher than the previous year, and the highest since 2022, the contribution of natural increase to population growth remained near record lows.
  • Births increased by 2.1 per cent (6,000 births) to 296,000 in the year to March 2025, the largest annual births figure since December 2022.
    • Of these, 78,000 were in the March quarter 2025, the largest quarterly result since September 2021 (Chart 3). However, the March 2025 figure is subject to revision and follows a low in December 2024.
  • Deaths increased by 2.1 per cent (4,000 deaths) to 188,000 in the year to March 2025.
  • In this release, the ABS has revised its natural increase data for 2023–24.
    • Births were revised up by 0.4 per cent to 290,000. The total fertility rate for 2023–24 was unchanged at 1.49 babies per woman.
    • Deaths were revised up by 1.4 per cent to 185,000.
• Net overseas migration (NOM) continued to decline and was 316,000 people in the year to March 2025, with 578,000 arrivals and 262,000 departures (Chart 4).
  • This was 36.0 per cent lower than the year to March 2024. Nearly three‑quarters of the decline was due to decreasing arrivals (down 131,000 or 18.5 per cent), with the rest due to increasing departures (up 46,000 or 21.5 per cent).
  • Annual NOM has continued to decline since its peak of 556,000 in September 2023.
  • This is the lowest level of annual NOM since June 2022.

• Interstate migration continued to decline and remains below pre‑pandemic levels (Chart 5). There were 371,000 interstate moves in the year to March 2025, 3.7 per cent lower than the previous year.
  • There was a net outflow of 31,000 residents moving from capital cities to regions in the year ending March 2025. This was a 4.5 per cent increase from the previous year. This reflected departures from rest‑of‑state areas to capital cities falling by more than movements in the opposite direction.

State and territory population growth

• Population growth over the year to March 2025 slowed in all states except the Northern Territory (NT), in line with the national easing of NOM (Chart 5). The NT’s growth increased due to fewer net interstate departures.
• Western Australia, Victoria, and Queensland had the fastest population growth, mostly driven by net overseas migration (WA at 2.3 per cent; VIC at 1.8 per cent; and QLD at 1.8 per cent). Victoria had positive quarterly net interstate migration (NIM) for the first time since the pandemic, while Queensland had its lowest quarterly NIM since 2016.
• The Northern Territory, the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales and South Australia grew more slowly than the national average (NT at 1.3 per cent; ACT at 1.3 per cent; NSW at 1.2 per cent; and SA at 1.1 per cent).
• Tasmania grew well below the national average (at 0.2 per cent). Its population has grown at less than 0.3 per cent since the June quarter 2023.

Note: Absolute figures above 10,000 are rounded to the nearest thousand, and the nearest 100 otherwise.

* Includes other territories comprising Jervis Bay Territory, Christmas Island, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Norfolk Island.