If you need a number for Australia's future population, the hard part is rarely finding it. It is knowing which release you are looking at, what assumptions sit behind it, and whether that particular figure answers your question. This guide covers both jobs: where the projections are published, and how to read them without over-claiming what they say.
Where the projections are published
Three official places matter, and they are not interchangeable.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics publishes Population Projections, Australia as a statistical release. Its release page is the primary source for the national series, and it holds a long back catalogue of editions — release titles listed by the ABS include Population Projections, Australia, 2022 (base) – 2071, 2017 (base) – 2066, 2012 (base) to 2101, and earlier editions running to 2101, 2051 and 2021. That back catalogue is useful for comparing how earlier vintages turned out, but it is also the most common source of confusion, because every edition has its own base year.
The Centre for Population (population.gov.au) publishes its own projections, which it describes as being produced to inform policy makers and the public about Australia's future growth. Its projections page links sets attached to particular fiscal events: national population projections for the 2025–26 Budget (population level and components of population growth out to 2035–36), the 2024–25 Budget (out to 2034–35), the 2023–24 Budget (out to 2033–34), and the 2023 Intergenerational Report (population by single year of age and sex out to 2062–63). These are the right starting point when your question is tied to Commonwealth Budget or Intergenerational Report framing.
data.gov.au and the DITRDCSA Data Catalogue carry dataset records for Population Projections, Australia pointing back to the ABS release, including an HTML access point. The data.gov.au record also notes that projections based on assumptions of fertility, mortality and migration are published by the ABS, and that projections are available for Australia, states and territories, and Greater Capital City Statistical Areas (GCCSAs). State government catalogues, such as South Australia's, also list copies of the dataset. Treat catalogue entries as pointers, not as the authoritative copy — they can lag the ABS release, and you should always confirm version and release date against the ABS page before citing.
What a projection is — and is not
A population projection is arithmetic run forward from a base-year population under a stated set of assumptions. It answers "if fertility, mortality and migration behave like this, the population looks like that." It is not a forecast that carries a probability, not a government target, and not a cap or a plan.
That distinction matters because the output looks precise. A table showing population by single year of age and sex out to 2062–63 gives the impression of detail well beyond what the inputs can support. The precision is in the arithmetic, not in the assumptions.
The three levers behind every figure
The ABS projections are built on assumptions about future fertility, mortality and migration. Understanding what each one moves is the practical skill.
| Assumption | What it drives | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Fertility | Future births, and therefore the size of the youngest age cohorts | Effects compound over decades; small differences matter more the further out you look |
| Mortality | Deaths and survival at older ages | Shapes the top of the age pyramid and the aged share of the population |
| Migration | Arrivals and departures across Australia's borders | The component most directly affected by policy settings, and the one that can move fastest between releases |
When you read a projection, identify which assumption set was used, because the same base year can produce very different end-year populations. If you cannot name the assumption set behind a figure you are quoting, you are not yet in a position to quote it.
Reading a release: a working checklist
Before you use a number, confirm each of these.
- Base year and edition. Is this the 2022 (base) release or the 2017 (base) one? Different editions start from different actual populations and use different assumptions. Never splice two editions into one time series.
- End year. ABS release titles carry their own horizon — 2071 for the 2022 base release, 2066 for 2017. Separately, the catalogue record for the dataset describes projections of the resident population of Australia to 2101, and of the states and territories, capital cities and balances of states to 2061. Which end year applies depends entirely on the release you have opened.
- Geography. The ABS projections cover Australia, states and territories, and GCCSAs. The catalogue description refers to capital cities and balance of states as well. If your question is about a local government area, a suburb or a postcode, the national projections will not give you that cut directly — regional detail at LGA or SA2 level generally comes from state and territory government projections, and you should check the relevant state authority's own release.
- Age and sex detail. The dataset is projected by age and sex. The Intergenerational Report set goes further, to single year of age. Choose the level of detail you actually need; finer age bands invite finer conclusions than the assumptions support.
- Assumption set. Record which one you used, in writing, next to the figure.
- Licence and attribution. The dataset record is published under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia. Attribution to the ABS is required when you reproduce figures.
Which source should you use?
| Your question | Start here |
|---|---|
| Long-run population structure by age and sex, Australia and states/territories | ABS Population Projections, Australia |
| A figure consistent with Commonwealth Budget or Intergenerational Report framing | Centre for Population projections page |
| Finding the dataset, its licence, or a machine-readable record | data.gov.au / DITRDCSA Data Catalogue, then confirm on the ABS release page |
Interpretation errors to avoid
- Treating a projection as a prediction. An assumption is not an expectation. Present outcomes as conditional, not as settled.
- Mixing vintages. A chart that uses 2017-base figures to 2030 and 2022-base figures after that is not a projection of anything.
- Comparing a projection to an actual without checking the base. The gap between a projection and later estimated resident population is usually a story about assumptions, not about a data error.
- Applying national growth to a local area. Growth is uneven within states; the national series does not allocate it below GCCSA level.
- Reading population as households or dwellings. Population projections count people. Household formation and dwelling demand are separate questions requiring separate data.
Next steps
- Open the ABS Population Projections, Australia release page and write down the base year, end year and assumption set before you extract anything.
- Download the data tables rather than transcribing from the web summary, so the metadata travels with the numbers.
- If your question is policy- or Budget-framed, repeat the exercise on the Centre for Population projections page and note which set you used and why you chose it over the ABS series.
- Record your citation now: release title, base year, assumption set, URL, and the date you accessed it. Projections are revised, and a figure without a vintage is unusable in six months.
- Decide in advance how far out you are willing to rely on the number. The nearer the year, the more the base-year population does the work; the further out, the more the assumptions do.
General information only
This article is general information about published Australian population projections. It is not legal, tax, financial, migration or investment advice, and it is not a substitute for reading the release notes that accompany the data you use. Figures, base years, geographies and horizons change between editions, and the ABS and the Centre for Population are the responsible authorities for their own releases. Verify any figure you intend to publish or rely on against the current source before acting on it. Australian Today is not a government body and does not produce these projections.
If your interest in population growth is really a question about housing demand, our home loan guides at /money/home-loans/ explain how lending assessment actually works — population data does not determine any individual application.