How population growth has changed housing demand in Australia since 1990

Australia's population has grown every decade since 1990: by 1.96 million in the 1990s, 3.00 million in the 2000s, and 3.62 million in the 2010s. A further 2.15 million people were added between June 2020 and December 2025. Overseas migration now accounts for most of Australia's population growth, rising from about half in the early 2000s to almost three-quarters in 2024–25.

Household formation has also increased faster than population growth alone would suggest.

Average household size fell from 2.6 people in 2016 to 2.5 in 2021. No single estimate exists for cumulative shortfall since 1990, but the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council's forward-looking benchmark projects a 37,000-dwelling shortfall over the current Housing Accord period, a flow measure rather than an accumulated total.

SECTION 01 · THE NATIONAL PICTURE

How much has Australia's population grown since 1990?

Australia's population rose from 17.07 million in June 1990 to 27.80 million in December 2025. In raw terms, the completed decades added progressively more people: 1.96 million in the 1990s, 3.00 million in the 2000s and 3.62 million in the 2010s. A further 2.15 million people were added in the five and a half years from June 2020 to December 2025.

Raw increases alone are not a fair comparison, since each decade started from a larger population than the last. Measured instead as a compound annual growth rate, the 2010s were the fastest of the four periods at 1.53% a year, followed by the 2000s and the partial 2020s period, both at 1.48%. The 1990s grew the slowest, at 1.10% a year.

Population growth since June 2020 has therefore matched the annual pace recorded in the 2000s, rather than setting a new record.

Source: ABS, National, state and territory population, December 2025, Table 1. The final row spans 5.5 years, not 10, so its raw increase is not directly comparable with the completed decades above.

SECTION 02 · MIGRATION

How has overseas migration changed Australia's population growth?

Overseas migration accounted for 71% of Australia's population growth over the five years to 2024–25, compared with 51.1% in the early 2000s. In the latest completed financial year, 2024–25, its share was 72.5%.

The shift has not been a smooth trend. Overseas migration fell to a net outflow of 85,000 people in 2020–21 during Australia's international border closure, before reaching a record year-ending level of 556,000 in the September quarter of 2023 as arrivals increased after the border reopened.

The most recently completed financial year, 2024–25, recorded overseas migration of 302,200 in the quarterly population series. The ABS's separate annual migration release publishes 306,000 for the same year after later revisions.

Source: ABS, National, state and territory population, December 2025, Table 1. The 2020–21 overseas migration share is a mathematical artefact of a very small growth total combined with a net migration outflow.

International student arrivals fell after the 2022–23 peak

International student arrivals fell by about 44% in two years, from 278,000 in 2022–23 to 157,000 in 2024–25. This was part of a broader decline in temporary visa arrivals.

Migrant arrivals by visa status, ABS Overseas Migration release

Source: ABS, Overseas Migration releases for 2022–23, 2023–24 and 2024–25.

SECTION 03 · HOUSEHOLD FORMATION

How has household formation compared with dwelling completions?

Household growth was equivalent to about 97 households for every 100 gross dwelling completions in the five years to the 2021 Census, the highest ratio across the five Census periods examined. The other periods ranged from 52 to 81 households per 100 completions. This is a descriptive comparison, not a direct measure of housing supply against demand.

Using a household proxy comprising family, lone-person and group households, the number of households grew by 989,128 between the 2016 and 2021 Censuses, compared with 1,019,732 gross dwelling completions over the same aligned 20 quarters.

Part of the change reflects smaller households. Average household size remained at 2.6 people across the 2006, 2011 and 2016 Censuses before falling to 2.5 in 2021.

Source: ABS Census QuickStats and ABS Building Activity, Australia, Table 37. Gross completions exclude demolitions and conversions, so the ratio is descriptive rather than a shortfall measure.

Average household size fell to 2.5 people in 2021

Average household size has declined over the longer term. RBA estimates suggest the household-size decline between early 2020 and September 2022 alone, separate from population growth, added around 120,000 households nationally.

Source: ABS Census QuickStats, Australia, 2006, 2011, 2016 and 2021.

SECTION 04 · THE SUPPLY-DEMAND BALANCE

What is Australia's projected housing supply shortfall?

The clearest available benchmark projects a 37,000-dwelling shortfall over the 2024–25 to 2028–29 Housing Accord period, with net new supply of 862,000 dwellings against new underlying demand of 900,000 households.

The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council describes this as a forward-looking flow model. It does not represent the total housing shortfall accumulated before the Accord period.

No single, consistent estimate exists for cumulative housing undersupply since 1990. A genuine supply-demand balance needs two comparable flow measures: net new supply after losses, and new underlying demand.

Source: NHSAC, State of the Housing System 2026, Table 4.2, report page 71. Figures rounded to the nearest 1,000.

SECTION 05 · INTERNAL MIGRATION

How the mining boom and COVID changed interstate migration

New South Wales recorded a net interstate outflow in every year from 1989–90 to 2024–25, while Queensland recorded a net inflow in every year over the same 36-year period.

Across the financial years ending 2003 to 2013, an analytical period used in this article rather than an official ABS classification, average annual net interstate migration was Queensland +20,100 a year, Western Australia +4,100 and New South Wales −21,500. Western Australia's smaller interstate inflow does not mean the resources boom generated less labour demand there; temporary migration and FIFO arrangements were important sources of labour.

Average annual net interstate migration by era

Source: ABS, National, state and territory population, December 2025, Table 2. Eras are analytical groupings, not official ABS classifications.

SECTION 06 · TODAY VERSUS THE EARLY 2000s

How housing demand drivers today compare to the early 2000s

Average annual population growth rose from 229,600 people a year over 2000–01 to 2004–05 to 392,360 a year over 2020–21 to 2024–25. Most of the increase came from overseas migration rather than natural increase.

In the earlier period, natural increase supplied 52.5% of growth and net overseas migration supplied 51.1%. In the more recent five years, migration supplied 71% of growth. Annual growth has therefore become more sensitive to changes in migration policy, international travel and temporary visa movements.

Average annual population growth by component

Source: ABS, National, state and territory population, December 2025, Table 1. Component shares are expressed as a percentage of published population growth; the two shares in each column may not sum to 100 due to reconciliation revisions.

SECTION 07 · LOOKING AHEAD

How could population and household growth affect housing demand to 2040?

Australia's population is projected to reach 32.3 million by 2040, up from 27.4 million in 2025, under the medium-scenario projection used in this article. Household projections put the central estimate (Series II) at 12.94 million households in 2040, an increase of 2.94 million from the 2021 base.

A separate projection from the Centre for Population, a Treasury body, expects Australia's population to reach 31.5 million by 2035–36 and 41.0 million by 2065–66, with annual growth easing to about 1.2% from 2026–27, below the 1.4% average of the 2010s.

Source: ABS Population Projections, Table B9, Series 29(B); ABS Household and Family Projections, Series I to III. The ABS population projection has no 2021 data point in this series; the first year shown is 2022.

SECTION 08 · POPULATION GROWTH

How has Australia's housing demand changed since 1990?

Australia's population has grown every decade since 1990, from 17.07 million to 27.80 million. Three major demand drivers changed over that period:

• Migration now drives most of the growth. NOM has gone from about half of population growth in the early 2000s to close to three-quarters today, making growth faster but more sensitive to migration policy and global conditions.
• Households are forming faster than population growth alone explains, partly because the average household has grown smaller.
• Internal migration patterns have changed by state. Queensland and Western Australia have responded differently to both the mining boom and COVID, while NSW and Victoria have recorded net interstate losses through most of the past decade.

No single, methodologically consistent estimate exists for cumulative housing undersupply since 1990. The clearest current official benchmark is NHSAC's forward-looking Housing Accord outlook. Across the 2024–25 to 2028–29 Accord period, NHSAC projects a shortfall of 37,000 dwellings. Annual net supply is projected to exceed annual demand from 2027–28, but the later surpluses are not large enough to remove the published shortfall across the full five-year period.

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