Australia’s population hits 27 million, migration slows slightly

The latest National and State Population Growth dataset from the ABS shows 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-19, 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 the 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 are 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.

Our ageing population, though, 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).

Many local areas in Australia, like Fraser Coast in Queensland, are experiencing negative natural increases.

As a popular retirement destination, Fraser Coast sees a higher number of deaths than births, meaning it relies heavily on migration – whether from overseas or other parts of Australia – to maintain its population.

While natural increase remains positive at a national level across all states and territories, these local nuances matter.

Overseas migration

With the huge overseas migration since the borders reopened after COVID and lower emigration, 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.

Without overseas migration, these states would have negative population growth, 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.

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.

About Glenn Capuano Glenn is a Census expert working at .id Informed Decisions. After ten years working at the ABS, Glenn's deep knowledge of the Census has been a crucial input in the development of our community profiles. These tools help everyday people uncover the rich and important stories about our communities that are often hidden deep in the Census data. Visit .id Informed Decisions