Australia's population grows by more than 390,000 people in 12 months

Australia's population has grown by more than 392,000 people in 12 months, according to the Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

ABS head of population statistics Bjorn Jarvis said almost 75 per cent of the increase came from overseas migration.

It marked a total annual increase of 1.4 per cent in the year leading up to March 2026.

"Our population was 27.9 million people at 31 March 2026, that's 392,700 more than the same time in 2025," Mr Jarvis said.

"Natural increase, that is the number of people born minus those who died, added 100,600 people to the population.

"Births and deaths were both up, 0.3 per cent and 3.1 per cent respectively.

"We saw 292,100 people added to our population from net overseas migration from March 2025 to March 2026."

This was compared to 309,500 people in the previous 12 months.

Population data for the past two decades showed the annual change plummeted in early 2020 with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It peaked again in September 2023 before beginning a slow return to pre-pandemic levels in the following years. 

In the past year, 557,500 people immigrated to Australia from overseas, a decrease of 4 per cent compared with the previous year.

A further 265,400 emigrated from Australia in the same time period, a decrease of 2.2 per cent.

The net overseas migration figure noted by Mr Jarvis came from subtracting the number of people migrating away from Australia from the number of people immigrating to Australia.

All states and territories had some population growth in the year ending March 2026.

Western Australia had the fastest growth rate, with an increase of 2.1 per cent or 64,200 people compared with the previous year.

Tasmania was the slowest, with an increase of 0.6 per cent or 3,400 people.

The majority of those immigrating to Australia moved to New South Wales, while Tasmania and the Northern Territory had the lowest numbers of overseas migration.