The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Thursday released monthly overseas arrivals and departures data for December, which continued to show strong growth in the number of people arriving and intending to stay in Australia for 12 months or more.
In 2025, a net of 480,520 people arrived in Australia on a permanent or long-term basis, up 8.1% from 2024 and 7.3% higher than in 2023.
The number of net permanent and long-term (NPLT) arrivals in 2025 was also 63% higher than immediately before the pandemic in 2019, when 294,310 people intended to stay in Australia for 12 months or more:
The following chart plots the time series of permanent and long-term arrivals and departures:
There were a record 1.15 million long-term arrivals in 2025, partly offset by 672,100 long-term departures.
The NPLT arrivals series closely tracked the official quarterly net overseas migration (NOM) directionally for more than 30 years. However, over the past two years, this relationship has broken down:
NOM is based on observed behaviour, not visa type or stated intention, and counts anyone who changes their usual residence for 12 months or more within a 16‑month period.
NPLT arrivals are based on the intended duration of stay recorded on passenger cards and do not adjust for whether people actually stay that long.
As illustrated above, annual NPLT arrivals surged from March 2025, whereas NOM had fallen to a still historically high 306,000 by Q2 2025 (the latest available data).
Interestingly, the monthly working-age population estimates from the ABS, published in the labour force survey, suggest that population growth bottomed out in June 2025 and has since reaccelerated.
The working-age population is also growing at a significantly faster pace than before the pandemic:
After bottoming out in May 2024, Cotality has also reported a sharp rebound in annual rental growth, which points to rising demand from stronger population growth:
The reality is that Australia’s population is growing faster than the supply of housing, which is driving up rents.
The government must slow immigration to fix the nation’s housing shortage and rental crisis, as Canada has done.
