ABS puts Australia's 2025 net overseas migration at 301,000, above the budget's 225,000 path

The Australian Bureau of Statistics put net overseas migration at 301,000 people for the 2025 calendar year in its National, state and territory population release for December 2025, published on 18 June 2026. That is the figure the current political argument is being fought over, and it sits well above the 225,000 a year the federal budget assumes from 2027-28 onwards.

The same release recorded Australia's population at 27,801,023 people on 31 December 2025, after annual growth of 412,500 people, or 1.5 per cent. Natural increase contributed 111,500 of that growth. Net overseas migration therefore accounted for close to three quarters of the year's increase. In the December quarter alone, growth was 78,638 people, or 0.3 per cent, and net overseas migration for the quarter was 56,613 people, which the ABS described as a decrease of 31,500 people on the previous quarter.

Two ABS releases are being quoted interchangeably in the debate, and they measure different periods. The annual Overseas Migration release, published on 19 December 2025 and covering the 2024-25 financial year, recorded net overseas migration of 306,000, down from 429,000 the year before. Migrant arrivals fell 14 per cent to 568,000 while departures rose 13 per cent to 263,000. Jenny Dobak, the ABS head of migration statistics, said in the accompanying media release that net overseas migration "dropped by 124,000 people in 2024-25, falling for the second year in a row". The 301,000 figure is a calendar year count and is not the same measurement as the 306,000.

The composition matters as much as the total. Of the 568,000 arrivals in 2024-25, about 363,000 were on temporary visas, and international students made up roughly 157,000 of those. Departures were driven partly by working holiday visa holders, whose numbers leaving Australia more than doubled in each of two consecutive years. The ABS also recorded a net loss of 17,000 Australian-born residents through migration, a pattern it described as consistent with the years before the pandemic.

The federal budget for 2026-27, delivered on 12 May 2026, forecasts net overseas migration of 295,000 in 2025-26, 245,000 in 2026-27, and 225,000 in each of 2027-28 and 2028-29. The ABC reported on 13 May 2026 that those figures represented an upgrade of 55,000 people across the current and following financial years compared with the previous set of forecasts. Independent forecasting differs. The Scanlon Institute's migration dashboard, last updated on 25 June 2026, cites a Centre for Population projection of 260,000 for 2025-26, some 35,000 below the budget assumption for the same year.

The political disagreement is sharp and has not been resolved by the numbers. Reporting by the ABC on 18 June 2026 quoted the shadow immigration minister, Jonno Duniam, saying "this is not a one-off number. Net overseas migration has now remained above 300,000 for 14 straight quarters", and arguing the government had lost control of the system. The immigration minister, Tony Burke, described the government's settings as sensible and measured and pointed to skills shortages in health care and construction. The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said net overseas migration had come down 45 per cent from its post pandemic peak. The One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, has proposed an annual cap of 130,000 visas. The Verified Journalism Press has not independently reconstructed the 14 quarter claim from the published ABS series, and reports it as an assertion made by the shadow minister rather than as an established figure.

The state breakdown in the 18 June release shows where the arrivals landed. New South Wales recorded net overseas migration of 90,961 people in the year to December 2025, Victoria 85,044, Queensland 54,604, Western Australia 40,422, South Australia 18,518, the Australian Capital Territory 4,738, the Northern Territory 3,579 and Tasmania 3,063. Western Australia grew fastest in percentage terms at 2.2 per cent, Tasmania slowest at 0.5 per cent. The ABS noted that net overseas migration was the major contributor to population change in every state and territory.

Travel data released separately by the ABS on 14 August 2026 recorded 9.1 million short term visitor arrivals in 2025-26, up 8 per cent and still 3 per cent below the 2018-19 peak of 9.3 million, alongside 12.7 million overseas trips by Australian residents. Those counts measure crossings, not settlement, and are not a substitute for the migration estimates.

What is not yet known is whether the fall continues. Net overseas migration is estimated using a rule based on how long a traveller is present over a 16 month window, so recent quarters are preliminary and are routinely revised. No official figure for the 2025-26 financial year has been published at the time of writing. Whether the budget's 225,000 assumption or the Centre for Population's lower path proves closer will not be testable until the next annual release.