Religious affiliation in Australia

• Christianity decreased by more than 1 million people but is still Australia’s most common religion.
• Other religions continue to increase.
• Australia is becoming more religiously diverse.
• Almost 10 million Australians reported having no religion.

In 2021, more people opted to answer the Census religion question than in 2016. In 2021, the number of people who answered the religion question was 93.1% of the population, an increase from 90.9% in 2016.

In 2021 the most common religions were:

• Christianity (43.9%)
• No religion (38.9%)
• Islam (3.2%)
• Hinduism (2.7%)
• Buddhism (2.4%)

Over the past 50 years, there has been a steady decline in the proportion of Australians who reported an affiliation with Christianity. The same period has seen a consistent rise in Other religions and No religion, particularly in the last 20 years.

Australia’s religious profile has been shaped by waves of migration. In the late 18th Century, Christianity was introduced by the British. Other migration to Australia that has likely impacted the religious landscape includes:

• 1800s and early 1900s: British and Irish free settlers
• 1940s and 1950s: Post World War II migrants from Europe
• 1960s: Refugees from the Middle East
• 1970s: Refugees from Southeast Asia
• 2000s: Humanitarian entrants from Africa and Middle East; skilled migrants from North-east and Southern Asia(1).

The trend of an increase in Other religions and No religion in Australia is reflected in the religious affiliation of migrants who arrived since the last Census.

Christian affiliation of people in Australia varied across generations. Generally, older generations were more likely to be affiliated with Christianity and younger generations were more likely to have no religious affiliation.

For example, more than two-thirds (69.4%) of the Interwar generation were affiliated with Christianity and were the least likely to have No religion (18.6%).

Millennials had the highest proportion of No religion (46.5%) and Other religions (14.9%). This reflects the age profiles of these religions. For example, the median ages for Hinduism was 31 years, Sikhism was 30 years and Islam was 28 years.

The religious affiliation of Generation X closely aligned with the proportions of the Australian population overall.

The number of people affiliated with Christianity in Australia decreased from 12.2 million (52.1%) in 2016 to 11.1 million (43.9%) in 2021. This decrease occurred across most ages, with the largest decrease for young adults (18-25 years).  

Anglican and Catholicism have been, and are, the largest Christian denominations in Australia. In 2021, the number of people reporting each of these denominations has dropped and make up most (78%) of the decrease in an affiliation with Christianity.

In 2021, Catholicism decreased to 20% (from 22.6% in 2016). While this number has been falling over time, the decrease has been slowed by immigration from regions with high numbers of followers of Catholicism, such as Southeast Asia and South America.

Of all migrants who came to Australia between 2016 and 2021, almost 200 thousand (191,000) reported an affiliation with Catholicism in the 2021 Census, over one-quarter of which were born in the Philippines.

The Anglican Church (named the Church of England until 1981) was the main religious denomination in Australia throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries. At the 1911 Census 38.4% of the population reported an affiliation with the Church of England. This proportion remained steady throughout the first half of the 20th Century, driven by the continued British migration to Australia. The 1954 Census reported 37.9% of Australians were affiliated with the Church of England.

In the past 50 years this proportion has been steadily declining. In 1986, the proportion of Anglican affiliation (23.9%) dropped below Catholic affiliation (26.1%). In 2006, Anglican affiliation (18.7%) was surpassed by those reporting to have No religion (19.4%).

From 2016 to 2021, Anglican affiliation had the largest drop in number of all religious denominations – from 3.1 million to 2.5 million people. This was a decrease of nearly one in five Anglicans (19.5%), from 13.3% to 9.8% of the population.

The average age of people with an Anglican affiliation in 2021 was 56 years, compared with 47 years for Christians overall.

Not all Christian denominations are declining. From 2016 to 2021, the highest increase was in responses coded to the supplementary category, Christianity nfd (not further defined). Christianity nfd includes responses containing enough information to be coded to Christianity but not to a specific denomination. In 2021, most of this group were people who answered “Christian” or “Christianity” to the religion question.

In 2021, there were nearly 700 thousand people in the Christianity nfd category (688,400), an increase of 75 thousand since 2016 (76,100). They represented 2.7% of Australians - the same as the proportion affiliated with Hinduism.

Christianity nfd was first included as a group in the 1996 Census when the Australian Standard Classification of Religious Groups (ASCRG) was developed. Since then, the number of responses in this category has grown from 181,900 (1.0% of Australians) in 1996.

An increase in this group may indicate a growing trend of people affiliating more broadly with Christianity rather than specific Christian denominations.

From 2016 to 2021 other Christian denominations that increased included Orthodox denominations. These denominations grew in Australia in the second half of the 20th Century due to post-World War II migration from Eastern Europe. They are common to people with Greek, Lebanese and Serbian ancestries. The largest of these denominations, Greek Orthodox, accounted for 1.5% of Australians in 2021.

In 2021, over 2.5 million people reported an affiliation with Other religions. This was an increase of over 600 thousand (617,800) since 2016.

In the past 25 years the proportion of people reporting an affiliation with Other religions has increased from 3.5% in 1996 to 10% of the population in 2021. This growth has particularly accelerated since 2006.

These increases reflect Australia’s migration trends. In 2021, 93.8% of people affiliated with Other religions were either born overseas or had at least one parent born overseas.

In 2021, the main religions in Other Religion in Australia were Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.

In the 1981 Census, data on Buddhism was released for the first time in response to the arrival of large numbers of Buddhists as Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s. A steady increase since then has largely been maintained by migration from Southeast Asia, China and Sri Lanka.

While the numbers of Buddhists continue to increase, in 2021 the main contributors to the increase in Other religions were:

• Hinduism (243,700)
• Islam (209,150)
• Sikhism (84,500)

These increases were largely a result of recent migration from Southern and Central Asia.

Of migrants who arrived in Australia between 2016 and 2021, there were 210,500 who were affiliated with Hinduism. Most of these migrants (91.9%) were born in India and Nepal.

Similarly, nearly 60 thousand (57,300) recent migrants were affiliated with Sikhism, and almost all (95.9%) were born in India. Sikhism has grown in Australia particularly over the past ten years. The number of people who affiliate with Sikhism has almost tripled since the 2011 Census. In 2021, they accounted for 0.8% of the population (210,400 people).

The increase of Islamic affiliation can also be largely attributed to recent migration. Almost 126,000 people who arrived in Australia between 2016 and 2021 affiliated with Islam. Their main countries of birth were Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Bangladesh.

Religious freedom is an important value in Australian society. People are free to choose, express and practice their religious beliefs in different ways. This includes the right not to profess a religion or belief.

In every Census since 1911, a proportion of people have responded that they did not have a religious affiliation. The 1911 Census form asked each person to state their religion. People could respond that they did not have a religion if they were “a free thinker, or if no denomination or religion”. Over ten thousand people stated they had no religion in 1911. This was 0.2% of the population.

Over time, we have changed how we present the No religion option on the religion question. Amendments have been made to reflect changes in Australia’s religious profile as well as in response to public consultation. These include:

• 1971:  The first Census with instructions on the form “If no religion write none”.
• 1991: The first Census with a check box list of religions, an option for free text and a check box for No religion at the bottom of list.
• 2016: The No religion response option was moved from the last to the first response option on the Census form.

These changes may have affected the number of No religion responses. For example, the proportion of the population who reported they had no religion increased from 0.8% in 1966 to 6.7% in 1971 when instructions were added to the religion question.

From 1971 to 2021, the proportion of people reporting to have no religion in Australia steadily increased.

In 2021, the proportion was 38.9%, an increase from 30.1% in 2016, representing an increase of more than 2.8 million people. This increase indicates a shift away from religious and spiritual viewpoints, by either expressing their beliefs outside of traditional religious institutional settings or not holding a religious or spiritual viewpoint to express.

Most of the responses in the broad category, Secular Beliefs and Other Spiritual Beliefs and No Religious Affiliation, were in the sub-category No religion, so described. The remaining subcategories account for only 1.2% of responses.

The proportions of people reporting to have no religion varied across states and territories. In 2021, Tasmania had the highest proportion with half (50%) of the population reporting to have no religion. The lowest was NSW with almost one-third (33.2%) of the population.

From 2016 to 2021, the highest growth in the number of people reporting to have no religion was in Queensland and Tasmania.

An increase in people reporting to have No religion in 2021 indicates that some people have changed from being affiliated with a religion since the last Census in 2016.

An increase in people reporting to have No religion between 2016 and 2021 was highest for young adults, particularly those aged in their twenties. In general, the likelihood of people becoming unaffiliated with a religion decreased with age.

People reporting to have No religion were younger than people affiliated with Christianity. In 2021 almost half (48.4%) of people aged 25-34 years reported to have No religion. Since 2016 however, the median age of this group increased from 31 years to 33 years.

In 2021, while the proportion of people reporting to have No religion increased for all age groups, the highest proportional increase was people aged 65 years and over. This was an increase from nearly 600 thousand (592,000) to just over 1 million people. Despite this shift, in 2021, almost two-thirds (64.2%) of people in this age group were affiliated with Christianity.

More data related to this article can be found in the data downloads on the Cultural diversity: Census topic page. 

26 July 2024: Table of Christian affiliation by generation, 2021: Corrected count of Interwar (75 yrs and over) in Other religions(a) (%) column to reflect accurate percentage of Interwar generation who are affiliated with other religions.

1. Department of Home Affairs, ‘A History of the Department of Immigration – Managing Migration to Australia’, www.homeaffairs.gov.au/news-subsite/files/immigration-history.pdf, last viewed 6 June, 2022.
2. Department of Home Affairs, ‘Statement on ABC Four Corners Reporting’, www.homeaffairs.gov.au/news-subsite/Pages/2019-Feb/statement-on-abc-four-corners-reporting.aspx, last viewed 6 June 2022.
3. Australian National Audit Office, Performance Audit Report 2019-2020, ‘Delivery of the Humanitarian Settlement Program’, www.anao.gov.au/work/performance-audit/delivery-the-humanitarian-settlement-program, last viewed 6 June 2022.