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Building Approvals, Australia

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Provides the number of dwelling units and value of buildings approved

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Reference period
April 2022
Released
31/05/2022
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Key statistics

  • The seasonally adjusted estimate for total dwellings approved fell 2.4%.
  • Private sector houses rose 0.5%, while private sector dwellings excluding houses fell 6.1%. 
  • The value of non-residential building approved fell 30.0%. 

Dwellings approved

April key figures, seasonally adjusted
 Apr-22Monthly changeYearly change
no.%%
Total dwelling units approved14,908-2.4-32.4
Private sector houses10,0770.5-33.7
Private sector dwellings excluding houses4,701-6.1-28.7

The number of dwellings approved in Australia fell 2.4% in April, in seasonally adjusted terms. This follows a 19.2% fall in March.

Private sector house approvals rose 0.5% in April, to 10,077, following a 3.9% fall in March. Private sector dwellings excluding houses fell 6.1%, following a 30.6% fall in March.

Dwellings approved, states and territories, seasonally adjusted
 Private sector housesPrivate sector housesTotal dwelling unit approvalsTotal dwelling unit approvals
no.Monthly % changeno.Monthly % change
New South Wales2,353-3.63,908-6.8
Victoria3,031-0.95,0207.8
Queensland2,3696.22,989-4.5
South Australia7957.71,30350.3
Western Australia1,200-0.21,304-0.3
Tasmanianana23010.6
Northern Territorynananana
Australian Capital Territorynananana
Australia10,0770.514,908-2.4

 

By state, the number of dwelling approvals fell in New South Wales (-6.8%), Queensland (-4.5%) and Western Australia (-0.3%), in seasonally adjusted terms. Dwelling approvals increased in South Australia (50.3%), Tasmania (10.6%) and Victoria (7.8%).

Approvals for private sector houses rose in South Australia (7.7%) and Queensland (6.2%), but fell in New South Wales (-3.6%), Victoria (-0.9%) and Western Australia (-0.2%), in seasonally adjusted terms.

Value of building approved

Value of building approved, by building type, seasonally adjusted
 $mMonthly % change
New residential building6,054.24.4
Alterations and additions to residential building1,005.86.6
Total residential building7,060.14.7
Non-residential building4,348.4-30.0
Total building11,408.5-12.0

 

The value of total building approved fell 12.0% in April, in seasonally adjusted terms. The value of total residential building increased 4.7%, following a 18.7% fall in March. The rise in total residential building value was driven by a 6.6% increase in alterations and additions and a rise in new residential building of 4.4%.

The value of non-residential building fell 30.0%, after an increase of 2.7% in March. The fall recorded in April was coming off a strong March result which was the second highest month recorded for non-residential value approved.

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How to use

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Data Explorer datasets

Caution: Data in the Data Explorer is currently released after the 11:30am release on the ABS website. Please check the time period when using Data Explorer.

Help for: Data Explorer Datasets

Building Approvals by Greater Capital Cities Statistical Area (GCCSA) and above - Number and value of approvals, monthly, July 2001 onwards

Building Approvals by Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2) and above - Number and value of approvals, monthly, July 2016 onwards

Building Approvals by Local Government Area (LGA 2020) - Number and value of approvals, monthly, 2020/21

Building Approvals by Local Government Area (LGA 2021) - Number and value of approvals, monthly, 2021/22

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Data files

Data notes

This publication provides the number of dwelling units and value of buildings approved released in Building Approvals, Australia on 31 May 2022.

Small area data cubes and CSV files will be made available in an “Additional Information” release five business days after the main publication. These will be for Statistical Areas Level 2 and Local Government Areas. Release dates are published under the “Forthcoming Issues” section of the publication and in the ABS Release Calendar.

A number of time series spreadsheets contain ‘np’ (not available for publication) annotations. This is due to confidential data being contained in these series.

Demolitions time series spreadsheets

From this release, demolition approvals will now be available under two new Time Series spreadsheets (tables 87 and 88). Small area datacubes for demolitions data will still be available in the Additional Release (in ZIP file format), however they will only include the current and previous financial years. 

Revisions this month

In this release, revisions are provided for the time period from July 2020 to March 2022. Further information about potential sources of revisions can be found in the feature article released with the January 2016 Building Approvals publication - "Revisions to Building Approval Statistics".

Revisions to the total number of dwelling units approved in this issue are:

 Financial year
Dwellings revised by State2020-212021-22
New South Wales10178
Victoria247171
Queensland1335
South Australia-6-2
Western Australia--
Tasmania235
Northern Territory--
Australian Capital Territory-1
Total254718

Enquiries

For enquiries about these and related statistics, contact the Customer Assistance Service via the ABS website Contact Us page. The ABS Privacy Policy outlines how the ABS will handle any personal information that you provide to us.

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 8731.0.

Post release changes

07/06/2022 - As advertised in the main release of this publication on May 31 2022, this additional information release contains the small area Excel datacubes and CSV files for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 financial years. 

08/06/2022 - Spreadsheet replaced within Data Download ZIP file Local Government Area: Australia, 2021-2022 FYTD (.CSV).

Related information

Building Activity, Australia

Construction Work Done, Australia, Preliminary

Construction Activity: Chain Volume Measures, Australia

Functional Classification of Buildings

Lending indicators, Australia

Residential Property Price Indexes: Eight Capital Cities

Producer Price Indexes, Australia

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Methodology

Building Approvals, Australia methodology, April 2022

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