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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
December 2021
Released
3/02/2022
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Key statistics

  • The seasonally adjusted estimate for total dwellings approved rose 8.2%.
  • Private sector houses fell 1.8%, while private sector dwellings excluding houses increased 27.5%. 
  • The value of non-residential building approved fell 16.3%. 

Dwellings approved

December key figures, seasonally adjusted
 Dec-21Monthly changeYearly change
 no.%%
Total dwelling units approved17,6988.2-7.5
Private sector houses10,444-1.8-21.3
Private sector dwellings excluding houses7,00827.524.5

The number of dwellings approved in Australia rose 8.2% in December, in seasonally adjusted terms. This follows a 2.6% rise in November.

Private sector house approvals fell 1.8% in December, to 10,444, following a 1.6% decline in November. Private sector dwellings excluding houses rose 27.5%, following a 13.4% rise in November.

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 Wales2,368-7.94,91732.1
Victoria3,271-1.55,7332.5
Queensland2,121-0.73,019-14.8
South Australia865-7.11,158-0.3
Western Australia1,3130.81,459-7.7
Tasmanianana277-7.4
Northern Territorynananana
Australian Capital Territorynananana
Australia10,444-1.817,6988.2

 

By state, the number of dwelling approvals rose in New South Wales (32.1%) and Victoria (2.5%). Dwelling approvals fell in Queensland (-14.8%), Western Australia (-7.7%), Tasmania (-7.4%), and South Australia (-0.3%), in seasonally adjusted terms.

Approvals for private sector houses rose in Western Australia (0.8%), but fell in all other mainland states: New South Wales (-7.9%), South Australia (-7.1%), Victoria (-1.5%) and Queensland (-0.7%), in seasonally adjusted terms.

Value of building approved

Value of building approved, by building type, seasonally adjusted
 $mMonthly % change
New residential building6,409.28.3
Alterations and additions to residential building1,0505.2
Total residential building7,459.27.8
Non-residential building4,044.6-16.3
Total building11,503.8-2.1

 

The value of total building approved fell 2.1% in December, in seasonally adjusted terms. The decrease was driven by a fall in the value of non-residential building approved (-16.3%), following a 27.8% rise in November.

The value of total residential building rose 7.8%, comprised of an 8.3% increase in the value of new residential building, and a 5.2% rise in the value of alterations and additions.

Interactive map

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How to use

Data downloads

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Time series spreadsheets

Data files

Datacubes

Private residential alterations and additions, July 2016 - December 2021 - States and Territories

Data files
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Small area datacubes

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I-note

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 2011 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

GeoPackages

Data files

Data notes

This publication provides the number of dwelling units and value of buildings approved released in Building Approvals, Australia on 3 February 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.

Revisions this month

In this release, revisions are provided for the time period from July 2020 to November 2021. 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 Wales10253
Victoria17-273
Queensland247
South Australia-1414
Western Australia510
Tasmania-1
Northern Territory--
Australian Capital Territory--
Total2052

Inquiries

For inquiries 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

10/02/2022 - As advertised in the main release of this publication on 3 February 2022, this additional information release contains the small area Excel datacubes and CSV files for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 financial years. 

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

Article archive

Previous feature articles

Methodology

Building Approvals, Australia methodology, December 2021

Media releases