Building Approvals, Australia

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Provides the number of dwelling units and value of buildings approved

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Reference period
July 2021
Released
31/08/2021
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Key statistics

  • The seasonally adjusted estimate for total dwellings approved fell 8.6% in July.
  • Private sector houses fell 5.8%, while private sector dwellings excluding houses declined 12.3%. 
  • The value of non-residential building approved fell 30.5%. 

Dwellings approved

July key figures
  Jul-21Monthly changeYearly change
  no.%%
Seasonally adjusted
 Total dwelling units approved17,601 -8.621.5
 Private sector houses11,671 -5.828.0
 Private sector dwellings excluding houses5,679-12.312.4

The number of dwellings approved in Australia fell 8.6% in July, in seasonally adjusted terms. This follows a 5.5% decrease in June.

Private sector house approvals fell 5.8% in July, to 11,671, following a 10.1% fall in June. Private sector dwellings excluding houses declined 12.3% in July.

Dwellings approved, states and territories
Seasonally adjusted
Private sector housesPrivate sector housesTotal dwelling units approvedTotal dwelling units approved
no.Monthly % changeno.Monthly % change
New South Wales2,566-4.24,894-9.9
Victoria4,001-7.36,054-11.0
Queensland2,3008.33,3289.0
South Australia940-23.91,159-17.9
Western Australia1,508-6.91,646-11.3
Tasmanianana299-15.3
Northern Territorynananana
Australian Capital Territorynananana
Australia11,671-5.817,601-8.6

By state, the number of dwellings fell in South Australia (-17.9%), Tasmania (-15.3%), Western Australia (-11.3%), Victoria (-11.0%), and New South Wales (-9.9%). Dwelling approvals rose in Queensland (9.0%), in seasonally adjusted terms.

Approvals for private sector houses fell in South Australia (-23.9%), Victoria (-7.3%), Western Australia (-6.9%) and New South Wales (-4.2%). Private house approvals in Queensland rose 8.3%, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Value of building approved

Value of building approved, by building type
Seasonally adjusted
$mMonthly % change
New residential building6,347.2-7.6
Alterations and additions to residential building995.70.1
Total residential building7,342.9-6.6
Non-residential building3,474.7-30.5
Total building10,817.6-15.9

The value of total building fell 15.9% (to $10.82b), in seasonally adjusted terms. The value of total residential building fell 6.6% (to $7.34b), comprising a 7.6% fall in new residential building and a 0.1% rise in residential alterations and additions.

The value of non-residential building fell 30.5% (to $3.47b), in seasonally adjusted terms.

Interactive map

To view the interactive map, click here.

Note that the interactive map will be offline soon after this publication release and will be refreshed with the current month's data within 24 hours.

How to use

Data downloads

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Time series spreadsheets

Data files

Datacubes

Series ID Concordance

Data files
Download xlsx [177.35 KB]

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

Data files
Download xls [136 KB]
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Small area datacubes

Data files

I-note

ABS.Stat datasets

Help for: ABS.Stat 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

Notes

Data notes

This publication provides the number of dwelling units and value of buildings approved released in Building Approvals, Australia on 31 August 2021.

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 June 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
Dwellings2020-21
New South Wales701
Victoria12
Queensland923
South Australia-3
Western Australia21
Tasmania45
Northern Territory-2
Australian Capital Territory-2
Total1695

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

07/09/2021 - As advertised in the main release of this publication on 31 August 2021, 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, July 2021

Media releases