Key Points
- Some 18.5 million Australians were born here and 8.2 million were born overseas.
- Three countries account for more than a third of Australia’s overseas-born population.
- It is estimated 3.6 per cent of the global population resides outside of their country of birth.
The proportion of foreign-born Australians has not been this high since 1891, when such numbers were first recorded.
The amount of Australians who were born overseas has not been as high as it currently is for 130 years. Source: SBS News
While high levels of immigration could be seen in the 1890s, the proportion fell to just 10 per cent in 1947 due to reduced migration during World War One, World War Two and the Great Depression.
The ABS confirmed its records were based on population counts taken at the time and Indigenous Australians were not routinely included in such counts until 1971.
How many people are there in Australia in total?
The nation’s overseas-born population increased by almost half a million people in 2023.
Which countries did most of the new Australians come from?
England, India, China and New Zealand were the most common countries of birth amongst foreign-born Australians in the latest data.
A total of 170,000 Australians born in Australia were added to the country’s population. That number accounts for the number of births, minus deaths and net migration to other countries.
A closer look at overseas-born population trends
Of the countries with at least 1,000 people living in Australia, those from Latvia are among the oldest, with a median age of 80 years.
The foreign-born communities within Australia that grew the most between 2013 and 2023. Source: SBS News
On the other end of the spectrum, the youngest median age of overseas-born Australians was Qataris, whose population has a median age of 15 years.
There are far more Ni-Vanuatu men in Australia than women, almost three times as many, while there are more than two times as many Thai women as Thai men in Australia.
How Australia compares from a global perspective
More than 50 million people there were born outside of the country, making up 15.3 per cent of its total population.
In comparison, 88.1 per cent of those who live in the United Arab Emirates were born outside the country, while 72.8 per cent of Kuwait’s population were foreign-born.