Debt-Servicing Burden
Debt-Servicing Burden (21242) measures how much of their income households must put towards their housing loans: scheduled repayments on housing loans, interest and principal, as a share of household disposable income. Higher readings mean a heavier repayment burden. It is read alongside Household Leverage (21241), which reads how fast the debt is growing, and Mortgage Cost Pressure (21243), which reads how fast mortgage interest charges are rising against living costs.
The ratio is compiled by the Reserve Bank from lenders’ returns to APRA; from September 2019 it covers lenders with $3 billion or more of housing credit, over 95% of the total, scaled to the whole market. It covers housing loans only, not personal debt. The ratio to income is published about a quarter after the repayments themselves, so the latest reading is the March quarter 2026. Because repayments move with interest rates, the node moves closely with Cash Rate & Yield Conditions (21210): the two correlate at 0.88 over 2019–2026. The difference is in what they read: 21210 reads where rates are set; this node reads what households actually pay against their income.
Primary metric: Node Z-Score (Z21242)
Metric typology: single-series Z-score of a published ratio.
| Input | Source | Frequency | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scheduled repayments to income | Reserve Bank of Australia, Statistical Table E13 Housing Loan Payments, LPHTSPRI (compiled from APRA and ABS data), seasonally adjusted | Quarterly | March quarter 2009 to March quarter 2026 |
| Context: interest charged to income | RBA Table E13, LPHTICRI | Quarterly | March quarter 2009 to March quarter 2026 |
| Context: excess payments to income | RBA Table E13, LPHTEXRI (net payments into offset and redraw accounts) | Quarterly | March quarter 2009 to March quarter 2026 |
Tier-1 central bank statistics compiled from regulatory and sovereign statistical data. No commercial data provider dependency exists within this node.
The chart shows the node’s reading in every quarter, measured against the 2011–2025 baseline.
The March quarter 2026 reading, +1.4335σ, ranks 86.8 against 69 quarters and sits inside the normal range of −0.9493σ to +1.6040σ. The highest ranked reading was +2.1607σ in the June quarter 2024, and the lowest −1.2076σ in the September quarter 2021.
Show the data
| Quarter | Reading | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 2009 | +0.1721σ | Ranked |
| Q2 2009 | −0.0278σ | Ranked |
| Q3 2009 | +0.0147σ | Ranked |
| Q4 2009 | +0.1629σ | Ranked |
| Q1 2010 | +0.4788σ | Ranked |
| Q2 2010 | +0.6408σ | Ranked |
| Q3 2010 | +0.8637σ | Ranked |
| Q4 2010 | +1.0050σ | Ranked |
| Q1 2011 | +0.8775σ | Ranked |
| Q2 2011 | +0.8832σ | Ranked |
| Q3 2011 | +0.8832σ | Ranked |
| Q4 2011 | +0.5317σ | Ranked |
| Q1 2012 | +0.5501σ | Ranked |
| Q2 2012 | +0.2181σ | Ranked |
| Q3 2012 | +0.1641σ | Ranked |
| Q4 2012 | −0.0507σ | Ranked |
| Q1 2013 | −0.1059σ | Ranked |
| Q2 2013 | +0.1985σ | Ranked |
| Q3 2013 | −0.3104σ | Ranked |
| Q4 2013 | −0.3655σ | Ranked |
| Q1 2014 | −0.5298σ | Ranked |
| Q2 2014 | −0.6481σ | Ranked |
| Q3 2014 | −0.6297σ | Ranked |
| Q4 2014 | −0.7193σ | Ranked |
| Q1 2015 | −0.8377σ | Ranked |
| Q2 2015 | −0.9445σ | Ranked |
| Q3 2015 | −0.9812σ | Ranked |
| Q4 2015 | −0.7446σ | Ranked |
| Q1 2016 | −0.6550σ | Ranked |
| Q2 2016 | −0.7136σ | Ranked |
| Q3 2016 | −0.8641σ | Ranked |
| Q4 2016 | −0.8434σ | Ranked |
| Q1 2017 | −0.8698σ | Ranked |
| Q2 2017 | −0.6297σ | Ranked |
| Q3 2017 | −0.4390σ | Ranked |
| Q4 2017 | −0.5505σ | Ranked |
| Q1 2018 | −0.4965σ | Ranked |
| Q2 2018 | −0.3218σ | Ranked |
| Q3 2018 | −0.0668σ | Ranked |
| Q4 2018 | −0.1174σ | Ranked |
| Q1 2019 | −0.4034σ | Ranked |
| Q2 2019 | −0.2024σ | Ranked |
| Q3 2019 | −0.5194σ | Ranked |
| Q4 2019 | −0.3218σ | Ranked |
| Q1 2020 | −0.2104σ | Ranked |
| Q2 2020 | −0.9824σ | Ranked |
| Q3 2020 | −1.1915σ | Ranked |
| Q4 2020 | −0.8629σ | Ranked |
| Q1 2021 | −0.8813σ | Ranked |
| Q2 2021 | −0.7101σ | Ranked |
| Q3 2021 | −1.2076σ | Ranked |
| Q4 2021 | −1.0973σ | Ranked |
| Q1 2022 | −1.1696σ | Ranked |
| Q2 2022 | −0.9686σ | Ranked |
| Q3 2022 | −0.6274σ | Ranked |
| Q4 2022 | +0.2020σ | Ranked |
| Q1 2023 | +0.7959σ | Ranked |
| Q2 2023 | +1.1888σ | Ranked |
| Q3 2023 | +1.5587σ | Ranked |
| Q4 2023 | +1.6701σ | Ranked |
| Q1 2024 | +1.8447σ | Ranked |
| Q2 2024 | +2.1607σ | Ranked |
| Q3 2024 | +2.1101σ | Ranked |
| Q4 2024 | +2.0929σ | Ranked |
| Q1 2025 | +1.9757σ | Ranked |
| Q2 2025 | +1.8964σ | Ranked |
| Q3 2025 | +1.5874σ | Ranked |
| Q4 2025 | +1.4013σ | Ranked |
| Q1 2026 | +1.4335σ | Ranked |
At +1.4335σ (Q1 2026), scheduled housing repayments took 9.42% of household disposable income in the March quarter 2026. That is below the June 2024 peak of 10.05%, and above every quarter before September 2023. The ratio fell in each of the six quarters from September 2024 to December 2025, to 9.39%, and edged up in March 2026.
Position. 86.8, ranked against 69 quarters since March 2009. The nine quarters that read higher run from September 2023 to September 2025.
Interest alone was 6.00% of income, below its 2011 high of 7.14%: repayments now carry a larger principal component than they did then. Households also paid 2.30% of their income into offset and redraw accounts in the quarter, down from 3.00% in December 2025.
The other household burden nodes and the household finance node beside them.
- The input is a Tier-1 central bank statistic (RBA), compiled from lenders’ regulatory returns and ABS national accounts
- The Z-score of +1.4335σ (Q1 2026) is derived directly from the input against the 2011–2025 baseline, not manually entered or estimated
- The position is an empirical percentile rank against 69 quarters
- The publication lag, the housing-only scope and the correlation with 21210 are disclosed
- No commercial data provider dependency exists within this node
