At 30 June 2025, 205,977 households were waiting for social housing in Australia, on the AIHW’s consolidated count. That is one answer to a question with several. The public housing list alone held 189,536 households, and the state registers count applicant households in one state and approved applications in another. Each state assembles its list under its own rules, and the share of households classed as being in greatest need runs from 16.8% in New South Wales to 99.6% in Queensland. A waiting list records who has applied and remains on each state’s register; it is not a count of the households that need social housing.
Node reading for Housing Policy (Affordable, Social) (21330): NIL RETURN. This article rests on the source data alone.
Several totals for one question
Each state and territory runs its own social housing register, sets its own eligibility rules and decides how applications are recorded and ordered. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) assembles the state data into national figures, and publishes them in more than one form. The consolidated waitlist is an estimate of distinct households across programs, so a household on both the public housing and the SOMIH list is counted once; it is published only for 2024 and 2025. The AIHW’s program tables begin in 2014 and count each program separately. Their sum, 207,014 in 2025, differs from the consolidated figure for two reasons that pull in opposite directions: the consolidated count removes households listed on more than one program, which lowers it, and takes in applicants the program tables leave out, including Indigenous community housing applicants in Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory, which raises it.
The states publish their own registers more often than the AIHW, and on their own terms. New South Wales counts applicant households, 71,317 at 31 August 2026, of which 13,945 were approved as priority. The Australian Capital Territory counts approved applications, 3,652 at 30 June 2026, and lists a further 1,093 transfer applications from existing tenants separately. Queensland publishes its register as open data at the level of applications, and notes that a change of systems in 2019–20 may affect comparisons across years.
| Published figure | What it counts | Total |
|---|---|---|
| AIHW consolidated waitlist, 30 June 2025 | Distinct households not already in social housing, across programs; excludes transfers; excludes Indigenous community housing applicants except in Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory | 205,977 |
| AIHW public housing waitlist, 30 June 2025 | Households on the public housing list; excludes transfers within the program | 189,536 |
| AIHW SOMIH waitlist, 30 June 2025 | Households on the state owned and managed Indigenous housing list; excludes Tasmania, not published | 17,478 |
| NSW Housing Register, 31 August 2026 | Applicant households, priority and general approved | 71,317 |
| ACT housing waiting list, 30 June 2026 | Approved applications, priority, high needs and standard; transfers listed separately | 3,652 |
Figures are at different dates and on different definitions and are not additive. Sources: AIHW, Housing assistance in Australia 2026, tables HOUSEHOLDS.26 to HOUSEHOLDS.28; NSW Department of Communities and Justice; ACT Government.
What greatest need means
Most lists sort applicants into priority groups. The national standard the AIHW reports against is “greatest need”: households that, at the time of allocation, are homeless, are in housing inappropriate to their needs, are in housing that is adversely affecting their health, or are in a situation placing their life and safety at risk. Until 2024–25 the definition also included very high rental costs and, in some jurisdictions, other priority needs outside the national standard, so the series is not continuous across that change.
How the definition meets each state’s list is where the totals part company. In 2025 99.6% of households on Queensland’s public housing list were classed in greatest need, and the share has been above 85% in every year since 2014. In New South Wales it was 16.8%, and has been below 20% in every year since 2014. A list on which almost every household is in greatest need and one on which one in six is are recording different things, and the AIHW notes that its waitlist data may not be comparable across jurisdictions or over time.
Greatest need households as a share of each public housing waitlist, 30 June 2025
Per cent of households on the public housing waitlist. Excludes households seeking a transfer within the program. Source: AIHW, Housing assistance in Australia 2026, table HOUSEHOLDS.28.
| State or territory | Households on the list | Greatest need | Greatest need share |
|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | 59,077 | 9,906 | 16.8% |
| Victoria | 56,230 | 24,803 | 44.1% |
| Queensland | 24,112 | 24,024 | 99.6% |
| Western Australia | 22,409 | 7,382 | 32.9% |
| South Australia | 13,687 | 3,021 | 22.1% |
| Tasmania | 5,152 | 4,124 | 80.0% |
| Australian Capital Territory | 3,402 | 1,925 | 56.6% |
| Northern Territory | 5,467 | 2,240 | 41.0% |
| Australia | 189,536 | 77,425 | 40.8% |
Public housing waitlist at 30 June 2025. Source: AIHW, Housing assistance in Australia 2026, table HOUSEHOLDS.28.
The list over time
The national public housing list held 154,566 households in 2014 and 189,536 in 2025, having fallen to 140,578 in 2018. The two groups within it moved differently. Households in greatest need rose from a low of 37,897 in 2016 to 77,425 in 2025, more than doubling; other households were 111,342 in 2014 and 112,111 in 2025, having been 96,900 in 2024. The rise of 15,211 in the final year coincides with the narrowing of the definition of greatest need, so some households recorded in greatest need in 2024 are likely to have been recorded as other households in 2025; in Victoria the greatest need count fell over the year while the list grew. State series also show steps that the published figures do not explain: Victoria’s greatest need share went from 33.7% in 2017 to 49.4% in 2018. A rising count of greatest need households can reflect more households in those circumstances, changes in how they are assessed, or both, and the published figures do not separate the two.
Households on the public housing waitlist, 2014 to 2025
Thousands of households at 30 June. The definition of greatest need changed in 2024–25. Source: AIHW, Housing assistance in Australia 2026, table HOUSEHOLDS.27.
How households leave the list
A list shrinks as households are allocated a dwelling, withdraw or are removed on review, and grows as new applications are accepted. The national tables report allocations. In 2024–25, 16,016 households were newly allocated public housing, 84.1% of them in greatest need, against 21,410 allocations and 73.2% in 2014–15; the 2024–25 share is on the narrower definition, so the rise is not an effect of broadening it. Community housing made a further 15,518 new allocations in 2024–25, excluding the Northern Territory. Most allocations go to households assessed as in greatest need, which is why a list cannot be read as a queue in which each household waits its turn.
Waiting times follow from that. Of the greatest need households allocated public housing in 2024–25, 29% had waited less than three months and 5% five years or more. Of other households, 21.8% had waited five years or more. The two are measured from different starting points: for greatest need households the clock starts at the greatest need application, which can be later than the first application; for others it starts at the first application.
Time waited by greatest need households newly allocated public housing, 2024–25
Per cent of 13,471 greatest need households allocated in the year, by time from the greatest need application to allocation. Source: AIHW, Housing assistance in Australia 2026, table HOUSEHOLDS.18.
What a waiting list does not show
A waiting list counts households that have applied, been found eligible under a state’s rules and remain on the register. It does not count households that are eligible but have not applied, or that have withdrawn; nor does it show how long each household on it has already waited. The Productivity Commission, reporting time waited across jurisdictions, states that it “is also affected by differences across jurisdictions in social housing supply, allocation policy and waitlist management”, and marks the most recent data for all its wait-time measures as not comparable or not complete.
What the lists can support is narrower: movement within one state’s list under unchanged rules, and the composition of a list by the categories it records. Comparisons of list length between states, or readings of total need from any list, are not supported by the published data. The stock that households on these lists are waiting for is set out in Social Housing as a Share of All Dwellings, 2012 to 2025.
Findings are presented on the basis of data and evidence alone.
