Six of Australia’s eight states and territories told National Cabinet how long a development approval takes. Their medians for the six months to September 2025 run from 18 days in South Australia to 146 in Victoria, but they are not counted in the same way. Some are calendar days and some are business days. Some stop the clock while the council waits on the applicant, and each covers a different mix of applications. Victoria’s own dashboard, for the same six months, gives a median of 70 calendar days. Queensland did not submit a figure and Western Australia gave only a share decided on time. Work through housing ministers on nationally consistent housing definitions has been closed, and planning ministers are to work on performance metrics instead. A national figure for how long a development approval takes cannot be built from what is published: NIL RETURN.
Node reading for Planning Regulations & Zoning Policy (21320): NIL RETURN. This article rests on the source data alone.
What an approval time measures
A development application asks a council, or a state body, for permission to build. Its approval time is usually counted from lodgement, when the application is accepted as complete, to determination, when it is approved or refused. Three choices change the number before any application is counted. The first is whether days are calendar days or business days: 146 business days is about 29 weeks, and 146 calendar days is about 21. The second is whether the clock stops while the council waits for the applicant to supply more information. Where it stops, the reported time can be well short of the time the applicant actually waited. The third is which applications are included: many states send simple proposals down faster pathways, and whether those are counted changes the median.
A median is the middle application: half take less time, half take more. It says nothing about the slowest applications, which is why some states also report the 90th percentile, the time within which nine in ten are decided.
What the states reported to National Cabinet
Under the National Planning Reform Blueprint, each state and territory reports against ten measures. For the September 2025 round, Treasury compiled the returns into a single workbook, published in June 2026 and discussed for zoned land in How Much Land Is Zoned for Housing? What the States Report. One sheet reports development approval times.
| Jurisdiction | Median | 90th percentile | Decided within statutory time | Unit, as the Productivity Commission labels it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales, local development applications | 59 | 190 | 75% | Calendar days |
| Victoria | 146 | 374 | 61% | Business days |
| Queensland | Not submitted | Not submitted | Not submitted | — |
| South Australia | 18 | 50–52 | 79–81% | Calendar days |
| Western Australia, local government | Not submitted | Not submitted | 83% | — |
| Tasmania | 20–37 | See below (note not in the file) | 92% | Calendar days (37) |
| Northern Territory | 40 | 83 | 87% | Business days |
| Australian Capital Territory | 39.6 | See below (note not in the file) | 75% | Calendar days (40) |
As reported. The workbook states no unit and no reference period; the unit column is from the Productivity Commission’s Table 3.1, which gives the period as the six months to September 2025 and rounds the Tasmanian and ACT entries to 37 and 40 days. New South Wales reports seven approval pathways separately; the local development application row is shown, and its complying development certificates, a separate fast-track pathway, have a median of 11. Western Australia also reported a median of 85 for applications decided by the Western Australian Planning Commission. Source: Treasury, National Planning Reform Blueprint, Metric report compiled, September 2025 (published June 2026), Measures 5 and 6; Productivity Commission, Housing supply regulation, interim report (July 2026), Table 3.1.
Median development approval time, as reported, six months to September 2025
Days, in the unit shown against each bar; business days and calendar days are not the same length. Queensland and Western Australia did not submit a median. The bars are not a ranking. Source: Productivity Commission, Housing supply regulation, interim report (July 2026), Table 3.1, from the National Planning Reform Blueprint September 2025 metric report.
The bars differ in more than their unit. Most of South Australia’s residential zones offer a “deemed-to-satisfy” pathway for new dwellings, with consent guaranteed within 5 business days of lodgement, and between 16% and 20% of its approvals go through alternative pathways. Tasmania’s progress report puts its median below 40 statutory calendar days where there has been public notification and around 20 where the proposal complies, and its figure leaves out single dwellings that need no permit at all. In New South Wales, 46% of approvals go through complying development certificates rather than development applications. In Victoria the share is 6%. A state that moves simple proposals out of the development application stream is left with harder applications in it, and its median can rise for that reason alone, whatever its councils do.
Victoria: one state, two figures
Victoria’s Planning Permit Activity Reporting dashboard, which the Productivity Commission cites as an example of best practice, reports applications received and decided, times, outcomes and appeals, by council and month, back to 2015. It counts calendar days from receipt of an application to the council’s decision.
For April to September 2025, the period of the Blueprint return, the dashboard gives a median of 70 calendar days across all applications: 95 for standard applications and 14 for VicSmart, the 10-business-day pathway for simple proposals. 72.4% were decided within the statutory time. Victoria’s Blueprint return gives a median of 146, which the Productivity Commission labels business days, and 61% decided within the statutory time. Neither pair matches. The dashboard’s average for standard applications over the same six months was 147.1 calendar days. The return does not say which measure it reports.
Median days to a council decision, Victoria, by calendar year
Calendar days from receipt of an application to the responsible authority’s decision. Standard applications exclude the VicSmart fast-track pathway. Earlier years are left out: 2015 holds about two-thirds as many decisions as 2016. Source: Victorian Department of Transport and Planning, Planning Permit Activity Reporting dashboard, read 26 September 2026.
On its own measure, Victoria’s median rose from 69 days in 2020 to 90 in 2022 and 89 in 2023, and has fallen in each year since, to 73 in 2025. Standard applications peaked at 112 days in 2022 and 2023 and stood at 98 in 2025. The share decided within the statutory time was lowest in 2022, at 62.28%, and highest in 2025, at 71.02%. The dashboard also reports outcomes. In 2025, 32,797 applications ended with a permit issued and 5,773, 15.0%, without one, whether refused or ended another way. The Productivity Commission adds that at least one request for further information was made in 47% of Victorian applications in 2025.
The Australian Capital Territory: month by month
The Australian Capital Territory publishes monthly figures for applications lodged, decided within time, and the average and median days to a decision, from July 2019. In the 2021–22 to 2024–25 tables, its figures are split between the Planning and Development Act 2007 and the Planning Act 2023, which replaced it as the law under which applications are decided. Applications under the new Act first appear in January 2024, and the first decisions under it in February 2024.
Median days to a decision, Australian Capital Territory, by month
Days, by month of decision. The Planning and Development Act 2007 line ends in January 2024; decisions on the last applications lodged under it continued until April 2025, with monthly medians of 51 to 352 days, and are not shown. From July 2025 the statistics report a single total. The day basis is not stated. Source: ACT Planning, Development Applications (DA) Statistics, 2019–20 to 2026–27, read 26 September 2026.
Under the 2007 Act, the median fell from 112 days in July 2019 to 25 in June 2020, and ran between 30 and 60 days from July 2021 to the end of 2023. Under the new Act, the median of the twelve monthly medians to August 2026 is 39 days. In August 2026 the median was 33 days and 86% of applications were decided within time. The figures cover all applications together; timing is not published by type, and the statistics do not say whether the clock stops.
New South Wales: targets in gross days
New South Wales sets targets for councils in its Statement of Expectations Order. From 1 July 2026, councils are expected to decide development applications within an average of 90 days of lodgement, falling to 80 days from 1 July 2027 and 65 days from 1 July 2028, against 105 days in 2025–26. The measure is an average of calendar days, weekends and public holidays included, and time spent waiting for the applicant is not taken out: the Order calls these gross days. Each council’s average is published monthly on a league table.
These targets are averages, and the Blueprint return is a median, so the two cannot be set against each other. An average is pulled up by the slowest applications in a way a median is not. New South Wales also publishes the lodgement and determination dates of every application made through its Planning Portal as open data, from which a median can be computed on the same gross-day basis. Those data are analysed in Residential Development Applications in NSW: How Long a Decision Takes.
The states that report little
Queensland submitted no approval time to the Blueprint, and the Productivity Commission notes that it provides almost no reporting on development approval timeframes, even at the aggregate level. Western Australia’s councils have had statutory timeframes of 60 days, or 90 where public consultation is required, since at least 2005, but reporting against them is voluntary; the state returned only the share decided within time, 83%. The Northern Territory reported a median of 40 business days and 87% decided within time.
Appeals, where a decision is contested
An applicant who is refused, or who waits past the statutory time, can usually appeal to a court or tribunal. Each state reports its own forum’s workload.
| Jurisdiction | Forum | Latest reported | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | Land and Environment Court, Class 1 | 979 registrations (2024). Of the Class 1 matters finalised, 70% were appeals against development application decisions; 58% of those were deemed refusals, where the council had not decided within the statutory time | Calendar year |
| Victoria | VCAT, Planning and Environment List | 1,540 cases initiated (2023–24), down from 2,013 in 2020–21 | Financial year |
| Queensland | Planning and Environment Court | 288 lodgements (2024–25) | Financial year |
| South Australia | Environment, Resources and Development Court | 121 appeals lodged, all types (2024–25) | Financial year |
| Western Australia | State Administrative Tribunal, Planning and Development | 157 lodgements (2024–25); median time to finalise 26 weeks | Financial year |
Sources: Land and Environment Court of NSW, Annual Review 2024; VCAT, case data 2023–24; District Court of Queensland, Annual Report 2024–25; Courts Administration Authority of South Australia, “at a glance” data 2024–25; State Administrative Tribunal of Western Australia, Annual Report 2024–25.
These counts describe the forums, not the approval systems. Appeal rights, the rules on deemed refusal and the share of development that needs an application at all differ from state to state, so a higher count does not mean a slower system. The New South Wales figure is the one that bears on assessment time: more than half of the development appeals finalised in 2024 were brought because the council had not decided in time.
Why there is no national figure
A national figure needs one definition applied everywhere: calendar or business days, whether the clock stops, which pathways count, and over what period. The Blueprint asked every jurisdiction for the same four statistics, and received six medians on at least two day bases, and none from Queensland or Western Australia. Treasury’s progress summary for the round states that, given the variation across jurisdictions, work through the Housing and Homelessness Ministerial Council on nationally consistent definitions for key housing terms is no longer underway, and that planning ministers will instead collaborate on improved performance metrics. The Productivity Commission’s interim report proposes that states report the days from lodgement to determination without stop-the-clock periods, together with outcomes, referrals, appeals and requests for information, by council and development type. Victoria’s dashboard comes closest; no other state publishes most of these. A national median development approval time cannot be built from what is published: NIL RETURN.
What this does not show
An approval time is one stage in getting a home built. It says nothing about the rezoning that may come before it, or the building approval, subdivision and construction that come after. How many approved dwellings go on to start construction is covered in From Approval to Start: The Conversion Gap. A longer median can reflect harder applications rather than slower councils, and a shorter one can reflect a pathway that moves simple proposals out of the count. Nothing here ranks the states, because their figures do not measure the same thing.
Findings are presented on the basis of data and evidence alone.
