New South Wales publishes the lodgement and determination date of every development application made through its Planning Portal. For applications to build at least one new home, the median time from lodgement to decision was 62 days in the June quarter 2026, down from a peak of 96 days in the March quarter 2024. The slowest tenth of applications fell further: the 90th percentile was 188 days, against 306 at its highest. The fall shows in every size of application, from a single house to multi-dwelling projects. These are gross calendar days, counting any time the council spent waiting on the applicant, the basis on which the state sets its council targets.
Node reading for Planning Regulations & Zoning Policy (21320): NIL RETURN. This article rests on the source data alone.
What the data count
Since 1 July 2021, every council in New South Wales has had to receive development applications through the state’s Planning Portal, and the portal’s records are published as open data. Each entry carries the date the application was lodged, the date it was determined, its status and the number of new dwellings it proposes. This piece takes every development application lodged from July 2021 that proposes at least one new dwelling, and counts the calendar days from lodgement to determination. Modifications of existing consents and reviews of earlier decisions are left out.
Days are counted gross: weekends, public holidays and any time the council spent waiting for more information from the applicant are all included. That is the basis New South Wales uses for its council targets, and the one the Productivity Commission’s interim report describes as best practice for reporting, a count from lodgement to determination without stop-the-clock periods. Applications are grouped by the quarter in which they were decided. Each quarter therefore counts every decision made in it, however long the application took.
How long a decision takes
Days from lodgement to decision, residential development applications, NSW, by quarter decided
Gross calendar days. Development applications proposing one or more new dwellings, decided in the quarter. Source: NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure, Planning Portal Online DA Data (CC BY), applications lodged from 1 July 2021, retrieved 26 September 2026.
The median rose from 75 days in the September quarter 2023 to 96 in the March quarter 2024, and has fallen since. Across the four quarters to June 2026 it ranged from 59 to 71 days, and each of those quarters was below each of the four quarters to June 2024. The 90th percentile, the time within which nine in ten applications were decided, moved further: from 306 days in the December quarter 2023 to 188 in the June quarter 2026. The slow end fell further than the middle.
| Quarter decided | Applications decided | Median | 90th percentile | Average | Decided within 90 days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| September quarter 2023 | 6,580 | 75 | 297 | 121.9 | 56.7% |
| December quarter 2023 | 6,046 | 80 | 306 | 126.4 | 54.5% |
| March quarter 2024 | 4,777 | 96 | 273 | 131.7 | 47.6% |
| June quarter 2024 | 4,928 | 85 | 287 | 131.4 | 52.1% |
| September quarter 2024 | 4,928 | 74 | 284 | 119.6 | 57.8% |
| December quarter 2024 | 4,891 | 70 | 246 | 111.6 | 61.0% |
| March quarter 2025 | 4,282 | 77 | 220 | 109.2 | 58.2% |
| June quarter 2025 | 4,624 | 68 | 236 | 111.0 | 61.1% |
| September quarter 2025 | 4,991 | 59 | 182 | 90.1 | 68.9% |
| December quarter 2025 | 4,698 | 61 | 166 | 87.2 | 68.6% |
| March quarter 2026 | 4,355 | 71 | 168 | 91.0 | 61.8% |
| June quarter 2026 | 4,773 | 62 | 188 | 89.3 | 66.3% |
Gross calendar days, by quarter decided. Source: NSW Planning Portal Online DA Data.
More applications were decided in each of the September and December quarters of 2023 than in any quarter since; from March 2024 the count has held between about 4,300 and 5,000 a quarter, as the table shows. The count is of applications, not homes, and an application may propose one dwelling or several hundred.
Against the targets
From 1 July 2026, New South Wales expects each council 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. The target is an average, not a median, and it applies to each council’s own applications of every kind. The average across all residential applications in the state is shown below for reference; it is not a test of any council.
Average days from lodgement to decision, residential development applications, NSW, by quarter decided
Gross calendar days. The dotted line marks 90 days, the average each council is expected to meet from 1 July 2026 under the Statement of Expectations Order 2026; it applies to each council’s applications of all kinds, not to this statewide residential figure. Source: NSW Planning Portal Online DA Data.
The statewide average for residential applications was 89 days in the June quarter 2026, down from 132 in the March quarter 2024. An average sits well above the median because a minority of applications take far longer than most: in the June quarter 2026, 66.3% of residential applications were decided within 90 days, against 56.7% in the September quarter 2023.
By size of project
Most residential applications are for a single new dwelling: 80% of those decided in the year to June 2026. Larger proposals take longer, and the time fell in each size band.
Median days from lodgement to decision by number of new dwellings, NSW
Gross calendar days, applications decided in the twelve months to June 2024 and to June 2026. Applications recording ten or more dwellings are in the table below, not the chart, because the dwelling field carries evident entry errors at the high end. Source: NSW Planning Portal Online DA Data.
| New dwellings in the application | July 2023 to June 2024 | July 2025 to June 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 dwelling | 72 days (18,043 applications) | 56 days (15,146 applications) |
| 2 dwellings | 117 days (2,903 applications) | 86 days (2,577 applications) |
| 3 to 9 dwellings | 233 days (816 applications) | 145 days (631 applications) |
| 10 or more, as recorded | 358 days (569 applications) | 232 days (463 applications) |
The median for a single dwelling fell from 72 to 56 days between the two years, and for two dwellings, typically a dual occupancy, from 117 to 86. The dwelling count is entered by the applicant and is not checked: one application for a pool records 6,998 new dwellings. The bands are indicative for that reason, and the piece reports no totals of dwellings.
Applications that end without a decision
Not every application reaches a decision. Of the residential applications lodged in each year to June 2025, about 93% were decided, between 5% and 6% were withdrawn by the applicant, and around 1% were recorded as rejected.
| Lodged in | Decided | Withdrawn | Rejected | Still open |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021–22 | 93.2% | 5.4% | 1.1% | 0.2% |
| 2022–23 | 93.0% | 5.9% | 0.9% | 0.2% |
| 2023–24 | 93.5% | 5.7% | 0.6% | 0.3% |
| 2024–25 | 93.1% | 5.7% | 0.7% | 0.5% |
Share of residential development applications lodged in each financial year, by status on 26 September 2026. Source: NSW Planning Portal Online DA Data.
The records show that an application was determined, but not whether it was approved or refused, so this piece reports no refusal rate. Appeals to the Land and Environment Court, including those against a council’s failure to decide in time, are covered in How Long Does a Development Approval Take? What Each State Reports.
How this compares with the national reporting
New South Wales told the National Planning Reform Blueprint that the median time for all local development applications in the six months to September 2025 was 59 calendar days. For residential applications proposing new dwellings, decided over the same six months, the portal records give a median of 63 days. The portal figure is in gross calendar days; the Blueprint return does not state whether its count stops the clock. The two cover different sets of applications, and are close. How the Blueprint figures compare across states, and why they cannot be combined, is set out in the companion piece.
What this does not show
These figures cover New South Wales only; they are not a national measure. They count days to a council’s or panel’s decision, not the time to a building approval, to the start of construction or to completion; how many approved dwellings start construction is covered in From Approval to Start: The Conversion Gap. A shorter median can reflect easier applications as well as faster assessment, and the mix of applications changes from quarter to quarter. The series begins in the September quarter 2023: the records start with applications lodged in July 2021, so earlier quarters would miss decisions on older applications. In 2025, 0.6% of decisions were on applications lodged more than two years earlier, which is the share the first quarter shown may be missing.
Findings are presented on the basis of data and evidence alone.
