PERMANENT
Permanent migrant arrivals
Arriving with a permanent visa. People receiving a visa while already here are not added again.
people / year
0800,000
19 years. Different choices.
Explore Australia’s demographic future.
Choose a reference. Change permanent and temporary arrivals in any year. See the population respond.
1. Explore four immigration pathways
All four stay visible. Your custom pathway appears in coral.
Net overseas migration means people arriving to live in Australia minus residents leaving to live overseas. Each rate shows this annual balance as a percentage of the population. P4 uses the article-stated 0.26% selected-country setting, not a verified global average.
Both charts adjust to fit all five lines. Read their vertical scales when comparing them.
Move this slider, point at a chart, or focus a chart and use the arrow keys to select a year. The slider and both charts stay together.
2. Change migrant arrivals
People arriving to join the resident population, not visa grants.
TEMPORARY
Temporary migrant arrivals
Includes qualifying students, workers and other temporary residents. Short visits outside the ABS residence rule are excluded.
people / year
01,200,000
Population account ·
Permanent + temporary arrivals—
Other arrivals Australian / NZ citizens—
All migrant departures—
= Net overseas migration—
Departures follow the reference pathway.
Departure assumptions What happens after arrivals change?
With fixed departures, fewer arrivals can produce negative net migration because residents still leave. A temporary arrival does not imply a permanent addition: the annual departure flows also matter.
Illustrative response assumptions, not measured return probabilities. An extra 10,000 temporary arrivals with an 80% / 3-year response adds 8,000 to departures three years later. A reduction subtracts departures later, with a floor of zero. Changes after 2045 are outside this display.
This is an annual flow model, not a visa-status register. It does not track who changes visa or becomes a citizen. Both arrival groups use the same observed all-arrival age profile; the departure profile differs. If arrival totals and departures are equal, changing the permanent/temporary mix alone does not change population.
Edit the full 19-year schedule Set a different number in every year
| Financial year | Permanent arrivals | Temporary arrivals | All departures | Resulting net migration |
|---|
Scenario settings used for these results
3. Read the consequences
Compare the same year and the same population measure.
Residents aged 65 and over in 2045—Updates with the year selected using the inspection slider above.
View the numerical results Accessible annual comparison and export
| June | Custom population | P1 | P2 | P3 | P4 | Custom 20–64 | Custom 65+ count | Custom 65+ (% of population) | 65+ / 100 aged 20–64 | Custom net overseas migration |
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Understand the model
What this simulation does—and what remains an assumption.
One common starting point
The report begins in June 2025. This simulator moves that age/sex population forward one year using its fertility and survival rules and the Budget’s 295,000 net overseas migration assumption. The June 2026 base is , a model result, not an observed ABS count. All four reference rates are reapplied over the 19 years ending June 2027–2045. Their endpoints therefore differ slightly from the original report.
Arrivals are different from visa grants
Controls count people joining the resident population with a permanent or temporary visa at arrival. ABS uses residence for 12 months within 16. Australian and New Zealand citizen flows remain in the reference schedule. Giving a permanent visa to a temporary resident already here adds no person and is not represented by increasing the permanent-arrival slider.
Four reference rates, not four visa policies
P1 continues the report’s 25-year net overseas migration rate; P2 and P3 tighten it in equal steps; P4 uses the article-stated 0.26%. None supplies a permanent/temporary forecast. For this interface, all 2024–25 visa/citizen arrival and departure groups are scaled together to each reference net overseas migration total. This is a disclosed illustrative split, not a policy recommendation or official projection.
Residents age; births and deaths continue
The report’s annual age/sex model follows ages 0–100+. Fertility follows the Budget to 1.50 then holds; ABS 2022–2024 survival is fixed. New arrivals and departures are allocated using the report’s separate observed age profiles. Half the annual migration vector is applied before ageing/survival and half after births. No employment, housing-price, fiscal or environmental outcome is estimated.
Sources, precision and limitations
- Based on the Australia demographic report, v0.2.0: source data, four net overseas migration rates, fertility and life tables. The underlying public sources are linked below. All calculation data are included in this simulator.
- ABS Overseas Migration 2024–25, Graphs 1.2 and 1.3: 88,210 permanent and 363,090 temporary arrivals; 18,630 permanent and 147,930 temporary departures. Other citizen flows are separate. Preliminary data; arrivals/departures are classified by visa at their respective movement dates, not matched individuals.
- Rounded visa groups imply net overseas migration of 305,580; rounded age/sex cells imply 305,530. Each set is normalised separately. The aggregate accounting remains exact internally; displayed counts round to people.
- Budget 2026–27 supplies the bridge net overseas migration and fertility assumptions. The bridge uses the report model and does not force its total to match Treasury’s separately rounded population forecast.
- Arrival numbers in the editable schedules are headcounts, not rates automatically recalculated from your custom population. Unedited reference schedules reproduce the four rebased rates exactly. Other flows remain tied to the selected reference.
- Visa-specific age, fertility and survival profiles were not available in the report. The same all-arrival age profile applies to both controls. Delayed departure responses use the observed all-departure age profile, not individual cohort tracking. A return fraction is an illustrative response to a change, not an estimate of eventual residence duration.
- Deaths and departures remain separate. Temporary-resident stocks, onshore visa transitions, individual visa eligibility and people who fail the ABS residence rule are not projected. The fixed-departure default is a conditional assumption, not a prediction that departures are independent of migration policy.
- These are educational what-if calculations, not calibrated probabilities or a substitute for official projections. Fixed survival understates population relative to a comparable improving-survival case; future migration composition and fertility could also change.
- Source cutoff: 7 September 2026. All calculation data are included in this file, so no internet connection is needed to use the simulator. No input is uploaded. Saved JSON retains settings; exported CSV retains calculations. Where your browser permits session storage, valid settings are restored when this tab is refreshed. Closing the tab ends this temporary storage. Save a scenario JSON file to keep it for later. If storage is blocked, the notice above the controls tells you to save before refreshing.
Interface inspiration: En-ROADS, Climate Interactive / MIT Sloan. This is an independent Australia demographic simulator, not affiliated with or validated by those organisations.
Data fingerprint: . Model version 0.1.0 · Interface revision 0.1.2.
Source-file SHA-256 checksums
These identify the exact source files used for this build. They document provenance; they are not a claim of an independent audit.