New dwelling approvals are up 8.7 per cent nationally. But the build is not lifting evenly. Here is where the work is moving, state by state, and what it means for builders deciding where to put their capacity.

The Good Builder  ·  June 2026

If you want to know how the housing recovery is really going, the national number will only get you so far.

Across the first ten months of the 2025/26 financial year, Australia approved 167,233 new dwellings. That is up 8.7 per cent on the same ten months a year earlier. Seven of the eight states and territories grew. On the surface, the pipeline is refilling and the recovery looks broad.

Pull the data apart, though, and a very different picture emerges. The recovery has a geography. Queensland is doing the heavy lifting. Victoria, the largest market in the country by volume, is the only big state going backwards. And inside almost every state, the building is quietly shifting out of the established growth corridors and into the next ring of councils.

For builders, this matters more than the headline. Where the approvals are landing tells you where the forward work is, which markets are tightening, and which corridors have cooled. Below is the state-by-state breakdown, drawn from ABS building approvals data at the local government level.

The national picture: a recovery that is not evenly shared

The first thing to understand is that this is a composition shift, not a uniform lift. The growth is clustering in South-East Queensland and the outer northern fringe of Perth. The soft spots are concentrated in Melbourne’s established greenfield corridors. Add it all up and you get an 8.7 per cent national rise that hides a lot of movement underneath.

The second thing is the spread of activity within each state. In several markets the big, well-known growth councils have flattened or fallen, while second-ring and regional councils have surged. That is the clearest signal in the data of where the action is moving: developers chasing land either further out or back into the middle ring.

Here is how the eight jurisdictions stack up, ranked by year-on-year growth across the ten months to April 2026.

Jurisdiction	New dwellings (YTD)	Change	Top LGA
Australian Capital Territory	3,429	+77.8%	Single jurisdiction
Queensland	38,877	+22.2%	Brisbane (7,098)
Northern Territory	665	+13.3%	Palmerston (204)
Western Australia	21,090	+10.8%	Wanneroo (3,301)
Tasmania	2,151	+9.0%	Clarence (240)
New South Wales	42,215	+8.3%	Parramatta (2,563)
South Australia	12,214	+3.3%	Playford (1,756)
Victoria	46,592	-2.3%	Melton (3,766)

New total-residential dwelling units approved, all sectors, July 2025 to April 2026, against the same ten months a year earlier. Source: ABS Building Approvals by Local Government Area.

Victoria is still the largest market by volume. It just is not growing. Keep that tension in mind as you read on, because it sits at the heart of the national story.

Queensland: the national engine

Queensland is the standout, and not by a small margin. New dwelling approvals across the state rose 22.2 per cent year on year, the fastest growth of any large market in the country.

Brisbane leads on raw volume with 7,098 approvals, up 17 per cent. But the real story is the breadth. The Gold Coast is surging, up around 71 per cent. Moreton Bay is up 28 per cent, Logan 27 per cent, and Toowoomba a remarkable 79 per cent. This is not one hot council carrying the state. It is activity spread right across the South-East corner and out into the regions.

That breadth shows up in the numbers a different way too. Greater Brisbane accounts for just 54 per cent of the state’s approvals, the lowest capital-city share on the mainland. Because the South-East corridor spreads work across the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast as well as Brisbane itself, Queensland is both the fastest-growing and the most decentralised big building market in the country.

For builders, that combination is rare and worth understanding. Growth that is concentrated in a single council is fragile. Growth that is spread across half a dozen LGAs is more durable, because it is supported by a wider base of land release, population inflow and developer activity. Queensland’s detached housing strength echoes the best detached-house approval result since 2021 that the national figures flagged earlier this year.

New South Wales: broadening beyond the west

New South Wales grew a solid 8.3 per cent, but the interesting part is where the growth came from. The big western-growth councils that have driven Sydney’s expansion for years have flattened. Parramatta, the top LGA by volume at 2,563 approvals, is actually down 14 per cent. The Hills and Blacktown are both broadly flat.

Meanwhile, the next ring is surging. Sutherland is up 91 per cent. Canada Bay is up 88 per cent. Penrith is up 76 per cent, and the Inner West has more than doubled, up 122 per cent. Sydney’s growth front is moving south and into the middle ring, rather than continuing to push west.

Greater Sydney makes up 67 per cent of the state’s approvals, a more balanced split than Perth or Adelaide. For builders, the message is that the established western corridors are no longer the only game. The opportunity is broadening, and the councils that were quiet two years ago are now where the momentum sits.

Victoria: the cautionary tale

Victoria is the outlier, and it is an important one. It is the only state going backwards, with approvals down 2.3 per cent year on year, even as it remains the largest single market in the country at 46,592 approvals.

The drag is coming squarely from the established greenfield corridors. Wyndham is down 12 per cent, Hume down 15 per cent, and Casey down 6 per cent. These are the outer-growth machines that powered Melbourne’s expansion through the last decade, and they have stalled.

The offset is coming from two directions: the regions and the inner suburbs. Geelong is up 24 per cent. Darebin has jumped 81 per cent, Monash 50 per cent, and Frankston a striking 169 per cent. So Victoria is not collapsing. The build is shifting inward and regional while the outer corridors cool.

The obvious question for builders and policymakers alike is why Melbourne’s outer corridors have softened. The candidates are finance conditions, the pace of land release, and buyer demand, and it is likely some mix of all three. Whatever the cause, the lesson for any builder working those corridors is the same one that holds in every cycle: do not start a build without finance approval in place before a slab goes down. When a corridor cools, the builders who started on a handshake are the ones left exposed.

Western Australia: Perth’s outer north powers on

Western Australia grew 10.8 per cent, and it is the most capital-concentrated market in the country. Fully 86 per cent of the state’s approvals sit within Greater Perth.

Wanneroo dominates, with 3,301 approvals, up 15 per cent, the largest single LGA total of any state outside Brisbane. Around it, the Perth fringe is lifting hard. Stirling is up 46 per cent, Cockburn 41 per cent, and Serpentine-Jarrahdale an enormous 88 per cent.

The takeaway for WA builders is blunt: this recovery is almost entirely a Perth-fringe story. There is very little happening at scale outside the metropolitan area. If your capacity is in the wrong part of the state, the statewide growth figure will not feel like growth at all. Location is doing more work here than in any other market.

South Australia: steady and Adelaide-led

South Australia is the quiet achiever. Growth was modest at 3.3 per cent, and the market is heavily metropolitan, with 82 per cent of approvals inside Greater Adelaide.

Playford still leads on volume with 1,756 approvals, despite a slight pullback. The growth is coming from the councils around it: Salisbury is up 44 per cent, Onkaparinga 39 per cent, and Gawler 178 per cent, though that last figure comes off a small base and should be read with care.

South Australia will not generate dramatic headlines. But modest and durable is its own kind of advantage. For builders who value a stable, predictable pipeline over a boom-and-bust corridor, Adelaide’s steady metro growth is exactly the kind of market that lets you plan capacity and cash flow with some confidence.

Tasmania: the least capital-concentrated state

Tasmania grew 9.0 per cent, a genuinely strong result, and it carries a distinction worth noting: it is the least capital-concentrated market in the country. Greater Hobart accounts for just 42 per cent of the state’s approvals.

That means the north of the state carries real weight. Launceston, the Tamar valley and the northern midlands are not an afterthought to a Hobart-dominated market; they are close to half of it. Hobart itself jumped 106 per cent, though off a low base, and Clarence led on volume with 240 approvals.

The caveat with Tasmania is scale. The absolute numbers are small, which means year-on-year percentages can swing hard on a handful of approvals. Read the direction of travel here, not the precise percentage. The direction is clearly up, and the activity is genuinely spread across the state.

Northern Territory: a small-base bounce

The Northern Territory grew 13.3 per cent, with Greater Darwin, taking in Palmerston, Darwin and Litchfield, accounting for roughly two-thirds of activity. Palmerston led on volume with 204 approvals.

The honest framing here is caution. The top LGA in the entire territory approved only around 200 dwellings, so every percentage figure should be treated as indicative rather than precise. A bounce off a low base is still a bounce, and the direction is positive. But this is a market where a single large project can move the numbers, so builders should read the trend rather than any single figure.

Australian Capital Territory: the biggest jump in the country

The ACT recorded the largest year-on-year jump of any jurisdiction, with approvals nearly doubling, up 77.8 per cent. That came off a low 2024/25 base, which explains much of the size of the percentage, but in growth terms it leads the nation outright.

There is no LGA-level chart for the ACT, because it is a single unincorporated jurisdiction rather than a collection of councils. So while it tops the growth table, it does not slot into the same council-by-council analysis as the states. Worth a line on its own, and worth watching, but read in the context of where it started.

What the whole picture tells builders

Step back from the individual states and a few patterns are worth carrying into your own planning.

The recovery has a clear geography. It is not lifting all boats. The growth is concentrated in South-East Queensland and outer Perth, while Melbourne’s greenfield corridors are the national soft spot. If your read on the market comes only from the national figure, you are missing most of the story.

There is also a capital-concentration spectrum worth knowing. From most to least capital-centric, it runs Western Australia at 86 per cent, then South Australia at 82, Victoria at 78, New South Wales at 67, the Northern Territory at 66, Queensland at 54, and Tasmania at 42. Queensland and Tasmania are the genuinely polycentric building markets in the country, where activity is spread well beyond the capital. That changes how you think about capacity, travel time and where your next job is likely to come from.

And there is the next-ring rotation. In both New South Wales and Victoria, the established growth councils are flat or falling while second-ring and regional councils surge. That is a signal developers are moving, either chasing cheaper land further out or returning to the middle ring. Watching which way your local councils are trending is a practical early warning system for where the work will be in twelve to eighteen months.

THE GOOD BUILDER TAKE What building approvals actually measure: an approval is permission to build, not a home finished. Approvals sit ahead of commencements and completions in the pipeline, so a rise signals future work, not current activity on the ground. These figures count new dwellings only. They exclude alterations, additions and conversions, which is why the totals here are lower than the headline “total dwellings” numbers that include renovation work. Geography is the location of the building itself, by the council in which it is approved. That makes it a reliable guide to where work is genuinely happening, free of the head-office distortion that affects builder-ranking data.

The bottom line

Australia’s home-building pipeline is refilling, and that is real. But the refill is lopsided. Queensland is the engine, broad and decentralised. Victoria is the cautionary tale, the biggest market in the country and the only large one shrinking. And almost everywhere, the build is rotating out of the old growth corridors into the next ring.

For builders, the practical takeaway is to plan from the local data, not the national headline. Approvals are a leading indicator, not homes finished, so they tell you where to look, not what to bank. The states moving fastest are not always the ones you would expect, and within each state the hottest councils are shifting under your feet. Read your own patch closely, and you will see the next wave of work before it arrives.

Your Questions Answered:

Which Australian state is building the most homes in 2026?

By volume, Victoria is still the largest market, with 46,592 new dwellings approved in the first ten months of FY2025/26. But it is the only big state going backwards, down 2.3 per cent year on year. Queensland is the real engine. At 38,877 approvals it is growing 22.2 per cent, the fastest of any large market, and that growth is spread across Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Moreton Bay, Logan and Toowoomba rather than concentrated in one council.

Why are dwelling approvals falling in Victoria?

The fall is coming from Melbourne’s established greenfield corridors. Wyndham is down 12 per cent, Hume down 15 per cent and Casey down 6 per cent. These were the outer-growth engines of the last decade and they have stalled. The state is not collapsing, though. The regions and inner suburbs are picking up, with Geelong up 24 per cent, Darebin up 81 per cent and Frankston up 169 per cent. The build is shifting inward and regional while the outer corridors cool. The likely drivers are some mix of finance conditions, the pace of land release and buyer demand.

What is the difference between building approvals and homes built?

An approval is permission to build, not a finished home. Approvals sit at the front of the pipeline, ahead of commencements and completions, so a rise tells you work is coming, not that homes are being handed over. Plenty can happen between the two: financing, infrastructure, planning conditions and labour availability all affect whether an approved project actually proceeds. Read approvals as a leading indicator of where the work is heading, not a count of what has been delivered.

Which Australian cities have the highest share of their state’s building activity?

Perth is the most dominant, accounting for 86 per cent of Western Australia’s approvals. Then it runs Adelaide at 82 per cent, Melbourne at 78, Sydney at 67, Darwin at 66, Brisbane at 54 and Hobart at just 42. Queensland and Tasmania are the genuinely polycentric building markets, where activity is spread well beyond the capital. That changes how builders in those states think about capacity, travel time and where the next job is likely to come from.

Where in Queensland is the most residential building happening?

Brisbane leads on raw volume with 7,098 approvals, up 17 per cent. But the growth is broad. The Gold Coast is up around 71 per cent, Moreton Bay 28 per cent, Logan 27 per cent and Toowoomba 79 per cent. Greater Brisbane is only 54 per cent of the state total, the lowest capital share on the mainland, because the South-East corner spreads work across the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast as well as the capital.

Last updated: June 2026

Figures are sourced from ABS Building Approvals by Local Government Area (dataflows BA_LGA2024 and BA_LGA2025), new total-residential dwelling units approved, all sectors, original series, for the ten months July 2025 to April 2026 against the same period a year earlier.

This article is intended for general information purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal or professional advice. Readers should seek independent advice before making business or investment decisions based on information contained in this article.