Migration has long been a key pillar of Australia’s economic growth, helping the country avoid recession since the early 1990s, aside from a brief contraction during the pandemic.
Indians are now Australia’s largest migrant group, supplanting the English for the first time ever, in a change that highlights the rise of immigration as an increasingly contentious political issue.
Some 971,020 people in Australia – or 5.2% of the population – were born in India, narrowly surpassing the 970,950 born in England, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The England-born population slipped from just over 1 million in 2013.
The third-largest cohort comprises those born in China, at 732,000, followed by 638,000 from New Zealand. The next largest foreign-born populations came from Philippines, Vietnam, South Africa, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.
Overall, Australia’s overseas-born population reached 8.8 million in 2025, accounting for 32 per cent of the country’s 27.6 million inhabitants. Rest of the 18.8 million people were born within the country, figures showed.
“The median age of those born overseas has fluctuated over time, peaking at a median of 46 years in 2002 and decreasing to 44 years in 2019,” the ABS said in its press release on Wednesday.
Migration has long been a key pillar of Australia’s economic growth, helping the country avoid recession since the early 1990s, aside from a brief contraction during the pandemic. The population fell in 2021 due to international border closures, but the share of overseas-born residents has steadily risen each year since, climbing to 32% in 2025 from 29.5% in 2022, according to the ABS.
At the same time, immigration has become a political flashpoint as Australia grapples with its worst housing shortage in a generation. The issue has fueled support for the populist One Nation party, which has surged in opinion polls since last year’s election. Its leader Pauline Hanson, has campaigned against immigration for decades. Australian Human Rights Commission has warned that job insecurity and the technological revolution were driving rising anti-immigration rhetoric.