The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has identified four travel trends in overseas arrivals data for the 2025-26 financial year.
1. Travel to Australia is on the rise but hasn’t reached its pre-COVID-19 peak
Short-term visitor arrivals to Australia rose by eight per cent over 2025-26 to 9.1 million.
While visits to Australia have risen for the fifth year in a row, they are still three per cent lower than the peak number of visitors to Australia, which was 9.3 million in 2018-19.
2. Australia is a great place for a holiday
Holiday was again the most popular reason for visiting Australia with 45 per cent of visitors here for a holiday. This was followed by 32 per cent of visitors coming to visit family or friends and six per cent whose reason for visiting was education.
3. New Zealanders love a trip across the ditch
New Zealanders took 1.4 million trips to Australia this year, more than from any other country. They were also the most common travellers 10 years ago.
The top five countries visitors came to Australia from were New Zealand, China, the United States, the United Kingdom and Singapore.
4. Australia is the place to be for Gen Z
The 25 to 29 year-old age group made up the largest cohort of visitor arrivals over the period.
China was the top country of residence for this age group – making up 15 per cent of visitors from this age group.
International arrivals June 2026
The latest ABS data shows there were 566,910 short-term visitor arrivals to Australia in June 2026, a decrease of 9.2 per cent on one year earlier.
The number of trips was 14.1 per cent lower than the pre-COVID-19 level in June 2019.
The three leading source countries for visitors were:
- New Zealand (98,960 trips)
- China (58,970)
- Singapore (54,260).
The highest number of visitor arrivals for short-term trips was observed for NSW (200,580, down 7.8 per cent year-on-year).
The three leading source countries for visitors to NSW were:
- New Zealand (20,640 trips)
- China (18,640)
- Singapore (15,530).
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