Income percentiles in Australia
Where each yearly income band starts in Australia, in AUD, and what a reading there measures.
Reference data version 2026.4, reference year 2024.
Three cut-offs
- Bottom tenth
- under A$36,000 a year
- Top tenth
- from A$170,000 a year
- Top hundredth
- from A$350,000 a year
The middle of the distribution, the 40th to 55th percentile, is A$67,000 – A$83,000 a year.
Every band
The 11 bands the income question offers in Australia, verbatim, lowest first.
| Band | Yearly income |
|---|---|
| Below the 10th percentile | under A$36,000 |
| 10th to 25th percentile | A$36,000 – A$54,000 |
| 25th to 40th percentile | A$54,000 – A$67,000 |
| 40th to 55th percentile | A$67,000 – A$83,000 |
| 55th to 70th percentile | A$83,000 – A$100,000 |
| 70th to 80th percentile | A$100,000 – A$130,000 |
| 80th to 90th percentile | A$130,000 – A$170,000 |
| 90th to 95th percentile | A$170,000 – A$200,000 |
| 95th to 98th percentile | A$200,000 – A$280,000 |
| 98th to 99th percentile | A$280,000 – A$350,000 |
| Top 1% | A$350,000 or more |
Per earner. The source publishes household income divided by everyone in the household; the labels multiply it by 1.90, the people one worker's income stands for in Australia, so a person can place their own income.
What the data rests on
- Confidence
- Medium
- Years covered
- 1981 to 2024
- Survey-based years
- 30% of covered years
- Nearest survey
- 4 years from 2024
- Age bands
- 6 of 6 resolved by the OECD
- Measured on
- income
- Currency
- AUD (A$)
Why: the span is short of the longest horizon; 30% of covered years rest on a survey; the nearest survey is 4 years from the reference year.
What a reading in Australia measures
- Your place: which of the bands above your income is in now, against the band it was in a year ago, read as a position in the income distribution of Australia itself.
- Your ground: both incomes with consumer prices in Australia taken out, against how the middle of the distribution moved over the same year.
- Nothing is compared across borders. A reading in Australia is measured against Australia alone.
A band is a range, so a move inside one band does not register, and published distributions understate the very top. The confidence level above travels onto every card measured here.