Federal budget upgrades net migration by 55,000

Leith van Onselen

Tuesday 12 May 2026

Recent federal budgets have notoriously underestimated net overseas migration (NOM), as illustrated below:

Tuesday night’s federal budget is no exception, significantly upgrading NOM forecasts from last year’s budget.

As illustrated below, the NOM forecast has been upgraded by 35,000 for 2025-23 (13%) and by 20,000 in 2026-24 (20,000):

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About the author

Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.