Creditcrest Research
Cost of living by household
Prices rose 3.9% in the year to the June quarter 2026. For the lowest-income fifth of households, living costs rose 4.2%; for the highest-income fifth, 3.6%.
- All households3.8%
Renting or owning
- Renting from a private landlord3.7%
- Renting public housing4.3%
- Owner with a mortgage3.7%
- Owner without a mortgage4.0%
- Recent arrivals shown as renting privately3.7%
Who lives there
- Couple with children3.8%
- One parent with children4.0%
- Couple, no children at home3.6%
- Living alone4.0%
Income
- Lowest-income fifth4.2%
- Second fifth4.0%
- Middle fifth3.9%
- Fourth fifth3.7%
- Highest-income fifth3.6%
The figures
Living costs are what households pay out, as ABS measures them for its own living cost indexes: mortgage interest in, house purchases out. The second column leaves out rent and mortgage interest, the way an assessment counts housing apart from living expenses.
| Household | Living costs | Without rent or mortgage interest |
|---|---|---|
| CPI, all households | 3.9% | — |
| All households, living-cost basis | 3.8% | 4.0% |
| Renting or owning | ||
| Renting from a private landlord | 3.7% | 3.8% |
| Renting public housing | 4.3% | 4.6% |
| Owner with a mortgage | 3.7% | 4.0% |
| Owner without a mortgage | 4.0% | 4.0% |
| Recent arrivals proxy | 3.7% | 3.8% |
| Who lives there | ||
| Couple with children | 3.8% | 4.0% |
| One parent with children | 4.0% | 4.2% |
| Couple, no children at home | 3.6% | 3.7% |
| Living alone | 4.0% | 4.3% |
| Income | ||
| Lowest-income fifth | 4.2% | 4.5% |
| Second fifth | 4.0% | 4.2% |
| Middle fifth | 3.9% | 4.1% |
| Fourth fifth | 3.7% | 3.9% |
| Highest-income fifth | 3.6% | 3.7% |
What moved
The same price rise weighs more on a household that spends more of its budget on it.
| Spending on | Price change | Lowest-income fifth | Highest-income fifth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electricity and gas | 17.5% | 4.6% | 2.2% |
| Tobacco | 10.9% | 3.1% | 0.9% |
| Rates, water and home repairs | 6.8% | 4.7% | 4.3% |
| Insurance | 6.0% | 4.9% | 3.8% |
| Education and child care | 5.5% | 3.7% | 6.4% |
| Health | 3.9% | 7.3% | 6.8% |
| Rent | 3.5% | 11.4% | 4.6% |
| Food and non-alcoholic drinks | 3.2% | 19.2% | 15.2% |
| Transport | 3.1% | 8.5% | 10.4% |
| Mortgage interest | 2.8% | 7.2% | 13.4% |
The lowest-income fifth’s costs rose 0.7 points more than the highest’s. Electricity and gas added 0.3 to the gap, tobacco 0.2 and transport 0.1; food and non-alcoholic drinks (−0.1) and education and child care (−0.1) narrowed it. A category counts here for how far its price moved from the average.
Rent rose 3.5% and mortgage interest 2.8%: both less than living costs as a whole (3.8%). Costs rose fastest for households renting public housing (4.3%) and the lowest-income fifth (4.2%).
Why it matters for lending
- Living expenses. A statement shows spending at last year’s prices. Scaled up by the CPI, it understates today’s cost for a household whose prices rose faster.
- Benchmarks. An expense benchmark is set from survey spending and carried forward with a price index. Carried by the average, it moves at the average’s pace, and only once prices are measured.
- Hardship. Costs rose fastest this year where incomes are lowest. A repayment that fitted a year ago has the least room there.
Who the survey does not show
Recent arrivals. The survey tables do not split spending by country of birth or arrival. In the 2021 Census, 38% of permanent migrants who had been here under five years owned their home, against 69% of everyone. So the chart shows households renting privately (3.7%) as a proxy, not a measurement. The Census figure covers permanent migrants only, not temporary residents such as students.
Families by number of children. The tables give couples with dependent children as one group, with 1.9 children on average, and one-parent families with 1.7. They do not split by number of children, or by renting and owning within a family type.
How we calculate this
- Prices. The CPI’s 87 expenditure class indexes, quarterly, for the eight capital cities, and ABS’s indexes of mortgage interest and consumer credit charges.
- Baskets. ABS keeps an up-to-date basket for employee households. We tilt each item in it by how much more or less each household type spent on it, as a share of its spending, in ABS’s latest Household Expenditure Survey.
- Index. Each basket priced from ABS’s last weight update, the way ABS compiles the CPI. The change is over the year to the latest quarter.
Checked against ABS’s own indexes
ABS publishes living cost indexes for employee households and for pensioner and beneficiary households. We rebuild each from the other’s basket and compare.
| Households | ABS publishes | ABS’s basket, CPI prices | Our method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employee | 3.69% | 3.73% | 3.73% |
| Pensioner and beneficiary | 4.65% | 4.32% | 4.31% |
Each “our method” figure is built from the other household type’s ABS basket, tilted by the survey: it lands within 0.01 points of ABS’s own basket at the same prices. The CPI rebuilt from its 87 classes and ABS’s weights gives 3.94%, against 3.94% published.
For pensioner and beneficiary households ABS publishes 0.33 points more than its own basket at the CPI’s prices. Housing accounts for 0.31 of them: ABS prices electricity for concession households separately, and their rebates ran out during the year. Our figures use the CPI’s electricity prices, so where many households hold concession cards — the lowest-income fifth, public housing — they are probably a little low.
Sources
- ABS, Consumer Price Index, Australia: expenditure class indexes to the June quarter 2026 (Consumer Price Index, Australia, August 2026, released 30 September 2026). ABS Data API dataflows
ABS,CPI,2.0.0andABS,CPI_WEIGHTS,1.0.0; weights from the Annual weight update of the CPI and Living Cost Indexes, December 2024, released 26 February 2025. - ABS, Selected Living Cost Indexes, Australia: mortgage interest and consumer credit charges, each household type’s basket, and the checks above (Selected Living Cost Indexes, Australia, June 2026, released 5 August 2026). Dataflows
ABS,LCI,1.0.0andABS,LCI_WEIGHTS,1.0.0. - ABS, Household Expenditure Survey, Australia: Summary of Results, 2015–16, released 13 September 2017: what each household type spent, item by item, from Table 3.3A, Table 5.3A, Table 8.3A, Table 9.3A.
- ABS, Migrant settlement outcomes, 2026, released 22 September 2026: home ownership by years in Australia, from the 2021 Census.
Retrieved 4 October 2026. ABS’s monthly CPI is newer: 4.0% in the year to August 2026. Household figures follow the quarter because ABS’s living cost indexes and weights are quarterly.
Limits
- The survey is from 2015–16. It is the latest ABS has published. We take today’s basket from ABS and only the differences between households from the survey, so it assumes those differences have held.
- One trait at a time. ABS publishes spending by tenure, by family type or by income, not by combinations of them.
- Averages. Each figure is a household type’s average spending pattern. A household that spends unlike its type will see different prices.
- Electricity concessions. We use the CPI’s electricity prices; ABS prices concession households’ electricity separately. See the check above.
- Mortgage interest is ABS’s index of interest paid, which moves with loan balances as well as rates.
- Where. Prices are the eight capital cities’; spending is all of Australia’s.
- Sampling. Survey estimates carry sampling error, and ABS marks some small items as unreliable. Households renting public housing are the smallest group shown and have the widest errors: about a sixth, on their tobacco spending. Differences under 0.2 points between household types are too small to read anything into.
- No forecasts. Every figure is a measured past change.