Dark stats - Key findings from the latest mortality data

The latest ABS Provisional Mortality Statistics provide an unusually useful picture of both current mortality and the longer-term changes taking place in Australia.

There were 73,997 deaths in Australia between January and May 2026. That was 1.0% more than in the same period of 2025, but 1.3% fewer than in 2024. In May alone there were 15,897 deaths, down 0.9% from May 2025 and 2.4% from May 2024.

But raw death numbers tell only part of the story.

Australia has a larger and older population than it did a decade ago. Once population age is taken into account, mortality has generally been declining. The age-standardised death rate in May 2026 was 40.3 deaths per 100,000, compared with 42.2 in May 2025 and 44.0 in May 2024. Across January to May, age-specific death rates were lower in every age group than in both previous years.

The longer 2015–25 data make the distinction especially clear. Australia recorded 188,156 deaths in 2025, 14.1% more than in 2019. Yet the average monthly age-standardised death rate was 4.3% lower than in 2019 and the lowest in the 2015–25 series.

Population ageing explains much of that apparent contradiction. Of the 23,309 additional deaths recorded between 2019 and 2025, 86% occurred among Australians aged 75 and over.

There have also been substantial changes in individual causes of death. Between 2019 and 2025, the average monthly age-standardised mortality rate fell by approximately 27% for ischaemic heart disease, 22% for cerebrovascular disease and 9% for cancer.

Dementia presents the reverse side of Australia's ageing population. The number of doctor-certified dementia deaths increased by about 21% between 2019 and 2025, but the age-standardised dementia mortality rate was essentially unchanged.

COVID mortality has also fallen sharply. Doctor-certified COVID deaths declined from 9,846 in 2022 to 1,665 in 2025. In the first five months of 2026 there were 238 such deaths, 65% fewer than a year earlier.

The broad message from the data is therefore relatively encouraging: Australia is recording more deaths as its population grows and ages, but the underlying risk of death, after allowing for age, has continued to decline.

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Provisional Mortality Statistics, January–May 2026. Data are provisional and subject to revision.