The number of deaths in Australia decreased significantly in 2023 compared to previous years. The number of deaths recorded in 2023 was approximately 46 thousand, compared to about 171 thousand in 2023. Number of deaths due to road accidents In Australia, there were 1,234 road-related fatalities during the course of the year. Drivers had the highest number of road fatalities, followed by motorcyclists and passengers. In the same year, New South Wales recorded the highest number of road deaths with a total of 334 road deaths. This does represent an increase from 2022 and the second-highest number of road fatalities in the last five years. New South Wales and South Australia exhibit comparable tendencies. Number of deaths due to COVID-19 On March 1, 2020, Australia recorded its first COVID-related death. The country recorded fewer than one thousand COVID-19-related deaths within the first year of the pandemic in 2020. By 2022, Australia recorded a total of 16,284 confirmed deaths from COVID-19. Australia has recorded the deaths of 4,258 women between the ages of 80 and 89 due to COVID-19. Moreover, more men between the ages of 80 and 89 have died of COVID-19 in 2022. At the time, the number of deaths among those under the age of 50 was significantly lower than that of those in older age groups.

Australia death rate for 2025 is 6.83, a 0.84% increase from 2024.

<ul style='margin-top:20px;'>

<li>Australia death rate for 2024 was <strong>6.78</strong>, a <strong>0.85% increase</strong> from 2023.</li>
<li>Australia death rate for 2023 was <strong>6.72</strong>, a <strong>0.36% increase</strong> from 2022.</li>
<li>Australia death rate for 2022 was <strong>6.70</strong>, a <strong>0.37% increase</strong> from 2021.</li>
</ul>Crude death rate indicates the number of deaths occurring during the year, per 1,000 population estimated at midyear. Subtracting the crude death rate from the crude birth rate provides the rate of natural increase, which is equal to the rate of population change in the absence of migration.

Based on a comparison of coronavirus deaths in 210 countries relative to their population, Peru had the most losses to COVID-19 up until July 13, 2022. As of the same date, the virus had infected over 557.8 million people worldwide, and the number of deaths had totaled more than 6.3 million. Note, however, that COVID-19 test rates can vary per country. Additionally, big differences show up between countries when combining the number of deaths against confirmed COVID-19 cases. The source seemingly does not differentiate between "the Wuhan strain" (2019-nCOV) of COVID-19, "the Kent mutation" (B.1.1.7) that appeared in the UK in late 2020, the 2021 Delta variant (B.1.617.2) from India or the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) from South Africa.

The difficulties of death figures

This table aims to provide a complete picture on the topic, but it very much relies on data that has become more difficult to compare. As the coronavirus pandemic developed across the world, countries already used different methods to count fatalities, and they sometimes changed them during the course of the pandemic. On April 16, for example, the Chinese city of Wuhan added a 50 percent increase in their death figures to account for community deaths. These deaths occurred outside of hospitals and went unaccounted for so far. The state of New York did something similar two days before, revising their figures with 3,700 new deaths as they started to include “assumed” coronavirus victims. The United Kingdom started counting deaths in care homes and private households on April 29, adjusting their number with about 5,000 new deaths (which were corrected lowered again by the same amount on August 18). This makes an already difficult comparison even more difficult. Belgium, for example, counts suspected coronavirus deaths in their figures, whereas other countries have not done that (yet). This means two things. First, it could have a big impact on both current as well as future figures. On April 16 already, UK health experts stated that if their numbers were corrected for community deaths like in Wuhan, the UK number would change from 205 to “above 300”. This is exactly what happened two weeks later. Second, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly which countries already have “revised” numbers (like Belgium, Wuhan or New York) and which ones do not. One work-around could be to look at (freely accessible) timelines that track the reported daily increase of deaths in certain countries. Several of these are available on our platform, such as for Belgium, Italy and Sweden. A sudden large increase might be an indicator that the domestic sources changed their methodology.

Where are these numbers coming from?

The numbers shown here were collected by Johns Hopkins University, a source that manually checks the data with domestic health authorities. For the majority of countries, this is from national authorities. In some cases, like China, the United States, Canada or Australia, city reports or other various state authorities were consulted. In this statistic, these separately reported numbers were put together. For more information or other freely accessible content, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

Historical chart and dataset showing Australia life expectancy by year from 1950 to 2025.

Australia murder/homicide rate per 100K population for 2021 was 0.74, a 13.52% decline from 2020.

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<li>Australia murder/homicide rate per 100K population for 2020 was <strong>0.86</strong>, a <strong>2.98% decline</strong> from 2019.</li>
<li>Australia murder/homicide rate per 100K population for 2019 was <strong>0.89</strong>, a <strong>0.29% increase</strong> from 2018.</li>
<li>Australia murder/homicide rate per 100K population for 2018 was <strong>0.88</strong>, a <strong>4.6% increase</strong> from 2017.</li>
</ul>Intentional homicides are estimates of unlawful homicides purposely inflicted as a result of domestic disputes, interpersonal violence, violent conflicts over land resources, intergang violence over turf or control, and predatory violence and killing by armed groups. Intentional homicide does not include all intentional killing; the difference is usually in the organization of the killing. Individuals or small groups usually commit homicide, whereas killing in armed conflict is usually committed by fairly cohesive groups of up to several hundred members and is thus usually excluded.

Life expectancy in Australia was just below 35 in the year 1870, and over the course of the next 150 years, it is expected to have increased to 83.2 by the year 2020. Although life expectancy has generally increased throughout Australia's history, there were several times where the rate deviated from its previous trajectory. the most noticeable changes were between 1890 and 1920. This period included Australia's Independence movement, the implementation of the 'White Australia' policy, the First World War and Spanish Flu epidemic, all of which impacted the demographics of Australia.

Historical chart and dataset showing Australia birth rate by year from 1950 to 2025.