Rent prices in Australia now take a record 34% of income

Rent prices in Australia have never taken a bigger share of renters' income. The typical renting household spent about 34% of its pre-tax income on rent in June 2026, the highest on record, according to property data firm Cotality. The national median rent is now $713 a week.

And on the minimum wage, there's almost nothing to rent at all. Here's what renters pay, why rent is so expensive, and whether rent prices in Australia will come down.

Rent prices in Australia right now

Cotality's September 2026 review puts the national median rent at $713 a week, up 5.5% in a year. That's about $37,000 a year before you've paid for anything else.

The capitals with the highest median rents:

Source: Cotality Quarterly Rental Review, September 2026. Annual figure for 52 weeks at the national median is an Aussie Outrage calculation ($713 × 52).

Darwin had the fastest rent rise of the capitals in Cotality's September 2026 review. Photo: Ken Hodge, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The ABS measures rent differently, across all tenants including those on existing leases, not just new listings. On its measure, rents rose 3.6% in the 12 months to August 2026.

Rents rose 2.5 times faster than wages

Over five years, rents have run away from pay. In the five years to September 2025, national rents rose 43.9%, while wages rose 17.5% (Cotality, reported by the ABC). In Western Australia, rents rose 66% against wage growth of 18.5%.

In dollars, Cotality's September 2026 review says five years of rises have added about $208 a week to the typical unit rent (up 44.3%) and $195 a week to the typical house rent (up 36.6%).

Who can afford to rent? Almost no one on low incomes

Every year Anglicare Australia takes a snapshot of the tens of thousands of rentals listed on realestate.com.au over one weekend, and counts how many a household could rent without spending more than 30% of its income. On 14–15 March 2026 there were 48,776 listings. Here's how many were affordable:

A single person working full-time on the minimum wage could afford 255 of those 48,776 homes. A family of four with both parents on the full-time minimum wage could afford 14.8%. Anglicare notes that in earlier years of its snapshot, a family with two minimum wage incomes could afford around one in four listings.

Why is rent so expensive in Australia?

Not enough homes, and not enough empty ones. Cotality's national vacancy rate was 2.1% in September 2026, below its pre-COVID decade average of 3.3%. Cotality's research director, Tim Lawless, says rent growth was strongest in the pandemic, "when average household sizes fell sharply as people sought additional space".

A new housing estate in Pemulwuy, Western Sydney. Photo: Yucalyptus, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The main answer from governments is the National Housing Accord: a target agreed by National Cabinet in August 2023 of 1.2 million new homes in the five years from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2029. Two years in, Australia is about 124,000 homes behind the pace needed, according to the Urban Development Institute of Australia's count of ABS completions (355,820 built against 480,000 needed). The UDIA projects the shortfall could reach about 310,000 by the end of the Accord.

Will rent prices go down?

Rents are rising more slowly, not falling. Cotality says rents rose just 0.5% in the September quarter, down from 1.6% in June and 2.1% in March, and vacancies are rising. Mr Lawless's explanation: "renters are reaching an affordability ceiling." In other words, rents are slowing because tenants can't pay more, not because there are suddenly enough homes.

For the typical renting household, about a third of pre-tax income now goes to the landlord. On the minimum wage, the rental market barely exists. It's the same squeeze that's pushing up Australia's inflation rate, and it lands on top of higher power bills.

What has your rent gone up by? Tell us.

Top photo: terrace houses at Fiveways, Paddington, Sydney. Photo: Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.