Impacts from the 2025 Annual National Accounts historical revisions

The 2025 annual national accounts historical revisions included:

• Improvements to Household Final Consumption Expenditure (HFCE) of Accommodation services
• Incorporation of solar generated electricity
• Improvements to HFCE of Electricity, gas and other fuels
• Incorporation of revised monetary data from Energy Accounts
• Improvements to Compensation of Employees (COE) received by non-residents living in Australia and residents living overseas in the External Account

The impact to key economic indicators, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) were relatively small. The largest changes were to HFCE, from improvements in the measurement of Accommodation services and the incorporation of consumption of solar generated electricity. 

The suite of 2025 historical revisions will appear in the following economic releases:

Australian National Accounts: Supply Use Tables, 2023-24 financial year (24 October 2025)

Australian System of National Accounts, 2024-25 financial year (24 October 2025)

Australian National Accounts: State Accounts, 2024-25 financial year (20 November 2025)

Balance of Payments and International Investment Position, Australia, September 2025 (02 December 2025)

Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, September 2025 (03 December 2025)

Estimates of Industry Level KLEMS Multifactor Productivity, 2023-24 financial year (10 December 2025)

Australian national accounts data is regularly revised due to new and updated data sources, classification changes, and changes in methods.  Figure 1 shows the evolution of an annual estimate, from the first time it is published as the sum of four quarters when the June quarter national accounts are released, through the three supply-use benchmarking 'open years', to an estimate which is not revised, unless impacted by a historical revision. 

Note: The (T) period referred to in the example year above is 2023-24

Every year, the compilation of supply-use tables can introduce revisions for the three open years as part of the benchmarking process. After this, estimates are closed for further supply-use balancing unless there is an impacting historical revision. Historical revisions are the result of targeted projects to improve estimates or to measure emerging areas of economic activity, or arise from detailed studies of specific parts of the economy. The historical revisions program assists with maintaining contemporary and relevant national accounts.

The impact of historical revisions can be difficult to isolate for the open three years, because revisions in those years come from regular updates to data sources, classifications and compilation methods as well as the impact of historical revisions. This article separates out historical revisions impacts for all years up to but not including 2023-24.

The 2025 historical revisions incorporates five improvements:

Improvements to HFCE of Accommodation services

The ABS has updated the benchmark source for annual estimates of HFCE of Accommodation services. The Household Expenditure Survey (HES) has been replaced by data from Tourism Research Australia (TRA) as the primary source. TRA information is collected more frequently than the HES, allowing the estimates to be updated with greater timeliness. The ABS has also improved its measurement of Net Expenditure Overseas (NEO) estimates for Accommodation services.

These changes resulted in large revisions to HFCE of Accommodation services and the Gross Value Added (GVA) and Gross Operating Surplus and Mixed Income (GOSMI) for the Accommodation and Food Services industry.

Incorporation of solar generated electricity

Over the past two decades, there has been substantial growth in solar panel installation on dwellings due to generous feed-in-tariffs (FITs) and other government incentives. This has resulted in Australia having one of the highest proportions of solar electricity production in the world. The Clean Energy Australia Report 2025 estimated that 31.0% of renewable generation in 2024 came from rooftop solar electricity production.

The ABS has incorporated the production of solar electricity by households into the national accounts using data from the Australian Energy Regulator (AER), the Australian Energy Statistics (AES) and the ABS Survey of Consumer Sales.

These changes resulted in revisions to HFCE of Electricity, gas and other fuels and the GVA and GOSMI of the Electricity, Gas, Water and Waste Services industry.

Improvements to HFCE of Electricity, gas and other fuels

The ABS has updated the benchmark source for annual estimates of HFCE of Electricity, gas and other fuels. The HES has been replaced by AER data, Australian Energy Statistics and data from the Survey of Consumer Sales. These data sources are compiled more frequently than the HES, allowing the estimates to be updated with greater timeliness.

These changes resulted in revisions to HFCE of Electricity, gas and other fuels.

Incorporation of revised monetary data from Energy Accounts

In 2023, the ABS updated the sources and methods for the Energy Account, Australia. The supply-use tables have incorporated revised monetary data on the use of energy products across the economy.  

These changes resulted in revisions to GVA and GOSMI across the Mining, Manufacturing and Electricity, Gas, Water and Waste Services industries.

Updated Compensation of Employees (COE) data from the External Account

The external account captures the income flows between Australia and the rest of the world. Compensation of Employees (COE) in the external account is employment income flows for Australian residents working overseas (receivable), and non-residents working in Australia (payable). 

Improvements to the measurement of COE in the external account have been applied back to 2017-18. These improvements focus on two key issues: 

• determining the residency status of non-student workers in Australia and;
• estimating COE earnt by non-residents

For more information refer to article Improvements to the measurement of primary income receivable and payable - Compensation of Employees (COE) in the external account.

Figure 2 shows the overall impact of revisions to annual percentage change in GDP in volume terms. All years up to 2023-24 incorporate the impacts of historical revisions, while the 2023-24 year incorporates the impacts of supply-use benchmarking and historical revisions.  

Revisions to HFCE in volume terms are shown in Figure 3.

HFCE revisions were driven by the improvements to Accommodation services between 1994-95 to 2000-01. Also contributing was the Electricity, gas and other household fuels category.

Revisions to HFCE of Electricity, gas and other fuels in chain volume terms are shown in Figure 4. 

Those revisions were driven by the incorporation of household solar electricity production between 2001-02 to 2023-24 and improved annual data sources.

Revisions to HFCE of Accommodation services in chain volume terms are shown in Figure 5. They drove revisions to the headline Hotels, cafes and restaurants HFCE category.