Business turnover down 2.2% in August

Media Release
Cite
Print
Released
10/10/2025
Source
Monthly Business Turnover Indicator, August 2025
Release date and time
10/10/2025 11:30am AEDT

Monthly business turnover fell 2.2 per cent in August (seasonally adjusted), according to figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). 

Tom Lay, ABS head of business statistics, said: ‘This fall in turnover was the largest since April 2023 with drops across nine industries this month.

‘The Electricity, gas, water and waste services division dropped 14.1 per cent as wholesale electricity and gas prices fell following strong rises in the previous month.

‘Other notable industry falls were in Manufacturing, down 5.8 per cent, Information media and telecommunications, down 3.7 per cent, and Mining, down 1.9 per cent.’ 
 

Business turnover was 4.5 per cent higher than in August 2024, with 11 of the 13 industries reporting rises over the last year.

The industries that saw the largest annual rises were Construction, Arts and recreation services (both +7.3 per cent), and Transport, postal and warehousing (+7.2 per cent).

The two industries with annual falls were Electricity, gas, water and waste services (-1.0 per cent) and Mining (-0.7 per cent).

In trend terms, the 13-industry aggregate for business turnover rose 0.3 per cent in August, the 12th consecutive month of growth.
 

Monthly Business Turnover Indicator Cessation

The final release of the Monthly Business Turnover Indicator will be on 10 November 2025, referencing September 2025.

Existing releases will remain available on the ABS website.

For further information contact australian.industry.statistics@abs.gov.au

Media notes

  • The Monthly Business Turnover Indicator is derived using Australian Taxation Office (ATO) Business Activity Statement (BAS) data from monthly remitters.
  • Monthly BAS reporting covers businesses with GST annual turnover of $20 million or more and a proportion of smaller businesses.
  • The indicator includes 13 industry divisions and 41 industry subdivisions classified according to the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC), 2006, and provides timely and frequent insights into economic activity, which complement the longstanding quarterly measures.
  • When reporting ABS data you must attribute the Australian Bureau of Statistics (or the ABS) as the source.
  • For media requests and interviews, contact the ABS Media Team via media@abs.gov.au (9am–5pm Mon–Fri).
  • Watch our data literacy presentation on CPI, inflation and cost of living data as well as our ABS data crash course, designed especially for journalists to learn how to find, download and interpret our data.
  • Subscribe to our media release notification service to get notified of ABS media releases or publications upon their release.