Migrant settlement outcomes methodology

The data used in this release were sourced from the following:

• Person Level Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA), formerly known as the Multi-Agency Data Integration Project (MADIP). It combines information on health, education, government payments, income and taxation, employment, visas and population demographics (including the Census).
• Census of Population and Housing (Census), which contains key demographic, social and economic data collected from the Australian population every 5 years.
• Australian Census and Migrants Integrated Dataset (ACMID), which links data from the Census with the Department of Home Affairs Settlement Database.

PLIDA data used to produce this release include:

• ATO Client Register
• Income Tax Returns
• Payment Summaries
• Data Over Multiple Individual Occurrences
• Census of Population and Housing
• Higher Education Information Dataset
• Medicare Consumer Directory
• Medicare Benefits Schedule
• Migrant data.

The Migrant data are a suite of administrative datasets (client information, visa grants, and visa applications) from the Department of Home Affairs. These data pertain to permanent migrants and temporary entrants to Australia, as well as Australian citizens who have travelled into or out of Australia. The data provides information on a person’s visa information, citizenship status, and their movements into and out of Australia.

Refer to Data assets for more information about PLIDA and other data assets.

PLIDA is linked using the Person Linkage Spine. More information can be found here: Person linkage spine.

This release relates to permanent migrants in Australia.

The scope and coverage of these estimates are defined and constrained by the characteristics of the data sources from which they are produced. As such, users should note that some permanent migrants might not be captured within these estimates.

The  Department of Home Affairs Settlement Database contains information about people in Australia who were granted permanent visas. It brings together information from various sources and is a repository of information on permanent and certain temporary visa holders who have arrived in Australia. For more information see Settlement reports on the Home Affairs website.

Migrant settlement outcomes represents people on the Settlement Database who:

• were granted a permanent visa
• had an arrival date of 1 January 2000 or later
• were recorded in the Estimated Resident Population (ERP).

Note that treatments were applied to exclude deceased persons for each given reference period.

Data from PLIDA was then linked to the scoped migrant population, using the Person Linkage Spine. Note that missing information can impact linkage and coverage. As a result, some individuals may not contribute to the figures in one or more topics.

The Settlement Database contain a small number of cases where there were multiple permanent visas issued and multiple arrival dates. Duplicates were resolved by assessing visa stream and arrival period information. The visa stream was assigned as ‘Undetermined’ for conflicting visa streams. The arrival period was assigned as ‘Unknown’ for differing arrival periods.

Visa subclass (3-digit) information was aggregated into visa streams (highest-level grouping) to produce the Skilled, Family, Humanitarian, Other and undetermined, and Total permanent groupings. Please refer to the Glossary for more information on visa types. 

While every effort will be made to maintain the stability of these indicators into the future, they may be subject to revisions as linkage methods develop, PLIDA matures, and more data become available.

The data used in these indicators have different reference periods. Information about this can be found within the footnotes of each table. This should be considered, and caution exercised, when trying to analyse relationships between the data.

Care has been taken to articulate the scope and coverage of the datasets used and the populations in the individual data items themselves.

4,207,088 (94%) out of 4,468,918 records on the Settlement Database file were linked to the PLIDA Person Linkage Spine.

Data are subject to suppression where a small number of individuals contribute to an individual estimate. 

Legislative requirements to ensure privacy and secrecy of this data have been followed. Only those authorised under the Australian Bureau of Statistics Act 1975 have been allowed to view data about individuals in compiling these statistics and conducting these analyses. In accordance with the Census and Statistics Act 1905, results have been confidentialised to ensure that they are not likely to enable identification of a particular person or organisation.

All personal information is handled in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles contained in the Privacy Act 1988. 

For more information, refer to the 2021 Census Privacy Statement and Keeping integrated data safe.

Duplicates can arise upon linking Migrant datasets to the Person Linkage Spine. These were resolved by assessing visa and arrival period information. The visa stream was assigned as ‘Undetermined’ for conflicting visa streams. The arrival period was assigned as ‘Unknown’ for differing arrival periods.

The Australian immigration system is purpose-built and complex. In some cases, it is difficult to determine how a particular data item should be used to describe any changes to migration characteristics e.g. visa granted, location of visa grant. While care is taken, some visa-related data items are subject to this type of validity error. An example of this is year of arrival from the Census versus arrival date from the Migrant data. For detailed information about this conceptual difference, refer to Data concepts.

Reporting errors are likely to be present in Migrant data. Efforts have been made to address significant reporting errors, such as invalid characters or incomplete fields. Despite these efforts, some reporting errors may remain.

PLIDA, Census, and ACMID provide a comprehensive snapshot of migrants in Australia and tell us about their economic and social outcomes. Reference periods of the data include the period during the COVID-19 pandemic, which required much of the Australian population to isolate at home under health directives. This was a unique time for Australia and these estimates look to understand the outcomes of permanent migrants over this time.

The analysis was limited to MBS records with a date of service between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2023. For more information on the services included please refer to the table below. This table has largely been sourced from Calculating Medicare Benefits Schedule services - Australian Institute of Health and Welfare with some amendments to reflect data presented in this release (such as including Practice nurse as a separate category).

The analysis was limited to MBS records with a date of service between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2023. It only includes data on Medicare-subsidised GP mental health treatment plans and does not include data on the overall use of mental health services nor the prevalence of mental health conditions. For example, Humanitarian migrants may access mental health care through various other pathways including specialist trauma-informed care through the Program of Assistance for Survivors of Torture and Trauma (PASTT), state government mental health services, not-for-profit organisations, and other cultural or religious counselling. These services may be accessed regardless of whether the individual has a mental health treatment plan or not. As these services are not subsidised by Medicare, it is not captured in the data.  For more information please refer to Overview: GP mental health treatment plans - Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

The analysis was limited to Medicare-subsidised referred specialist attendances with a date of service between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2023 that occurred in non-hospital settings, such as private consulting rooms and private outpatient clinics. For more information on all specialist attendances please refer to Referred medical specialist attendances - Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

The total number of Medicare services that are provided by a registered Medicare service provider for items in the MBS for which a claim has been processed. Note that this release’s analysis was limited to MBS records with a date of service between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2023.  It does not include services which can only be claimed in conjunction with other items such as bulk-billing incentive items and modifier items. 

Permanent migrants who arrived in Australia from 1 January 2000 including:

• Skilled migrants
• Family migrants
• Humanitarian migrants
• Other and undetermined migrants.

These estimates refer to arrival data sourced from both the Census and the Migrant data in PLIDA. Each of these data sources use a different definition of arrival:

• Census: the Year of arrival in Australia (YARP) question on the Census asks overseas-born people to report the year they first arrived in Australia with the intention of staying for at least one year.
• Migrant data: arrival date refers to the date of arrival to Australia by a permanent migrant. For permanent visas granted to people outside Australia, the arrival date refers to the first date of arrival after the grant of the permanent visa. For permanent visas granted to people in Australia, the arrival date refers to the latest date of arrival prior to the grant of that visa.

Estimates that are sourced from ACMID in this release are produced using the 2021 Census year of arrival variable, and estimates sourced from the Migrant data are sourced from the arrival date data item. For more information on ACMID, refer to Data collection.

The Census year of arrival may precede the arrival date reported in the Migrant data. For example, some permanent migrants may have reported on the Census that their year of arrival was 'Prior to 2000', even though their Migrant data arrival date was between 1 January 2000 and 10 August 2021. In cases where the Census year of arrival precedes that of the Migrant data, it is likely that the person was a temporary visa holder before attaining their permanent visa.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, and Services Australia release various reports which include Medicare Benefits Schedule data. While the source of the data is the same, there are differences in methodology, scope and reference periods which should be considered when comparing data in this release to these reports.  For further information refer to Medicare Benefits Scheme funded services: monthly data, Dashboard - Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, MBS Online and Medicare statistics - Services Australia.

Permanent migrants in Australia, 2021, sourced from ACMID, relates to people who responded to the Census of Population and Housing and had a permanent visa record on the Department of Home Affairs' Permanent Migrant Settlement Dataset with a date of arrival between 1 January 2000 and 10 August 2021. ACMID estimates were a result of integrating the data from these two data sources and calibrating the linked records to known population totals from the Home Affairs dataset. For further information about the methods, scope, and coverage of ACMID, refer to Permanent migrants in Australia methodology, 2021.

Personal Income Tax and Migrants Integrated Dataset (PITMID) relates to persons 15 years and over who have migrated to Australia under a permanent or provisional visa with an arrival date between 1 January 2000 and 30 June 2019. PITMID estimates were compiled from the 2016-17 PITMID. Estimates were created by integrating Australian Tax Office (ATO) Personal Income Tax data for the 2016-17 financial year with an extract of permanent migrant settlement records from the Department of Home Affairs. PITMID estimates are not calibrated. For further information about the methods, scope, and coverage of PITMID, refer to Personal Income of Migrants, Australia methodology, 2016-17 financial year.

Personal Income in Australia relates to permanent migrants and temporary visa holders who have earned taxable income in Australia. This release is compiled from the Linked Employer-Employee Dataset (LEED), which is built using ATO administrative data linked to ABS Business Longitudinal Analytical Data Environment (BLADE) data.

LEED covers all persons who either submitted an individual tax return or individuals who had a Pay As You Go payment summary issued by an employer and then remitted to the ATO. Employees who did not submit a tax return and have not provided their Tax File Number to their employer will not appear in LEED. Owner managers of unincorporated enterprises who did not submit an income tax return are also not included. For further information about the methods, scope, and coverage of Personal Income in Australia, refer to Personal Income in Australia methodology.

Data presented in this release are not comparable with estimates published in Personal Income in Australia due to different scoping and visa selection methods outlined in the table below. 

24/10/2025

• Various changes throughout methodology to reflect scoping changes for data added from PLIDA
• Minor wording and formatting changes throughout the release and in the data downloads
• Addition of indicators from Medicare Benefits Schedule data
• Update of education information for the 2021 calendar year
• Update of receiving personal income information  for the 2022-23 financial year
• Update of receiving unemployment payment information for the 2022-23 financial year
• Median total income has been added as a new indicator. This includes government payment data as well as personal income data from tax returns

30/06/2025

• Type of long-term health condition has been added as a new indicator
• Addition of 2016 socio-economic index to data download
• Change of terminology from 'Crowded housing' to 'Housing suitability' to align with Census