Nearly 38,000 census officers will hit the streets over the next week as the Bureau of Statistics tries to convince people to complete the national survey.

In the wake of the debacle that led to the bureau shutting down its website for two days as millions of Australians tried to fill in the form, Census head Duncan Young is urging people to finish it as soon as possible.

More than 6.5 million of Australia's nine million households have now completed their census, the bureau said on Thursday.

About two-thirds have done it online.

"We need everyone who hasn't yet taken part to do so now, so we'll be following up with those households over the coming weeks," Mr Young said.

Some 2.3 million census forms were successfully submitted on August 9 before cyber attacks led the bureau to shut down its site.

The census officers, recognisable by their yellow satchels and signed ABS photo identification, will visit homes that haven't already completed the survey to offer help and answer questions.