Statistics in this release are partially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting Australian Government closure of the international border from 20 March 2020.

To ensure the ongoing production of fit-for-purpose official population estimates through the COVID-19 pandemic, the ABS has been assessing the likely impact of changed traveller behaviour on preliminary Net Overseas Migration (NOM) estimates, a component of ERP. The ABS has introduced more frequent revisions to NOM to ensure the suite of demographic statistics continue to be of high quality, and reflect the most timely data available. Preliminary NOM estimates will be revised every quarter over four quarters, instead of once after four quarters, until it becomes final. These more frequent revisions will ensure the most timely and accurate data flows through to ERP.

It should be noted that the model that underpins the preliminary NOM estimates utilises all available overseas movements data, including some data for April through July 2020. As a result, some impacts from changed traveller behaviour may be observed in this release. For further information see the Information Paper: Improvements to estimation of net overseas migration (cat. no. 3412.0.55.004).