Five states publish what renters actually pay. Victoria's figures are a year old, and the ACT and NT publish none.
Every rental bond records the rent a tenant agreed to. New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia publish those figures within months. Victoria publishes them a year late for groups of suburbs; the ACT and the Northern Territory do not publish them at all. Where the two can be compared, agreed rents were below advertised rents in 367 of 455 suburbs and postcodes, typically by about 4%.
When you rent a home in most of Australia, your bond goes to a government body along with a form that records the weekly rent you agreed to. That makes bond data the most complete record there is of what renters actually pay, as opposed to what landlords ask in advertisements. Whether you can see it depends on which state you live in.
| Publishes rents from new bonds? | Smallest area | Bedrooms and home type? | Latest period (checked October 2026) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | Yes, every bond, monthly | Postcode | Yes | August 2026 |
| Queensland | Yes, quarterly medians | Suburb | Yes | June 2026 quarter |
| South Australia | Yes, quarterly medians | Suburb | Yes | June 2026 quarter |
| Tasmania | Yes, every bond, monthly | Suburb | Yes | August 2026 |
| Western Australia | Yes, every bond, monthly | Suburb | No | September 2026 |
| Victoria | Partly: yearly medians | 146 groups of suburbs | Yes | Year to September 2025 |
| ACT | No | |||
| Northern Territory | No |
Victoria publishes, a year behind
Victoria's Rental Report does use bond data, but in a form a renter cannot use to check a single suburb. Its suburb figures are 12-month "moving annual" medians for 146 areas, many of them groups such as Carlton–Parkville. The latest covers leases that began in the year to September 2025, and it was published in February 2026. Nothing newer has appeared since. A Melbourne renter checking a rent today is looking at figures that end more than a year ago.
Two publish nothing, one publishes somewhere else
The ACT holds rental bonds centrally but publishes no rent figures from them. They surface only in answers to questions in the Legislative Assembly. The Northern Territory has no central bond authority at all: a landlord holds the bond in a trust account for the length of the tenancy, so there is no government dataset to publish.
Western Australia publishes current data, every bond monthly, but on the national Housing Data Exchange; we could not find it on the state's own data portals. It has suburb, postcode and rent, and no bedrooms or type of home.
What the published figures show
Where states publish bedrooms and home type, the agreed rent can be set beside the asking rent for the same kind of home, in the same place and over the same months. We did this for 3-bedroom houses and 2-bedroom units, wherever there were at least 10 new bonds and at least 10 advertised rentals: 455 suburbs and postcodes in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania.
In 367 of the 455, the median agreed rent was below the median asking rent. It was the same in 42 and higher in 46. The typical gap was 3.9%.
| 3-bedroom houses | 2-bedroom units | Agreed below asked | |
|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales (postcodes, June–August 2026) | −3.6% | −3.6% | about 3 in 4 |
| Queensland (April–June 2026) | −4.8% | −6.0% | about 6 in 7 |
| South Australia (April–June 2026) | −4.3% | too few | 9 in 10 houses |
| Tasmania (September 2025–August 2026) | −3.3% | −1.2% | about 6 in 7 houses |
Some of the widest gaps were for apartments in expensive areas. In Brisbane City, 2-bedroom units were advertised at a median $1,000 a week and agreed at $895 (218 new bonds, April–June 2026). In postcode 2034, Coogee and South Coogee, it was $1,150 asked and $1,000 agreed. In postcode 2065, which takes in Wollstonecraft, St Leonards and Crows Nest, it was $1,200 and $1,000. On the Gold Coast, Broadbeach units were advertised at $1,100 and agreed at $975.
It does not always run that way. In postcode 2170, which takes in Liverpool and Casula, 2-bedroom units were agreed at $550 against $505 advertised, and in Toowong $750 against $700.
Why the gap is not a discount
The two figures describe different sets of homes. Advertised rents come from listings; agreed rents come from the leases that were signed. A home priced above the market stays advertised for longer, so listings over-represent it. Some of the gap is that, rather than tenants negotiating the rent down. What it does show is that in the four states where both can be compared, advertised rents ran above what people in the same suburbs ended up paying. Renters in Victoria, the ACT and the Northern Territory have only the advertised rents to go on.
How we measured
- Bond figures are the states' own: medians as published in Queensland (Residential Tenancies Authority) and South Australia (Consumer and Business Services); medians of every bond lodged in New South Wales (Fair Trading, June–August 2026) and Tasmania (Department of Justice, 12 months to August 2026, private rentals only).
- New South Wales publishes by postcode, which can cover several suburbs. "Units" means flats and apartments; townhouses are counted in neither group. Western Australia is not in the comparison because its bond data has no bedrooms or home type.
- Asking rents are the median advertised weekly rent of rental listings first advertised in the same months, matched to the same suburb or postcode, bedrooms and type of home.
- What each state publishes was checked against its own websites and data portals and the national Housing Data Exchange in October 2026.
Suburb pages in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia now show the rent agreed on new leases beside the advertised rents, wherever there are at least 10 new bonds.