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Australia had more than 174,000 Airbnb listings in December 2024. The listings are concentrated mainly in coastal cities and regions, broadly following the country’s population pattern. That is the clearest national answer available, but it is a dated snapshot of listings—not a live count of permanently available homes.
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Where “all” of them are depends on what is being counted: Airbnb alone or every short-term-rental platform, active listings or wider inventory, and a whole state, city or local government area. The evidence supports a reliable national picture, but not a definitive public ranking of every Australian city.
How many Airbnb listings are there in Australia?
The strongest Airbnb-specific national estimate is more than 174,000 listings in December 2024, according to a 2025 summary from the University of Sydney of Australian Coastal Councils Association research. The same summary says those listings represented nearly 1.6% of Australia’s total housing stock at that time.
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“Listings” is the important word. A listing can be an entire home, a private room, a granny flat or another accommodation arrangement. It may be available only for part of the year, may be listed on other platforms too, or may remain visible while temporarily unavailable. The figure should therefore not be read as 174,000 dwellings permanently removed from the long-term housing market.
The headline figures and what each measures
| Figure | Reference date | What it covers | How to use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| More than 174,000 | December 2024 | Airbnb listings across Australia | Best available Airbnb-specific national headline |
| 174,558 | End of 2024 | Short-term-rental listings nationally | Broader category; do not relabel it as Airbnb-only |
| 171,416 | December 2023 | Airbnb listings | Earlier Airbnb snapshot; not a current total |
| 42.6% of 171,416 | December 2023 | Listings offered by single-property individual hosts | Shows host structure, not geographic distribution |
The 174,558 figure comes from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) and is explicitly described as short-term rentals. That label may include accommodation listed through multiple services, depending on the report’s method, so it should sit beside—not replace—the Airbnb-specific December 2024 estimate.
AHURI also reported 171,416 Airbnb listings in December 2023. Of those, 42.6% were offered by individuals with one property. The remaining 98,384 listings were offered by 18,187 entities. Because those figures describe a different month and a different breakdown, they cannot be used to calculate the number of individual hosts or professionally managed properties in December 2024.
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The national pattern is coastal. The Australian Coastal Councils Association’s 2025 report says the greatest concentration of Airbnb listings is in coastal cities and regions, broadly echoing Australia’s population distribution.
That description is more defensible than naming one “most Airbnb-filled” city. The available national evidence does not provide a complete, consistently measured ranking of every city or council. It identifies a broad settlement pattern rather than publishing a definitive league table.
Why coastal areas dominate the map
- Population and demand overlap: Australia’s largest population centres and many of its most visited destinations are on or near the coast. The report describes the Airbnb pattern as broadly echoing that population distribution.
- Different kinds of coastal markets: The category includes dense urban areas, beachside suburbs, regional coastal towns and holiday destinations. A single national label hides those very different housing and tourism contexts.
- Seasonal availability: Some coastal listings may be offered primarily during holiday periods. A December count captures a particular point in the annual cycle, not the average number available every month.
These points explain the shape of the map without proving that every coastal council has a high listing rate or that inland areas have few listings. The sources establish concentration at a broad level, not a property-by-property national map.
What the 11 case studies tell us
The association’s report examined 11 selected local government areas. Together, those case studies accounted for 14.5% of Australia’s Airbnb listings in December 2024. This is a share of the national listing total for the selected councils, not the share of listings in all coastal areas.
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Why different reports produce different totals
Seemingly conflicting numbers often describe different datasets. Before comparing any two totals, check four questions.
- What is the reference date? “December 2024,” “end of 2024” and “December 2023” are separate snapshots. A listing can be added, removed, paused or duplicated between them.
- Which platforms are included? An Airbnb-only count is not interchangeable with a combined short-term-rental count. AirDNA’s Australia page, for example, combines Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com listings across 293 markets, so its total is not an Airbnb-only figure.
- What does “listing” mean in the method? Some datasets focus on active listings; others retain a broader inventory. The distinction affects whether temporarily unavailable or low-frequency listings appear in the total.
- What geographic unit is being measured? A national count cannot be compared directly with a state, city, suburb or local government area without accounting for boundaries and coverage.
For that reason, a higher or lower number does not automatically show that the market grew or shrank. It may simply reflect a different platform mix, boundary, definition or collection date.
Does “174,000 Airbnbs” mean 174,000 homes?
No. The count refers to listings, not necessarily unique homes. One property can appear on more than one booking platform, and a host can list separate rooms or units individually. Conversely, a property that is listed for only a few weeks each year may still be included in a snapshot.
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The housing-stock comparison is still useful: the University of Sydney summary places the December 2024 Airbnb total at nearly 1.6% of Australia’s housing stock. But that ratio is a comparison between a listing inventory and total housing stock, not a measurement of full-time vacancy or the number of homes unavailable to long-term renters.
Host structure provides another perspective
AHURI’s December 2023 analysis found that 42.6% of Airbnb listings were supplied by single-property individual hosts. The other 98,384 listings were associated with 18,187 entities. Those entities may represent businesses, professional managers or people operating multiple properties; the figure alone does not identify their legal status or operating model.
This split matters when interpreting policy or housing discussions. A listing supplied by a resident occasionally letting a spare room is not the same operational model as a portfolio of entire homes, even though both count as listings. The available national figures do not provide a current 2024 breakdown of every listing by property type, occupancy or number of nights available.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What can we say about listings outside major cities?
Airbnb reported that 33.2% of its accommodation spending in Australia occurred outside major cities in 2024. Airbnb and Oxford Economics also reported approximately AUD 16 billion in accommodation and non-accommodation spending by Airbnb guests in Australia during 2024.
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Can you get a live count for a particular Australian council?
Not from the public national summaries used for the figures above. In March 2024, Airbnb announced its City Portal, a government-facing resource intended to provide local governments with area-level active short-term-rental listing counts and other local tourism insights.
The announcement describes a tool for governments, not a public, comprehensive national table. Access, definitions and update timing may therefore differ from the dated national snapshots. A council, researcher or journalist seeking a local figure should identify the boundary, date and platform coverage before comparing it with the national total.
A practical checklist for reading a local number
- Record the exact month and year.
- Confirm whether the number is Airbnb-only or includes other booking platforms.
- Ask whether it counts active listings, all visible listings or listings with recent bookings.
- Check whether entire homes, private rooms and shared spaces are combined.
- Use the same local-government boundary when comparing years.
- Keep spending, guest nights and economic-impact figures separate from listing counts.
What the evidence does—and does not—show
Established by the available national data
- Australia had more than 174,000 Airbnb listings in the December 2024 snapshot.
- The listing total was nearly 1.6% of national housing stock in that comparison.
- The strongest concentration was in coastal cities and regions, broadly echoing population distribution.
- Eleven case-study local government areas represented 14.5% of the national Airbnb listing total in December 2024.
- AHURI counted 174,558 short-term-rental listings at the end of 2024, a broader category than an Airbnb-only count.
- In December 2023, single-property individuals supplied 42.6% of 171,416 Airbnb listings.
Not established by these figures
- A definitive ranking of every Australian city by Airbnb listings.
- The exact number of unique dwellings represented by the national listing count.
- The proportion of listings that are permanently unavailable to long-term residents.
- A complete public, council-by-council map covering every platform and the same date.
- The December 2024 host-type breakdown corresponding to AHURI’s 2023 analysis.
The clearest answer
Use more than 174,000 Airbnb listings in Australia in December 2024 as the best Airbnb-specific national headline. Place them mainly in coastal cities and regions, where the pattern broadly follows population distribution. Treat the 174,558 end-of-2024 figure as short-term rentals, not automatically as Airbnb, and treat the 33.2% outside-major-cities figure as spending rather than a map of listings.
That wording preserves what the evidence can support: a large, nationally significant listing inventory with a strong coastal concentration, but no single public number that tells us exactly how many unique homes are available in every Australian place today.
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