Do you want your toilet to reliably flush, whether you’re at home or on holiday anywhere in Australia? Want to help shape decisions on where new schools get built? Or want people experiencing homelessness to get better services than they do now?

Australian households are now starting to receive instructions in their letterboxes, explaining how to complete the 2026 census.

The data collected in your census form is crucial for everything from sewage systems to hospitals, schools and more.

Here are ten things you need to know about what’s new in the census this year, how much you can be fined if you lie or ignore it, what happens to your data, and how to ask for help.

1. What is the census?

Run every five years by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the Census of Population and Housing collects a complete survey of who we are, and where and how we live in Australia.

The census collects information on every person in the country on Tuesday August 11 across 10.8 million households. Homeless people and remote communities are also carefully surveyed.

Importantly, it’s not just for Australian citizens: it counts everyone in Australia that night, including international tourists, students and temporary visa holders.

The form is published in 27 languages, from Arabic to Vietnamese.

2. What’s new this time?

There are 12 changes in the 2026 census: two additional questions, and tweaks to ten long-running topics.

Ancestry has been expanded from two responses to four. Religion, health, transport and employment questions have........

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