Provisional Mortality Statistics

Latest release

Provisional deaths data for measuring changes in patterns of mortality

Reference period
Jan 2025
Released
29/04/2025
  • Next Release 30/05/2025
    Provisional Mortality Statistics, Jan - Feb 2025
  • Next Release 27/06/2025
    Provisional Mortality Statistics, Jan - Mar 2025
  • View all releases

Key statistics

  • 14,515 deaths occurred in January 2025, 3.2% fewer than 2024 and 2.2% fewer than 2023.
  • There were 48.5% fewer deaths from or with COVID-19 in January 2025 (305) than in January 2024 (see article).

This publication presents the number of deaths occurring by week and month. From April 2025, deaths occurring in 2025 will be presented. Key considerations are:

  • Deaths occurring in 2025 will have two comparison points: 2023 and 2024. This is the same format for deaths that occurred in 2024, which were compared to 2022 and 2023. Reasons for this presentation of data has been outlined in previous publications.
  • Age-standardised death rates can be accessed via the data downloads tab in this publication.
  • A time series of weekly and monthly deaths occurring from 2015 is available in the data downloads section of this publication. Customised datasets are able to be created from these data cubes.
  • The data in this publication is not an excess mortality estimate. Excess mortality estimates to December 2023 are available in published articles from the following links: ‘Measuring Australia’s excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic until December 2023’ (published 28 June 2024), and excess mortality estimates by remoteness areas (published 28 February 2025).
  • More detailed analysis on mortality from influenza and respiratory syncytial virus and COVID-19 are provided in the attached article: 'Deaths due to COVID-19, influenza and RSV in Australia - 2023 - March 2025'.

Australian deaths by week

All-cause deaths

For all deaths:

  • 14,515 deaths occurred in January 2025 and were registered by 31 March. This is 486 deaths (3.2%) fewer than in 2024, and 321 (2.2%) fewer than in 2023.
  • 12,717 of the deaths occurring in January 2025 were doctor certified and 1,798 were coroner referred.
  • The age-standardised death rate (SDR) for January was 38.4 deaths per 100,000 people, lower than death rates for both 2023 (41.8) and 2024 (41.1). 

Deaths are presented by counts only. Counts of death do not account for changes in population. See data downloads for weekly and monthly age-standardised death rate calculations. 

a. Data is by occurrence.
b. Data is provisional and subject to change.
c. Weeks are defined as seven-day periods which start on a Monday as per the ISO week date system. Refer to 'Weekly comparisons' on the methodology page of this publication for more information regarding the data in this graph. Week 1 ended 8 Jan 2023, 7 Jan 2024 and 5 Jan 2025.

Age-specific death rates

The following table shows age-specific death rates (deaths per 100,000 population) for different age groups by sex in January 2025, presented with both those from 2024 and 2023. All references to "death rates" in this section refer to age-specific death rates. 

January 2025

  • Across all age groups, death rates were lower in January 2025 compared to the same month in 2024 and 2023. Compared to January 2024, death rates ranged between 5.4% to 11.8% lower across all age groups with the largest decrease in those aged younger than 45 years. Compared to January 2023, death rates were between 6.5% and 10.8% lower.
  • For males, the death rate for those aged younger than 45 years was 15.0% lower in January 2025 than in January 2024, and 2.7% lower than January 2023. The death rate for those aged older than 85 years was 5.0% lower than January 2024 and 11.9% lower than in January 2023.
  • For females, the death rate for those aged younger than 45 years was 5.1% lower in January 2025 than in January 2024, and 22.8% lower than January 2023. The death rate for those aged 75 to 84 years was 8.0% lower than in January 2024 and 9.9% lower than in January 2023.
  • For all age groups, males have a higher death rate compared to females, with the rate ratio being largest in the youngest age group and smallest in the oldest age group.
Age specific rates, 2025, 2024, 2023 (a) (b) (c) (d)
 January
 202520242023
Persons 
0-443.8424.3574.308
45-6426.16127.81127.990
65-7488.79594.14595.705
75-84247.751265.914270.334
85 and over980.5171,036.4731,070.709
All ages52.65155.33655.970
Males 
0-444.9205.7915.055
45-6433.48136.37336.089
65-74109.152117.582118.761
75-84294.882313.114317.275
85 and over1,024.6021,078.1741,163.535
All ages55.29458.28458.946
Females 
0-442.7322.8803.539
45-6419.11419.56020.175
65-7470.14572.60574.413
75-84205.809223.757228.355
85 and over950.4071,008.5291,009.495
All ages50.04652.43053.037

a. Data is by occurrence.
b. Data is provisional and subject to change.
c. Doctor certified and coroner referred deaths are included.
d. Age-specific death rates reflect deaths per 100,000 of the estimated resident population (ERP).

Mortality by selected causes of death

Cause-specific mortality

The following analysis is based only on doctor certified deaths (i.e. coroner referred deaths are not included). Any changes in patterns of coroner referral could affect counts of doctor certified deaths. Some conditions have higher coroner referral rates (ischaemic heart disease, cerebrovascular diseases and to a lesser extent, respiratory diseases and diabetes) so counts for those conditions would be more likely to be affected by such changes.

COVID-19

  • In January 2025 there were 237 deaths due to COVID-19 that were certified by a doctor. Deaths due to the virus in January 2025 were 44.5% lower than in January 2024 (427 deaths) and 67.0% lower than January 2023 (719 deaths).
  • In January 2025 there were 68 people who died with COVID-19 being identified (via death certificates) as a contributing factor to their death (ie. COVID-19 was certified on the death certificate but it was not the underlying cause of death).

Other causes of death

  • Deaths due to respiratory diseases in January 2025 were 2.3% higher than 2024 and 12.8% higher than in 2023.
  • Deaths due to ischaemic heart disease, cerebrovascular diseases and diabetes were all lower in January 2024 than in January 2024 or January 2023. 
Doctor certified deaths by cause, 2025, 2024, 2023 (a)(b)
 January
 202520252024
Cancer4,1884,2334,158
Dementia1,3771,3651,309
Respiratory diseases1,1671,1411,035
 Chronic lower respiratory diseases631617569
 Influenza and pneumonia215210170
  Pneumonia188183165
Ischaemic heart disease9881,0291,037
Other cardiac conditions784843784
Cerebrovascular diseases646697713
Diabetes394430445
COVID-19237427719

a. Only doctor certified deaths are included.
b. Data is by date of occurrence.

Timeliness and completeness of data

Each death registration in the national mortality dataset has 3 dates:

  • The date on which the death occurred.
  • The date on which the death was registered with the jurisdictional Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages (RBDM).
  • The date on which the death was lodged with the ABS. 

When looking to measure change over time, the completeness of data for the most recent period is important. When data is received each month by the ABS, the lag between the date of death and the date of registration means that approximately 40-50% of reported registrations are of deaths that occurred in the month being reported. The remainder are deaths that occurred in earlier months.

In April 2025, the ABS received 13,839 death registrations. Of these, 13,446 deaths occurred in 2025, 368 occurred in 2024 and the remaining 25 occurred in 2023 or earlier years.

For deaths which are doctor certified, approximately 95% of registrations are received after a second month of reporting, while for coroner certified deaths, the proportion of registrations reported after a second month is lower (approximately 80%). This is because it takes longer for coroners to certify deaths due to the complexity of investigations.

As coroner referred deaths make up a smaller proportion of all deaths (approximately 11-14%) their inclusion in all-cause data only reduces the overall completeness by around 2%. This should be considered when making comparisons with historical counts, noting also that the level of completeness will be higher for the start of any given month than the end of that month. 

This pattern of registration and reporting is highlighted in the table below, which also shows the slight variation in reporting timelines by cause of death.

Estimated completeness of death registrations received by the ABS (a)(b)(c)
 Total proportion reported at the end of
Cause of deaththe month the death occurred (%)the month after the death occurred (%)two months after the death occurred (%)
All cause - doctor and coroner certified42.993.597.7
All cause - doctor certified only45.695.398.6
All cause - coroner certified only24.080.991.7
Ischaemic heart disease (I20 – I25)44.094.998.4
Other cardiac conditions (I26 – I51)45.795.898.8
Cerebrovascular diseases (I60 – I69)46.495.698.8
Respiratory diseases (J00 – J99)46.096.299.1
Chronic lower respiratory diseases (J40 – J47)44.594.398.1
Influenza and pneumonia (J09 – J18)45.595.698.7
Cancer (C00 – C97, D45, D46, D47.1, D47.3 – D47.5)47.095.898.8
Diabetes (E10 – E14)43.892.597.0
Dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease (F01, F03, G30, G31.0, G31.8)46.296.199.0

a. Percentages are based on the date registrations were received by the ABS for deaths that occurred in 2020-2024.
b. Only doctor certified deaths are included for cause-specific data.
c. Data is provisional and subject to change.

The graphs below show how numbers of deaths for each period have increased over time as additional registrations that occurred in previous months are reported to the ABS. Due to these increases, data for the most recently reported periods should be treated with caution.

Data downloads

Provisional Mortality Statistics, Jan 2025

Data files

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 3303.0.55.004

Back to top of the page