Canberra’s population will be nearly 700,000 by 2050, according to the latest indicative projections from ACT Treasury.

The ACT Population Projections 2025-2065, released on Tuesday, show that the territory’s headcount is expected to increase by 319,000 over the next 40 years, surpassing 800,000 in 2065.

Growth is expected across all Canberra districts. While the total ACT population levels in the latest report are largely consistent with 2022 projections, the most significant changes relate to the redistribution of growth across ACT’s districts over the projections.

The updated projections reflect growth in the Molonglo Valley, along Canberra’s north-western edge, along the length of the light rail corridor to Woden, as well as a shift to growth in the Tuggeranong Valley.

Starting from the December 2024 population of 482,000, the ACT is expected to grow on average by around 8000 people a year.

Migration is expected to continue as the main contributor of population growth over the next 40 years as the fertility rate is expected to decline.

While Canberra will continue to have a young population the projections show a moderate ageing of the ACT population relative to projections of other Australian jurisdictions, with migration continuing to play an important contribution to the age structure of the ACT population.

The ACT’s long-term population projections are prepared using ACT Treasury’s own in-house model, which was originally commissioned from the Australian National University.

The key drivers in the model are births, deaths (natural increase) and net migration (overseas, interstate and internal). A new feature of this report is the shift to a “dynamic” rather than “static” model of housing that better reflects the reality of new residents moving into established suburbs.

The reports cautions that “these projections should be considered as indicative and only reflective of information available at the time of modelling. Any changes to the key assumptions are likely to lead to different outcomes”.

The ACT Population Projections 2025-2065 are available on the Treasury website.