What government costs, and what we pay in tax
Two flows, both per person per year: spending ($37,622) and tax collected ($30,629). Debt is a separate stock and is shown separately below.
Source: ABS Government Finance Statistics, Australia, 2024-25 (cat. 5512.0), 55120DO021 · outcomes to 2024-25 · accessed 5 Nov 2026Cost vs tax per person, 2015-16 to 2024-25
Nominal dollars. The widening gap in 2019-20 and 2020-21 reflects the COVID-19 response.
Source: ABS Government Finance Statistics, Australia, 2024-25 (cat. 5512.0), 55120DO021 Table 1 · outcomes to 2024-25 · accessed 5 Nov 2026Your household’s share Calculator
ABS reports per-person figures; there is no official “per household” cost of government, and we do not publish one. Enter the number of people in your household to multiply the national per-person averages. Real households differ in size, income and tax paid.
Your calculation, not an official household figure. It applies national per-person averages; real households differ in income and tax paid.
Scale ladder — per person, 2024-25
Who spends what, on the same per-Australian basis. Bars are proportional. Federal and state figures overlap through grants and must not be added.
Flow versus stock: net debt
Everything above is an annual flow. Net debt is a stock — what governments owe, net of certain financial assets, at a point in time. It is not part of the “cost of government” figure and is shown here only for context.
Why we keep them apart
Adding debt to annual spending would mix a balance with a flow and double-count: interest on that debt already appears inside annual expenses (within general public services). We do not divide net debt per person, because that figure is not in our verified dataset.