Over the 12 months to July 2026, councils across Australia received 8,092 development applications for granny flats and secondary dwellings that our system tracked. That is out of a database of 848,662 application records collected from more than 365 councils, of which 34,054 are granny flat or secondary dwelling projects going back through our full history.
Most commentary about the granny flat boom runs on vibes and builder press releases. This piece runs on the applications themselves: where they were lodged, which councils carry the volume, and how long a decision actually takes. All figures below come from our database snapshot on 13 July 2026.
Four out of five visible granny flats are in NSW
NSW lodged 6,438 of the 8,092 applications, which is 79.6% of the national picture. Queensland is a clear but distant second on 1,024. South Australia (232), Victoria (204), WA (152), the ACT (30) and Tasmania (12) make up the rest.
The NSW number is also growing on a like-for-like basis. The same NSW councils recorded 5,408 lodgements in the previous 12-month window, so the current year is up about 19%. NSW is the one state where our council coverage has been stable across both windows, which makes that growth figure trustworthy. Queensland and WA also show large year-on-year jumps in our data, but part of that is our own scraper coverage expanding into more councils during the period, so we are not going to dress that up as pure market growth.
Before you read the state table as a scoreboard
A low number in this table does not mean nobody is building granny flats in that state. It means the state's approval system pushes them through paths that never show up as a council development application. We covered this dynamic in detail in The Rise of Granny Flats: ADU Trends Across Australia, and it is worth repeating the two big cases.
In NSW, a compliant secondary dwelling on a lot of 450m² or more can go through complying development instead of a full DA. Those approvals sit largely outside the council DA lists we track, which means even the 6,438 figure undercounts what NSW actually builds. Our NSW granny flat rules guide walks through when you qualify for that faster track.
Victoria is the extreme case. Since December 2023, a small second home under 60m² on most residential lots needs no planning permit at all. A building permit is still required, but building permits do not appear in DA feeds. That is why Victoria shows only 204 applications: the projects that would have been permit applications in 2022 are now mostly invisible to planning data. The 204 that do appear are the ones that trip a trigger such as an overlay. Details in our Victoria granny flat permits guide.
So the honest reading is: this data measures the council-assessed slice of the market. It is the slice where a professional or an owner actually has to fight through a planning process, which also makes it the slice where knowing the local approval terrain pays off.
Logan is the busiest granny flat council in the country
| Rank | Council | State | DAs, 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Logan City Council | QLD | 756 |
| 2 | Blacktown City Council | NSW | 663 |
| 3 | Campbelltown City Council | NSW | 506 |
| 4 | Fairfield City Council | NSW | 437 |
| 5 | Canterbury-Bankstown Council | NSW | 428 |
| 6 | Central Coast Council | NSW | 338 |
| 7 | Liverpool City Council | NSW | 338 |
| 8 | Penrith City Council | NSW | 336 |
| 9 | Cumberland Council | NSW | 296 |
| 10 | Maitland City Council | NSW | 293 |
| 11 | Wollondilly Shire Council | NSW | 248 |
| 12 | Lake Macquarie City Council | NSW | 180 |
Eleven of the top twelve councils are in NSW, and they trace a familiar arc: Blacktown, Campbelltown, Fairfield, Canterbury-Bankstown, Liverpool, Penrith and Cumberland are the western and south-western Sydney growth belt, joined by the Central Coast, Maitland and Wollondilly on the commuter fringe. These are the LGAs where lot sizes, land values and rental demand line up to make a secondary dwelling stack up.
The exception at the top is the point of the table. Logan City Council in Queensland recorded 756 granny flat applications in 12 months, more than any council in NSW. Logan's surge is recent and steep, and we unpacked the council-by-council rules behind it in our Queensland granny flat guide. If you build, design or certify secondary dwellings and Logan is not on your radar, the data says it should be.
The trend line is rising
Monthly lodgements ran in the 400s and 500s through late 2024 and the first half of 2025, then stepped up from spring 2025. March 2026 (881), May 2026 (845) and June 2026 (793) are the three biggest months in the series. January dips are seasonal: applications fall over the holidays, then catch up hard in February and March.
Two honest caveats on the trend. First, our council coverage grew over this window, especially in Queensland and WA, so a slice of the increase is us seeing more, not the market doing more. Second, July 2026 is excluded because the month is half over. The NSW-only like-for-like growth of 19% is the cleanest single signal that the underlying market is genuinely up, because NSW coverage was stable across the whole period.
How long does a decision actually take?
This is the number nobody publishes, and it is sitting in the data. Of the granny flat applications in our database that were decided in the last two years and recorded both a lodgement and a decision date, the medians look like this:
| State | Decided applications in sample | Median days to decision |
|---|---|---|
| NSW | 7,674 | 36 |
| QLD | 160 | 38 |
| ACT | 37 | 43 |
A median NSW granny flat DA comes back in 36 days. That figure will surprise people who have heard horror stories about council assessment times, and both things can be true: secondary dwellings are small, standardised applications, and the median hides a long tail. The sample also only contains applications with a recorded decision, so projects that stall, get withdrawn, or grind through requests for information are underrepresented. Treat 36 days as the median for a clean, compliant application, not a promise.
It is also worth remembering what this median is competing against. In NSW, the complying development route advertises determination in as little as 20 days for eligible projects. If your lot and design qualify, that pathway is still usually faster than the DA median, which is exactly why so much NSW volume never appears in DA data at all.
What to do with this if you are planning one
The state rules decide which process you are in, and the process decides your timeline and paperwork. The fastest way to orient yourself:
- Check your state guide first: NSW, Victoria or Queensland. The 60m² size threshold shows up in all three systems, but what it buys you differs completely.
- Check your specific lot. Zoning, lot size, overlays and easements decide eligibility, and every one of the fast pathways has site conditions attached. Our free granny flat checker runs an address-level eligibility scan and shows what a compliant design could look like on your parcel.
- If you are a builder or designer chasing the work rather than planning your own build, the council table above is your market map. Every application in it is a real project by a real owner, and you can browse them on the DA map filtered to granny flats in your service area.
FAQ
How many granny flats are approved in Australia each year? Nobody has a complete national figure, because the states approve them through different systems and the fastest pathways do not produce public application records. What we can measure: 8,092 granny flat and secondary dwelling development applications were lodged with councils in the 12 months to July 2026 across the 365+ councils we track, and that is a floor, not a ceiling, on real activity.
Which council approves the most granny flats? In the 12 months to July 2026, Logan City Council in Queensland recorded the most granny flat DAs in our data with 756, ahead of Blacktown (663) and Campbelltown (506) in NSW.
Why does Victoria show so few granny flat applications? Because since December 2023 most small second homes under 60m² in Victoria need no planning permit, so they never enter the DA system. The visible Victorian applications are mostly lots with overlays or other triggers. Low DA counts in Victoria mean the approval pathway is easy, not that demand is low.
How long does a granny flat DA take to approve? Among applications in our database decided in the last two years, the median was 36 days in NSW (7,674 decided applications) and 38 days in Queensland (160). Complex sites and contested applications take much longer, and eligible NSW projects can skip the DA entirely via complying development in as little as 20 days.
Is granny flat activity growing or slowing? Growing. NSW lodgements rose about 19% year on year on stable council coverage, and March, May and June 2026 were the three busiest months in our two-year series. National raw growth looks even steeper, but some of that reflects our expanding council coverage rather than the market.
Can I check if my own block qualifies for a granny flat? Yes. Our free granny flat checker scans your address against lot size, zoning and overlay data and shows an indicative layout. It is the two-minute version of the eligibility homework, before you pay anyone for drawings.
