The Australian Bureau of Statistics had 5,002,195 household Census forms in hand by 11.38am on Tuesday, hours before Census night itself.

The bureau published that tally at 4.27pm the same day. New South Wales accounted for 1,596,090 forms and Victoria 1,413,946, ahead of Queensland on 911,553, Western Australia on 503,561 and South Australia on 340,393. Tasmania returned 96,872, the Australian Capital Territory 95,942 and the Northern Territory 28,037.

The ABS calls the tally a point in time measure that is indicative of activity rather than the full picture. It counts online submissions and posted paper forms together, and the rate at which they arrive differs by state, because paper forms went out in different volumes and on different timetables. A state that leans harder on paper looks slower in a same day count without anyone in it being slower to respond.

Census night was Tuesday 11 August. The bureau's message on the day was that households which never received their instruction letter can still take part, by going to the Census website for a Census number or calling to request a paper form. It ran a similar line on Monday.

For scale, the 2021 Census closed with a response rate of 96.1 per cent, up from 95.1 per cent in 2016. Neither figure is a useful comparison against a tally taken before the count had even happened. The number that matters is the one the ABS reports at the end of the collection window, not the one it reports at lunchtime on the day.

Three questions on the 2026 form are new or reworked. The bureau is asking people aged 16 and over about gender and about sexual orientation for the first time, and both are optional, as the religion question has long been. The question on sex was rewritten to ask what sex a person had recorded at birth, which the ABS says gives cleaner data when it sits alongside the gender question. Ancestry now takes up to four responses.

The gender and sexual orientation questions are optional. The rest of the form is not. Names collected on Tuesday are held until the end of February 2028 and addresses until the end of August 2029, under the retention periods the bureau set for this Census.

The data arrives in three releases. The bulk lands in June 2027, a second tranche in October 2027, and the remainder in early to mid 2028.