Australia Business Confidence

Last Release

Mar 31, 2025

Actual

-3

Units In

Points

-2

Frequency

Monthly

Next Release

May 13, 2025

Time to Release

1 Months 0 Days 2 Hours

Highest	Lowest	Average	Date Range	Source
23 Apr 2021	-66 Mar 2020	4.82 Points	1997-2025	National Australia Bank

The NAB monthly survey of business confidence is based on a telephone survey of around 600 small, medium and large size non-agricultural companies. The Survey measures the expectations of business conditions for the upcoming month and is a simple average of trading, profitability and employment indices, reported by respondents for their company. The indices are calculated by taking the difference between the percentage of respondents nominating good or very good, or a rise and those nominating poor or very poor, or a fall.

Latest Updates

Australia’s NAB business confidence index edged down to -3 in March 2025 from a revised -2 in the previous month, marking the lowest level since last November. Industry sentiment was mixed, with confidence slipping in finance, property & business services, and manufacturing, while mining, retail, recreation, and transport saw gains. Meanwhile, business conditions were little changed, holding slightly below average (4 vs 3), as a rise in profitability (1 vs -1) was offset by weaker sales (6 vs 7) and subdued employment (steady at 4). Conditions improved across most sectors except construction, retail, and recreation & personal services. Forward orders ticked up slightly (-2 vs -3), supported by higher capacity utilization (82.9% vs 82.0%) and capital spending (7 vs 6). Purchase cost growth held steady at 1.4% in quarterly terms, labor cost growth eased to 1.5%, and product price growth was flat, though retail price growth softened.