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How does your HELP debt compare with other people your age? ATO HELP statistics, balances at 30 June 2025.
Your current balance, from myGov or your ATO online services. These averages are from before the debt reduction, so a balance that has already had it applied will tend to compare lower.
Add your age to compare with people in your age band, and choose a sex to narrow it further. Without an age you are compared with everyone who has a HELP debt. The ATO groups people by age at 30 June 2025.
Your comparison
Add your HELP debt. Your answer appears here as you type.
ATO figures for the 2024–25 financial year; balances at 30 June 2025. These are the latest published HELP statistics.
These balances are from before the debt reduction
Find your age band and sex in the table. Each average is the group’s total debt divided by the number of people in it, using the ATO’s age bands.
| 0-19 | $9,647 | $9,797 | $9,711 | 111,233 | 82,367 |
| 20-29 | $31,116 | $32,568 | $31,727 | 730,153 | 529,301 |
| 30-39 | $30,235 | $34,371 | $31,801 | 492,552 | 300,136 |
| 40-49 | $22,553 | $26,358 | $23,791 | 250,729 | 120,939 |
| 50-59 | $18,797 | $20,317 | $19,310 | 135,180 | 68,907 |
| 60-69 | $17,540 | $18,318 | $17,814 | 57,360 | 31,142 |
| 70+ | $14,039 | $15,836 | $14,711 | 32,897 | 19,666 |
People with a HELP debt only. Balances at 30 June 2025, before the debt reduction. People whose age the ATO does not hold are not shown. Source: HELP Statistics 2024–25, Tables 3, 5, 6 and 8.
Swipe the table to see every column on a small screen. All amounts are Australian dollars, rounded to the nearest dollar.
The ATO publishes an average time to repay in full of 10.2 years for 2024-25, up from 9.9 years the year before. It is a historical average, not a forecast of how long any one debt will take. In 2005-06 there were 1,188,337 people with a HELP debt and the average debt was $10,434. The charts show every year since.
Each point is a balance at 30 June. Each chart starts at zero. The last point is before the debt reduction described in the notice above.
| Financial year | People | Average debt |
|---|---|---|
| 2005-06 | 1,188,337 | $10,434 |
| 2006-07 | 1,248,637 | $11,221 |
| 2007-08 | 1,314,370 | $12,026 |
| 2008-09 | 1,371,914 | $12,524 |
| 2009-10 | 1,461,772 | $13,617 |
| 2010-11 | 1,567,100 | $14,404 |
| 2011-12 | 1,680,700 | $15,191 |
| 2012-13 | 1,823,288 | $15,898 |
| 2013-14 | 1,997,973 | $16,925 |
| 2014-15 | 2,223,041 | $18,075 |
| 2015-16 | 2,468,939 | $19,396 |
| 2016-17 | 2,659,057 | $20,303 |
| 2017-18 | 2,872,603 | $21,557 |
| 2018-19 | 2,972,032 | $22,425 |
| 2019-20 | 2,851,725 | $23,280 |
| 2020-21 | 2,901,607 | $23,685 |
| 2021-22 | 3,002,984 | $24,771 |
| 2022-23 | 2,952,715 | $26,494 |
| 2023-24 | 2,932,349 | $27,641 |
| 2024-25 | 2,962,650 | $27,739 |
Debtors are people with a HELP balance above zero at the end of the financial year. The figures describe balances at 30 June 2025, before the debt reduction. They do not show how much anyone repaid or will repay.
The average debt in the headline is derived: total outstanding debt divided by the number of people with a HELP debt. Each age and sex average is the ATO’s published group total divided by its number of people. The average time to repay in full is the ATO’s published figure, which we have not adjusted.
Your comparison sets your balance against the average for the group you choose. An average can sit above the typical balance when a few balances are large, so being above or below it says little about whether your debt is high or low for your circumstances. Results are general information only and are not financial advice. The ATO and the Commonwealth do not endorse this tool.
HELP Statistics 2024–25, Tables 3, 5, 6 and 8. Retrieved 2026-10-15. Period: 2024–25 financial year; balances at 30 June 2025.
Source: Australian Taxation Office, HELP Statistics 2024–25, Tables 3, 5, 6 and 8 (CC BY 2.5 AU). Historical debt totals with unavailable dollar components are converted from the matching million-dollar totals explicitly labelled in Table 6. Series-break authority: https://www.ato.gov.au/individuals-and-families/study-and-training-support-loans/study-and-training-loans-what-s-new. Not endorsed by the ATO or the Commonwealth. CC BY 2.5 AU. Estimates and presentation by Oz Finance Hub.
Your own repayments depend on your income and on how your balance is indexed each year. To estimate your own timeline, use the HELP and HECS repayment calculator.
To see the repayment income thresholds and rates that apply, check the HELP repayment threshold calculator.
You can cite the tables with attribution to the ATO and a link to this page. Keep the financial year, the balance date and the note about the debt reduction alongside any number you quote.