{"id":649788,"date":"2026-05-04T21:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T21:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/649788\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T21:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T21:28:12","slug":"shock-forecast-from-major-financial-authority-as-number-of-australians-going-broke-surges-5-3-per-cent-in-2024-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/649788\/","title":{"rendered":"Shock forecast from major financial authority as number of Australians going broke surges 5.3 per cent in 2024\/25"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The number of Australians unable to pay their debts lifted 5.3 per cent last financial year and is expected to grow another 22.4 per cent over a two-year period.<\/p>\n<p>The latest figures from the Australian Financial Services Authority (ASFA) show 12,257 personal insolvencies in 2024\/25.<\/p>\n<p>A person becomes insolvent when they are unable to pay back their debts, meaning they typically either declare bankruptcy or enter a debt agreement.<\/p>\n<p>Almost 80 per cent of those entering insolvency are renters, about 56 per cent were men and the largest group was in the age range of 30 to 34 years.<\/p>\n<p>Those within labour-intensive or construction-related roles were disproportionately represented as <a class=\"body-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.skynews.com.au\/business\/finance\/call-for-covidera-rebates-for-small-businesses-during-fuel-crisis-as-tradies-to-suffer-500m-hit-from-diesel-costs\/news-story\/060015b2a84eb22c9a47f74f5e07e14a\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" data-tgev=\"event119\" data-tgev-container=\"bodylink\" data-tgev-order=\"060015b2a84eb22c9a47f74f5e07e14a\" data-tgev-label=\"business\" data-tgev-metric=\"ev\">tradies battle the impacts of the cost-of-living crisis<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>AFSA\u2019s chief executive Tim Beresford said the number of personal insolvencies would grow 9.2 per cent this financial year and by a total of 22.4 per cent by 2026\/27.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;re anticipating (in) 2025\/26 (the number of personal insolvencies) to grow to 13,500, and the following year to about 15,000,\u201d Mr Beresford told Business Now.<\/p>\n<p>He stressed the number of personal insolvencies sits well below previous times of economic strife.<\/p>\n<p>There were about 37,000 personal insolvencies in 2009 when the Global Financial Crisis plagued the world.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are seeing an increase,\u201d Mr Beresford said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But relative to what we&#8217;ve seen historically, these rises are relatively modest and in line with us heading back to the long-term mean.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Renters were highly represented as they have limited financial buffers that would otherwise keep someone out of the personal insolvency system.<\/p>\n<p>Just seven per cent of those who became insolvent had a mortgage and another one per cent owned their property outright.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Beresford stressed the prevalence of those in their early 30s was because they had not begun building their wealth like older Australians.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey&#8217;ve only just started their wealth journey. They&#8217;re obviously in their early 30s and have yet to build much in the way of assets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTherefore, once (they are) hit with some serious liabilities when they have no income, they find themselves in some financial difficulty, hence why we have a number of people aged 30-35 with limited financial buffers inside the personal insolvency system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>New South Wales continues to account for the largest share of personal insolvencies out of any state or territory, with about 3,800 going insolvent.<\/p>\n<p>Queensland followed with many of its 3,019 debtors working in labour-intensive and healthcare industries.<\/p>\n<p>A larger number of those in the Sunshine State going insolvent were younger than elsewhere in Australia as the 25\u201329-year age group was the most represented.<\/p>\n<p>Victoria came in third where just over 2500 of those in the state entered insolvency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The number of Australians unable to pay their debts lifted 5.3 per cent last financial year and is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[314251,64,63,314248,13246,99,164,230207,5465,314249,314250],"class_list":["post-649788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-afsa","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-financial-services-authority","tag-bills","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-going-broke","tag-inflation","tag-personal-insolvency","tag-tim-beresford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}