Development in Dubbo

NSW

Building approvals, live development applications and major projects across the Dubbo statistical area — covering Dubbo Regional, Warrumbungle Shire and Narromine and 5 more.

SA3 10503 Rest of NSW 77,344 residents 8 statistical areas
Approved · FY25 453 dwellings approved
vs 5-yr average 417 average approvals a year
In the queue 128 live applications
Major projects 46 19 already under construction
Data Sources ABSCouncil planning portals ABS to August 2026 · Refreshed ABS QuickStats SA3 10503 How we calculate this

The Pipeline Development Pipeline in Dubbo

1 Proposed 128 applications in assessment Leading · to September 2026 See applications ↓
2 Approved 453 dwellings approved in 2025-26, or 0.61 per 100 existing dwellings a year Official · ABS to August 2026 See approvals ↓
3 Building 46 major projects committed or under construction, 19 of them already on site Forward · completions to 2030+ See projects ↓
4 Delivered 2,339 new addresses verified since the 2021 Census, up 6.0% on the existing base Actual · to August 2026 Where it landed ↓
In the 2025-26 financial year the ABS recorded 453 dwelling approvals across Dubbo. Right now, 128 development applications are before the 8 councils covering the area. AreaSearch tracks 46 major projects here that are committed or under construction, the largest being Phoenix Pumped Hydro Project at an estimated $3.60bn. On the ground, 2,339 new addresses have been verified since the 2021 Census — growth of 6.0% on the existing address base.

These four figures are deliberately not added together. An application, an approval and a project under construction are often the same building at three points in its life, measured by three different bodies with three different lags. Read them as a sequence, not a total.

Approved Building Approvals in Dubbo

What councils and certifiers have formally permitted — the ABS series, published about four months in arrears.

Approvals are running at 0.61 per 100 existing dwellings a year, in line with the New South Wales rate of 0.59. The mix is genuinely split — 47% of recent approvals are detached houses and 54% are attached or higher-density dwellings. That is a clear shift toward density — the five-year average is 61% houses. Detached houses make up 88% of the homes already standing here but only 61% of the past five years of approvals, so the area is densifying. The average approved dwelling is valued at $413,000 in construction cost.

Dwelling units approved each financial year. The dashed line is the five-year average of 417.

How intensively is it building?

Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing dwellings.

Dubbo 0.61
New South Wales 0.59
Australia 0.71

What is here, and what is coming

Detached houses as a share of existing homes, against the share of recent approvals.

Existing homes (2021 Census) 88%
Approved, last 5 years 61%
Approved, latest year 47%
Detached houses Apartments, townhouses & other

Approvals mix by year

Share of each year’s approvals.

2023
2024
2025
2026
2025-26
$208m
Residential work approved
2025-26
$191m
Commercial work approved
construction cost
$413,000
Average value per approved dwelling
last two years
163
Residents per approval

Supply & Demand Is Dubbo Building Enough Homes?

The same approvals, measured against the population they have to house.

Dubbo approves about 5.4 new dwellings a year for every 1,000 residents. Since the 2021 Census it has added 3,260 residents and 2,339 new addresses — about 1.4 extra people per home built, below the 2.8-person average household, so building has run ahead of population growth. Housing the population projected for 2041 implies roughly 142 new dwellings a year from here, which puts the recent approval rate of 417 a year comfortably ahead of what the projection needs.

Growth against supply since the Census

People added for every new address verified, against the size of an average local household.

People added per new home 1.4
Average household size 2.8

A bar longer than the household average means the area gained more residents than its new housing could hold, and the extra had to be absorbed by existing homes.

Approval rate against projected need

Dwellings a year: what is currently being approved, against what the 2041 population projection implies.

Approved (5-yr average) 417
Implied need to 2041 142

Implied need assumes the average household stays at today’s 2.8 people. Approvals are not completions, and not every approval is built.

ProposedLEADING · to September 2026 Development Applications in Dubbo

What is being asked for right now — applications collected from council planning portals, before any of it reaches the ABS series above. AreaSearch tracks applications of material scale; routine minor works such as signage and fencing changes are not carried, so these are not counts of every application lodged. 35 of them carry an AreaSearch analyst assessment — look for the Analysed marker in the search below.

AreaSearch tracks 2,075 development applications of material scale lodged with councils across Dubbo, the most recent in September 2026. 128 of them are still in assessment. The biggest categories in the queue by value are commercial, mixed-use and childcare.

Estimated value of applications by development type. This is the clearest single picture of what kind of place Dubbo is being asked to become.

Where the applications stand

As reported by the council. Highlighted rows are applications still in assessment.

Determined 772
Under Assessment 107
Approved 103
Additional Information Requested 48
Withdrawn 30
Cancelled 20

37 applications are still marked under assessment but were lodged more than 18 months ago. Councils often leave determined or abandoned applications open in their feeds, so they are counted here but excluded from the live queue above.

A further 960 applications carry no status in the council feed.

By local government area

Applications on record within each council area that overlaps Dubbo. This counts applications inside this statistical area only — it is not a total for the council.

Dubbo 960
Dubbo Regional 660
Dubbo Regional Council 205
Narromine 69
Warrumbungle Shire 66

Recent applications in Dubbo

By estimated cost of works, as lodged. Estimates are the applicant’s own figures and are not verified by AreaSearch.

Single storey 100-place childcare centre with basement parking for 32 vehicles Wellington · Under Assessment · lodged Aug 2025
$4.1m
Service Station Dubbo - West · Under Assessment · lodged Feb 2026
$1.9m
Construction of a general industrial building with office, hardstand, parking and signage. Dubbo - East · On Exhibition · lodged Aug 2026
$1.3m
Installation of nitrogen tank, concrete slab, cylinder storage awning, and customer loading dock Dubbo - West · On Exhibition · lodged Aug 2026
$464k

BuildingFORWARD Major Projects & Infrastructure in Dubbo

What is funded and moving — the projects large enough to change how Dubbo works, ranked by committed value and how close they are to delivery.

AreaSearch tracks 46 current projects across Dubbo. The largest is Phoenix Pumped Hydro Project at an estimated $3.60bn, due by 2032. That breaks down as 19 under construction, 11 approved and awaiting a start and 16 still in planning. The pipeline is weighted toward energy, transport & logistics and communities, precincts & urban renewal.
Central-West Orana Renewable Energy Zone
Under construction $25.0bn Statewide program by 2028

Central-West Orana Renewable Energy Zone

Australia's first Renewable Energy Zone (REZ) spans approximately 20,000 square kilometres around Dubbo and Dunedoo. The project involves constructing 90km of 500kV and 150km of 330kV transmission lines…

Dubbo - South

Uungula Wind Farm
Under construction $820m by 2027

Uungula Wind Farm

Uungula Wind Farm is a 414 MW wind farm under construction, featuring 69 GE Vernova 6MW wind turbines (164m rotor diameter, hub heights 148-167m) and located 14 km east of Wellington on Wiradjuri Country in…

Wellington

Bulabul Battery (formerly Wellington Battery Energy Storage System)
Under construction $545m by 2028

Bulabul Battery (formerly Wellington Battery Energy Storage System)

A two-stage, large-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) developed by AMPYR Australia, five kilometres northeast of Wellington in the Central-West Orana Renewable Energy Zone. The project was renamed…

Wellington

Also in the pipeline

Maryvale Solar & Energy Storage Under construction · Energy · by 2027 · Wellington
$500m
New Dubbo Bridge (Aunty Pearl Gibbs Bridge) Under construction · Transport & Logistics · by 2026 · Dubbo - East
$263m
Southlakes Estate Under construction · Communities, Precincts & Urban Renewal · by 2030 · Dubbo - South
$682m
Spicers Creek Wind Farm Approved · Energy · by 2030 · Wellington
$2.00bn
Dubbo Firming Power Station Approved · Energy · by 2029 · Dubbo - West
$190m
Dubbo Project In planning · Manufacturing · by 2029 · Dubbo Surrounds
$540m
Burrendong Wind Farm In planning · Energy · by 2029 · Wellington
$700m
Boree Solar Farm In planning · Energy · by 2029 · Wellington
$700m
Blueridge Business Park Under construction · Business Parks & Technology Hubs · by 2028 · Dubbo - East
$50m
Inland Rail - Narromine to Narrabri Approved · Transport & Logistics · Gilgandra
$1.60bn
Phoenix Pumped Hydro Project In planning · Energy · by 2032 · Wellington
$3.60bn
The Village Southlakes Under construction · Retail · by 2026 · Dubbo - South
$32m

31 further projects in Dubbo are not listed here.

Combined values on this page exclude 1 whole-of-state program that reaches this area but are not local to it, and 2 records that appear to be separate stages of a project already counted. Both are still listed above with their own values.

AI Generated Denotes AI-based impression for illustrative purposes only, not to be taken as definitive under any circumstances. Please follow links and conduct other investigations from the project’s source for actual imagery. Developers and project owners wishing us to use original imagery please Contact Us and we will do so.

Beyond 2030: a further $3.60bn across 1 project with completion dates further out — mostly precinct-scale programs whose dates are indicative. Kept out of the chart so the years you can act on stay readable.

Estimated value of tracked projects by the year they are due to complete, stacked by how certain they are. The dark band is money already being spent; the pale band is still an intention. Estimates are indicative and mix infrastructure cost with whole-of-precinct development value, so read the shape rather than the totals.

Approvals Pipeline Development Applications in Dubbo

Development applications around Dubbo

Development approvals is a new addition to AreaSearch. We’re actively expanding council coverage and refining the dataset — details and statuses for some councils may be partial. Check back regularly for the latest pipeline.
Applications
In the local catchment
Est. Value
Where disclosed
Under Assessment
Awaiting determination
Determined
Approved or decided
Approvals pipeline Status, location, timing and project scale

Loading development applications…

Lodged Address Description Type Distance Status

SOURCE: Planning portals and council registers, compiled by AreaSearch. Distance & bearing measured from the suburb midpoint.

ProfessionalPRO Development Map for Dubbo

Applications and major projects plotted where they are actually proposed, with the 61 projects AreaSearch tracks here on their own tab — filterable by type, delivery stage, area and committed value. To search every application on record rather than this sample, use the section above.

Distribution Where Development Is Happening in Dubbo

Dubbo covers 8 statistical areas, and development is not spread evenly between them. Dubbo - South alone accounted for 49% of the area’s dwelling approvals in 2025-26. The top three between them took 83% of the total.

Dwelling approvals each financial year, split by the statistical area they fell in. Each column totals the whole Dubbo figure from the approvals chart above — SA2s nest exactly inside an SA3, so the two always reconcile. Tap or click an area in the legend to hide it and compare the rest. The smallest 3 areas are grouped as one band.

Map builder

Each area below opens a map builder on its own page — a tool for putting a map and a table into a report. Pick the place types you want plotted (schools, supermarkets, medical, child care, transport and the rest of what AreaSearch holds), add development applications as their own layer, drop your own points, then recolour, renumber and export the result as a table or CSV. A this area only toggle clips everything to the boundary you are looking at. Searches are charged against your credit balance — 1 credit per 40 results from AreaSearch data — and setting filters costs nothing until you search. The builder works on one suburb-sized area at a time, which is why it opens per area rather than across the whole of Dubbo.

Dubbo - South area profile

221 approvals in 2025-26
49% of the area total · 893 applications on record · 1,002 new addresses since 2021
Build a map

Dubbo - West area profile

103 approvals in 2025-26
23% of the area total · 317 applications on record · 397 new addresses since 2021
Build a map

Dubbo - East area profile

53 approvals in 2025-26
12% of the area total · 354 applications on record · 233 new addresses since 2021
Build a map

Wellington area profile

23 approvals in 2025-26
5% of the area total · 173 applications on record · 114 new addresses since 2021
Build a map

Dubbo Surrounds area profile

15 approvals in 2025-26
3% of the area total · 95 applications on record · 159 new addresses since 2021
Build a map

Narromine area profile

14 approvals in 2025-26
3% of the area total · 99 applications on record · 180 new addresses since 2021
Build a map

Coonabarabran area profile

12 approvals in 2025-26
3% of the area total · 85 applications on record · 128 new addresses since 2021
Build a map

Gilgandra area profile

12 approvals in 2025-26
3% of the area total · 59 applications on record · 126 new addresses since 2021
Build a map

Planning Authorities Councils Covering Dubbo

Dubbo spans 8 local government areas — Dubbo Regional, Warrumbungle Shire, Narromine, Gilgandra, Cabonne, Warren, Coonamble and Mid-Western Regional. Applications here are assessed by whichever of those councils the site falls within. AreaSearch publishes development figures at ABS statistical boundaries rather than council boundaries. That is deliberate: the ABS issues a separate official building-approvals series for local government areas, and totals built up from statistical areas would not match it. Reporting at SA3 keeps every figure on this page reconcilable with the published ABS series.
Local government areaShare of DubboApplications on recordRegister read to
Dubbo Regional 74% of residents 1,824 September 2026
Warrumbungle Shire 11% of residents 84 September 2026
Narromine 8.6% of residents 99 September 2026
Gilgandra 5.8% of residents 59 September 2026
Cabonne 0.6% of residents 5 July 2026
Warren 0.3% of residents 1 January 2026
Coonamble 0.0% of residents Not yet collected
Mid-Western Regional 0.0% of residents Not yet collected

Compare Nearby Development Hubs

The same view of building approvals, applications and major projects for areas neighbouring Dubbo.

Data & Method Sources & Method for Dubbo

The four tenses, and what each one can tell you

Proposed — development applications
Collected from council planning portals. The earliest signal available, but the least certain: many applications are amended, withdrawn or refused, values are the applicant’s own estimate, and coverage varies by council. This is a curated set, not the full council feed: AreaSearch carries applications of material scale and does not track routine minor works such as signage, fencing or small alterations, so the counts here are lower than a council’s own total lodgement figure and should not be compared with it. Applications still shown as under assessment more than 18 months after lodgement are reported separately and kept out of the live-queue figures: the age profile of open applications is sharply split between a genuine queue under a year old and a long tail of records councils never closed. Not every state publishes a cost of works — Queensland, the Northern Territory and the ACT publish none at all — so on those pages applications are counted rather than valued and no dollar figure is shown rather than a partial one. Treated here as a snapshot of the current queue only — AreaSearch does not chart application counts over time, because the history reflects when each portal was collected rather than when development happened.
Approved — ABS building approvals
The official series, aggregated to SA3 from ABS building approvals data, currently published to August 2026. Counts dwelling units approved, not buildings and not completions. The most recent financial year is annualised from nine months of data wherever it appears and is labelled as such.
Building — major projects
Projects tracked individually by AreaSearch from Infrastructure Australia, state infrastructure agencies, developer disclosures and council records. Values are estimates and delivery dates are targets. Ranked on this page by committed value and delivery stage rather than by distance.
Delivered — verified new addresses
New residential addresses verified in the national address register since the 2021 Census. This is the closest available measure of what has actually been built, though address creation can lead occupation and lags construction. It is not a completions count.

Boundaries

Dubbo is Statistical Area Level 3 10503 in the ABS Australian Statistical Geography Standard (2021 edition), made up of 8 Statistical Areas Level 2. It has an estimated 77,344 residents, +4.4% since the 2021 Census.

Currency

MeasureSourceTo
Dwelling approvals, five-year average ABS / AreaSearch July 2026
House share of approvals ABS / AreaSearch July 2026
Residents per approval ABS / AreaSearch July 2026
Value per approved dwelling ABS / AreaSearch July 2026
Commercial work approved ABS / AreaSearch July 2026
Verified new addresses since the Census Address register / AreaSearch August 2026
Development applications Council planning portals September 2026
Major projects Infrastructure Australia / state agencies / AreaSearch Ongoing

Figures on this page are read live from the AreaSearch database each time it loads, so they update as soon as a source does.

Development in Dubbo — common questions

How many new dwellings were approved in Dubbo?

The ABS recorded 453 dwelling approvals across Dubbo in the 2025-26 financial year, against a five-year average of 417 a year.

How many development applications are lodged in Dubbo?

AreaSearch tracks 2,075 development applications of material scale across Dubbo — routine minor works such as signage and fencing are not included, so this is not a count of every application lodged, of which 128 remain in assessment. Applications are assessed within the Dubbo Regional, Warrumbungle Shire and Narromine local government areas. The most recent application in our data was lodged in September 2026.

What major projects are planned for Dubbo?

AreaSearch tracks 46 current major projects in Dubbo, 19 of them under construction. The largest include Central-West Orana Renewable Energy Zone, Uungula Wind Farm and Bulabul Battery (formerly Wellington Battery Energy Storage System).

Which council covers Dubbo?

Dubbo is an ABS Statistical Area Level 3. It is covered by parts of 8 local government areas — Dubbo Regional, Warrumbungle Shire, Narromine, Gilgandra, Cabonne, Warren, Coonamble and Mid-Western Regional. AreaSearch publishes development figures at ABS statistical boundaries rather than council boundaries, so they reconcile with the official ABS series.

Is Dubbo growing faster than the rest of New South Wales?

On development approvals, Dubbo is adding new dwellings at about the same rate as New South Wales as a whole — 0.61 approvals per 100 existing dwellings a year against the state figure of 0.59.

How current is this development data?

ABS building approvals are published with a lag of roughly four months; this page carries the series to August 2026. Development applications are collected from council planning portals and refresh continuously, with the most recent application here lodged in September 2026. Major project records are reviewed on an ongoing basis. Each section carries its own currency label so the four are never confused.

Development data is provided for general information. Estimated values, dwelling counts and delivery dates come from the lodging or delivering party and are not independently verified by AreaSearch. Confirm anything material with the relevant council or agency before relying on it.