Building approvals, live development applications and major projects across the Surfers Paradise statistical area — covering Gold Coast.
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.
What councils and certifiers have formally permitted — the ABS series, published about four months in arrears.
Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing homes, with Queensland and Australia for comparison. This is the same activity as the totals view, divided by the size of the area — which is the only fair way to compare a large SA3 with a small one.
Dwelling approvals a year per 1,000 residents, each year divided by that year’s estimated resident population (ABS ERP at 30 June), not by today’s — which matters most in fast-growing areas, where a fixed denominator can understate the early years by half. The most recent periods use the latest published ERP, as the population series runs a year behind approvals. Read it alongside the per-100-homes view: the two differ wherever household size does.
Dwelling units approved each financial year. The dashed line is the five-year average of 1,223.
Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing dwellings.
Detached houses as a share of existing homes, against the share of recent approvals.
Share of each year’s approvals.
The same approvals, measured against the population they have to house.
People added for every new address verified, against the size of an average local household.
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.
Dwellings a year: what is currently being approved, against what the 2041 population projection implies.
Implied need assumes the average household stays at today’s 2.4 people. Approvals are not completions, and not every approval is built.
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. 54 of them carry an AreaSearch analyst assessment — look for the Analysed marker in the search below.
Number of applications by development type. This is the clearest single picture of what kind of place Surfers Paradise is being asked to become. Councils in Queensland do not publish an estimated cost of works in their planning feeds, so applications here are counted rather than valued. A further 2 applications sit across 1 smaller category, too few to plot.
As reported by the council. Highlighted rows are applications still in assessment.
198 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 3 applications carry no status in the council feed.
Applications on record within each council area that overlaps Surfers Paradise. This counts applications inside this statistical area only — it is not a total for the council.
By the number of dwellings proposed, as lodged. Figures are the applicant’s own and are not verified by AreaSearch.
What is funded and moving — the projects large enough to change how Surfers Paradise works, ranked by committed value and how close they are to delivery.
A $1.75 billion, four-tower luxury resort-living precinct at Budds Beach in Surfers Paradise, developed by Gurner Group in joint venture with Wingate. The 13,000 square metre site features approximately 900…
A generational revitalisation of The Spit peninsula on the Gold Coast, delivering world-class public spaces, tourism and recreation infrastructure, and commercial development opportunities across 201 hectares…
The Marina Mirage redevelopment is a 500 million dollar transformation of the Gold Coast iconic waterfront precinct. Led by Makris Group, the project includes 38 luxury residences and villas, a 126 room Luxury…
37 further projects in Surfers Paradise are not listed here.
Combined values on this page exclude 7 records that appear to be separate stages of a project already counted. Both are still listed above with their own values.
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 $2.04bn across 2 projects 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.
Development applications around Surfers Paradise
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.
Applications and major projects plotted where they are actually proposed, with the 64 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.
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 Surfers Paradise.
The same view of building approvals, applications and major projects for areas neighbouring Surfers Paradise.
Surfers Paradise is Statistical Area Level 3 30910 in the ABS Australian Statistical Geography Standard (2021 edition), made up of 5 Statistical Areas Level 2. It has an estimated 52,501 residents, +16.2% since the 2021 Census.
| Measure | Source | To |
|---|---|---|
| Dwelling approvals, five-year average | ABS / AreaSearch | June 2026 |
| House share of approvals | ABS / AreaSearch | June 2026 |
| Residents per approval | ABS / AreaSearch | June 2026 |
| Value per approved dwelling | ABS / AreaSearch | June 2026 |
| Commercial work approved | ABS / AreaSearch | June 2026 |
| Verified new addresses since the Census | Address register / AreaSearch | May 2026 |
| Development applications | Council planning portals | May 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.
The ABS recorded 1,686 dwelling approvals across Surfers Paradise in the 2024-25 financial year, against a five-year average of 1,223 a year.
AreaSearch tracks 255 development applications of material scale across Surfers Paradise — routine minor works such as signage and fencing are not included, so this is not a count of every application lodged, of which 23 remain in assessment. Applications are assessed within the Gold Coast local government area. The most recent application in our data was lodged in May 2026.
AreaSearch tracks 52 current major projects in Surfers Paradise, 31 of them under construction. The largest include La Pelago, The Spit Master Plan and Marina Mirage Redevelopment.
Surfers Paradise is an ABS Statistical Area Level 3. It is covered by the Gold Coast local government area. AreaSearch publishes development figures at ABS statistical boundaries rather than council boundaries, so they reconcile with the official ABS series.
On development approvals, Surfers Paradise is adding new dwellings faster than Queensland as a whole — 1.98 approvals per 100 existing dwellings a year against the state figure of 0.77.
ABS building approvals are published with a lag of roughly four months; this page carries the series to June 2026. Development applications are collected from council planning portals and refresh continuously, with the most recent application here lodged in May 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.