Here’s a hint: it’s not in Sydney anymore. So what is Australia’s richest postcode now?
Sydney’s harbourside suburbs have lost a title they had held for years. According to tax data released by the Australian Taxation Office this week, the highest-earning postcode in the country is now 3944, the Mornington Peninsula enclave of Portsea, south of Melbourne.
The ATO called it “the first time Victoria has had the highest-earning postcode.”
Residents of 3944 reported an average taxable income of $321,988 in the 2023-24 financial year, the most recent year for which the ATO has published returns.
That was enough to overtake the Sydney-harbourside crown jewel postcodes that have long owned the top of this list. The eastern-suburbs postcode of 2027, which takes in Point Piper and Darling Point, led the previous year’s table with an average of $279,712.
Portsea has been a summer retreat for Melbourne’s wealthy for generations, a cluster of clifftop estates at the tip of the Mornington Peninsula.
One thing is worth keeping in mind about how this list is built. It is an average of everyone who lodged a return in the postcode, and a place like Portsea has relatively few permanent residents, so a small group of high earners can lift the whole postcode to the top. It measures who files their taxes there, not what the typical household down the road brings in.
What else the tax data shows
Beyond the postcode race, the 2023-24 figures run in the same direction as recent years, with incomes and retirement savings both edging higher.
Surgeons are still the country’s highest-paid workers, a position they have held for the past 15 years. The 4,280 surgeons who lodged returns reported an average taxable income of $519,998, well clear of every other occupation.
Retirement balances grew too. The average superannuation account rose from $173,000 in 2022-23 to $183,000 in 2023-24.
The ATO’s figures always run a couple of years behind, drawn from returns that have already been lodged and processed. That makes 2023-24 the freshest national picture available, until next year’s release.
