In brief: The 2026 Australian Census is held on Tuesday 11 August 2026. It asks, “What is the person’s religion?” — and answering is optional. The question is worded in a way that assumes everyone has a religion, which leads many people to answer from habit or upbringing rather than their current beliefs. The result is a significant undercount of non-religious Australians. Our ask is simple and conditional: reflect on your current relationship with religion before you answer — and if you’re not religious, mark ‘No Religion’.
The Census – Not Religious? Mark ‘No Religion’ campaign is a coalition of Australian secular, humanist and rationalist organisations working to bring greater integrity to the Census. This page explains what the religion question is, why its wording is a problem, what the evidence shows, and how to answer authentically, including how to answer privately if you need to.
The religion question on the 2026 Census reads: “What is the person’s religion?” You are offered a tick-box list of the most common religions in Australia, a ‘No Religion’ box, and a write-in space for faiths not on the list.
It is one of the very few optional questions on the Census. You are within your rights to answer it, leave it blank, or mark ‘No Religion’ — the choice is yours, and it should reflect who you are today.
Census night is Tuesday 11 August 2026. Forms and online completion details are mailed out from around mid-July, and you can complete the Census before Census night if it’s more convenient. Whenever you complete it, your answers should reflect your circumstances as at 11 August 2026.
No. The religion question is the one clearly optional question on the Census. But we’d gently encourage you not to skip it: religion statistics shape policies and funding that affect all Australians — schools, hospitals, aged care, chaplaincy programs, laws on religious and non-religious freedoms, and more. An accurate answer, one way or the other, helps make the national picture honest. So please, do your bit for accurate data and answer the question thoughtfully.
The question is about your current relationship with religion — not your upbringing, not the school you attended, and not what others think you ought to be. If faith is genuinely part of your life today, marking your religion is the accurate answer, and we support that. But if you no longer believe or practise, the accurate answer is ‘No Religion’.
We are not telling anyone how to fill in their Census. We’re asking you to pause at the religion question and answer for the person you actually are. For many Australians, that honest answer is ‘No Religion’. For a plain guide to specific situations, see our Frequently Asked Questions.
The wording “What is the person’s religion?” is what researchers call a leading question: it presumes a baseline that everyone has a religion, and simply asks which one. Faced with that framing, many people acquiesce and name a religion out of family history or cultural habit, even when it no longer reflects their beliefs.
It’s not just our view. The Australian Bureau of Statistics itself agrees the wording is flawed. In fact, the ABS proposed a fairer question for 2026 — “Does the person have a religion?” with ‘yes’ and ‘no’ options — before reverting to the old wording under pressure. You can read the full story on our Background of the 2026 Census religion question page.
Several robust, independent surveys suggest the biased wording undercounts the non-religious by as much as 11 percentage points. In 2021, 38.9% of Australians — almost 10 million people — marked ‘No Religion’. When people are asked using fairer, non-leading wording, the non-religious share comes out considerably higher:
The direction is consistent: the true non-religious share is likely much higher than the Census records. For the full detail and sources, see our Census data accuracy page.
The Census is the gold standard of data about Australian society, run every five years. Governments at all levels, public institutions, researchers and the media rely on it to set policy, allocate billions of dollars in public funding, and gauge the representation of community voices.
When the religion figures are inflated, that skew flows through into real-world decisions: funding directed to faith-based programs over secular alternatives, and a louder “share of voice” for religious lobbying than the numbers warrant. Getting the data right isn’t about diminishing anyone — it’s about greater fairness for all Australians, believers and non-believers alike.
After two rounds of public consultation, the ABS proposed replacing the leading question for 2026 and its own documents backed the change to “support more accurate data collection”. Then, following a public campaign by religious leaders and intervention in the process, the ABS cancelled its major test and reverted to the biased 2021 wording — even while acknowledging in its own documents that the question “may lead respondents to a particular response”.
That’s why this campaign matters now: the question won’t be fixed for 2026, so the accuracy of the data rests on each of us answering authentically. The full timeline is on our Background of the 2026 Census religion question page.
Do you live in a household where you’d feel unsafe expressing your beliefs on the Census? It is your fundamental right to answer the religion question yourself, rather than having someone else answer for you.
Through the ABS, you can request your own separate, private Census form. Your individual response overrides any answer someone else records for you on the household form, and it stays confidential. Find out how on our Separate Census form page.
Authenticity — Be counted for who you are today, not who you were raised to be or what others think you ought to be.
Fairness — Ensure all Australians are fairly represented, and that no organisation receives special privileges on the strength of inaccurate data.
Integrity — Say what’s true for you, without being swayed by the biased wording of the question.
What if I’m spiritual but not religious?
By definition, that means you are not religious — so the accurate answer is ‘No Religion’. The question is about your current relationship with religion, not a general sense of the spiritual.
What if I was baptised but no longer practise?
If you firmly and actively believe the teachings of your denomination, marking that religion is appropriate. If you doubt or disagree with them, or religion is simply no longer part of your life, then ‘No Religion’ is the honest answer.
What if my family is religious, but I’m not?
If your family regards itself as Catholic, Anglican, Muslim, Hindu or any other religion, but you don’t follow or practise that faith, mark ‘No Religion’. Answer for yourself, not your family’s tradition.
How should I answer for my children?
If they can, let them answer for themselves — freedom of thought and religion belongs to everyone, including children. If they’re too young to decide, the most appropriate answer is ‘No Religion’.
Are atheism, humanism, secularism or rationalism religions?
No. These are worldviews that don’t rely on supernatural explanations. If you hold one of them, mark ‘No Religion’.
For more situations and plain answers, see our full FAQs.
Census – Not Religious? Mark ‘No Religion’ is run by a coalition of pro-secular Australian organisations — the Rationalist Society of Australia, Humanists Australia, the National Secular Lobby, Humanists Victoria and the Secular Association of NSW — with support from Australian Skeptics (Victoria) and Recovering From Religion Australia. Learn more about the campaign.
Reflect on your current relationship with religion — and if you’re not religious, mark ‘No Religion’ on 11 August 2026. Your honest answer makes the national picture honest too.