Australia's most popular dog breeds, state by state

The new favourites: Australia's top 10 right now

Pet Insurance Australia ranks breeds by its new customers, pets born in 2024 and 2025. It is the most current national list we could find, but it only counts insured puppies, so it leans towards fashionable and often pricey breeds. The company publishes ranks, not counts.

1. 1Cavoodle
2. 2French Bulldog
3. 3Golden Retriever
4. 4Border Collie
5. 5Groodle
6. 6Miniature Dachshund
7. 7German Shepherd
8. 8Labrador
9. 9Maltese
10. 10Poodle

State by state: a rank heat map

Darker gold means a higher rank. A dash means the breed did not make that state's top 10. The cavoodle is first everywhere except the Northern Territory, and the French bulldog and golden retriever fill out most podiums. Victoria is the one place the golden retriever beats the frenchie. Western Australia is the only state with the Staffordshire bull terrier in its top four, and South Australia ranks the border collie ahead of the golden.

Source: Pet Insurance Australia, new customers, pets born 2024 to 2025. The ACT and Tasmania are not covered.

The Northern Territory does its own thing

The Territory is the outlier. Its list is topped by the Jack Russell terrier, followed by the miniature dachshund and the boerboel, with the Great Dane, Australian cattle dog and Australian shepherd further down. There are no cavoodles or frenchies in its top 10. The insurer does not publish counts, so we cannot say how many policies sit behind the list. Treat it as a flavour rather than a census.

The older, bigger picture: what the registers say

Central Animal Records, a national microchip database covering more than 3.5 million dogs, tells a different story. It reflects every dog on file, so older and more established breeds dominate. Its top three per state, as reported in August 2023 and updated in January 2024:

Read the two columns together and you can see a generational shift. Maltese appear in the top three in all eight register lists, Staffordshire bull terriers in four and Jack Russells in three, and not one cavoodle, frenchie or golden retriever makes a register top three. Those breeds only began to surge in the last decade, so they are a growing slice of puppies but a smaller slice of all dogs.

Source: Central Animal Records via The Senior and other Australian Community Media titles. Breed counts were not published.

Real numbers: Brisbane's registered dogs

Few councils publish breed counts, but Brisbane City Council did in 2021. Labradors led with 9,728 registrations, about 28% more than second-placed Maltese. Poodles, kelpies, golden retrievers, Jack Russells and dachshunds filled places six to ten.

Source: Brisbane City Council dog registrations, reported by RACQ in November 2021. The bars start at zero.

More state lists

Canberra's 2022 registration list already has the cavoodle on top, followed by border collies and kelpies. Tasmania's insurance list puts the golden retriever first and the cavoodle second.

What kind of dogs do Australians own?

Across the whole country, the national survey by Animal Medicines Australia says half of all dogs are purebred, 35% are mixed breed and 14% are designer crosses. By size, 38% are small (up to 10kg), 38% weigh 10 to 25kg and 24% are over 25kg.

Source: Animal Medicines Australia, Pets in Australia 2025. The percentages are rounded, so the breed type split adds to 99%.

Why the lists disagree

Every list here measures something different, so none is wrong. Insurance data counts puppies whose owners buy cover, which favours trendy and expensive breeds. Council registers count every dog but only the ones that get registered. Microchip databases include every dog on file. The dates also span 2016 to 2025, so some lists are close to a decade apart. There is no single official national ranking, and we would treat every figure here as a snapshot.

What it means for dog-friendly Australia

Whatever the breed, the question is the same: where can the dog come too? Border collies and golden retrievers, two of the most popular breeds in nearly every state, need room to run, while the small breeds that top many lists are the ones most often welcome inside cafés and stays. Find places near you on PupFriendly.