A maintained factbase. Each figure carries its own source and refresh cycle; a number that stays stable for years is an asset, not a gap. Where no official aggregate exists, we say so rather than manufacture one.
The reading in one line
The corridor is real but statistically invisible. None of the three headline measures below, total trade, total diaspora and total remittances, is published anywhere as a single official number. Each has to be assembled, and each assembly is a judgement. That absence is itself the finding: measuring the corridor is part of the work of operating in it.
Trade
Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade publishes country fact sheets, not a continent-wide Australia-Africa total. The clean, primary figure is the largest single partner:
| Measure | Figure | Source | Reference | Cadence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia-South Africa two-way trade | A$5.16bn (exports A$2.41bn · imports A$2.75bn) | DFAT Country Economic Fact Sheet | CY2025 | ~2×/year |
| Next-largest partners | Kenya A$1.17bn · Morocco A$0.93bn · Egypt A$0.90bn · Mozambique A$0.89bn · Nigeria A$0.66bn | DFAT Country Economic Fact Sheets | CY2025 | ~2×/year |
| Australia-Africa continent two-way (indicative) | ~A$12bn | Secondary (Global Voices Australia, Dec 2025, citing "DFAT 2025"); corroborated by our own bottom-up sum of 23 country sheets (~A$12.6bn) | 2025 |
South Africa is roughly 40% of the measured relationship and about four times the next-largest partner. The continent figure is presented as an estimate, not a DFAT-published total.
People
The Australian Bureau of Statistics publishes country-of-birth counts, not a "sub-Saharan Africa" aggregate. The largest communities (2021 Census, place of usual residence):
South Africa 189,207 · Zimbabwe 39,714 · Mauritius 25,981 · Kenya 22,348 · Sudan 16,609* · Ethiopia 14,092 · Nigeria 12,883 · South Sudan 8,255 · Somalia 8,101 · Zambia 6,847 · Ghana 6,322 · Tanzania 4,371 · Uganda 4,163.
- Summed across these communities: ~359,000 (a floor, not an official total, dozens of smaller states fall below the ABS display threshold).
- South Africa-born estimated resident population: 229,950 as at 30 June 2025 (ABS annual series, the 7th-largest country of birth).
- Source: ABS 2021 Census QuickStats; ABS "Australia's population by country of birth" (Apr 2026). Cadence: Census 5-yearly (next 11 Aug 2026); country-of-birth ERP annual.
- * ABS classifies Sudan under North Africa; included here because it is a corridor community, flagged for anyone publishing a strict sub-Saharan total.
Money
Bilateral remittance figures are modelled estimates, not measured flows, the World Bank/KNOMAD method allocates each country's total inflows across sending countries by migrant stock and income. Present them as shares, not receipts.
Australia → sub-Saharan Africa, 2021 (US$m, modelled): South Africa 204.6 · Kenya 198.5 · Nigeria 188.1 · Zimbabwe 105.0 · Mauritius 46.7 · Ghana 39.7. Summed across ~49 corridors: ~US$937m, about 4% of Australia's total outbound.
Source: World Bank/KNOMAD Bilateral Remittance Matrix, 2021 vintage (released Dec 2022, the most recent; ~5-year lag, no successor announced). Cadence: irregular. Caveat prominently: modelled and ageing.