Get the facts and identify misinformation

We’ll provide alerts about known scams on this website and through our 2026 Census – Australia Facebook page.

Please also check Scamwatch.

Scams trick you into giving out your personal information or money. Scammers often pretend to be from trusted organisations, like the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).  

Scammers may ask for your personal details, such as your:

• bank or credit card details
• passwords
• identity documents. 

Sometimes it can be hard to tell when something is fake. Suspicious activity related to the Census Test could be:

• a web address that's pretending to be official, but is not www.abs.gov.au, www.census.abs.gov.au or www.info.census.abs.gov.au.
• a suspicious email or SMS impersonating the ABS asking for your personal information or bank account details
• an unsolicited phone call from someone claiming to be from the Census and asking for personal or financial information.

Learn what genuine contact from the ABS looks like to reduce your risk of being scammed.

There are only two ways households can complete the Census Test. This is with the online form or a paper form. In remote areas, Census field staff visit houses and help people complete their form.

All households that are part of the Census Test will get one of these:

• a letter with instructions on how to do the Census Test online
• a paper form with Reply Paid envelope.

The letter and the form both have the ABS logo displayed in the top left corner.

The Reply Paid envelope will include the below address:

Australian Bureau of Statistics
Census
Reply Paid 93909
DANDENONG VIC 3175

In remote communities, Census staff will be running the test in June and July 2025. If you’re in one of these areas, you’ll meet face to face with Census field staff to help you complete your paper form. Afterwards, they'll send completed Census Test forms safely back to us. 

Selected households in the Census Test locations may be contacted by ABS staff as part of a post Census review. Selected households will get a letter from the ABS. 

We will never ask for:

• your bank details or credit card information
• money or donations
• any passwords
• identity documents or your tax file number.

We’ll never contact you unexpectedly through social media sites, like Facebook or X, asking for personal details.

We’ll never call, email or SMS you unless you've provided a phone number or email address. 

Phone calls from the Census Contact Centre will be from a private number. If we’re unable to reach you by phone, we'll leave a voicemail message where possible.

If you've missed a call about the Census Test and you’re not sure if it’s real or not, contact us. We’ll never offer or provide prizes or incentives for you to complete your Census form.

Look out for the ABS and Census logo on all our channels.

Our official Census website is www.census.abs.gov.au, census.abs.gov.au, www.info.census.abs.gov.au or info.census.abs.gov.au.

Any website with similar names or web addresses claiming to be the Census and asking for personal information is fake and should be reported immediately.

Australian Government website addresses use the ‘.gov.au’ extension in the address—never ‘.org’, ‘.net’ or ‘.com’. Any website claiming to be a government department or agency that does not use ‘.gov.au’ should be treated with caution.

The website address should appear with the start of ‘https://’ in the navigation bar. This demonstrates that it’s a secure site.

Our official Census emails end in @abs.gov.au. We'll only send you an email to send you Census log in details and security codes, or if you've provided your email and requested a response. 

Official Census emails will never include website links.

If you’ve subscribed to Census Test updates through myGov, you’ll get updates and a link to the online form sent to your myGov Inbox when it’s time to complete the Census Test.

We’ll only send you an SMS message to send you Census log in details or security codes if requested. The SMS will identify it as being from the ABS or the Census Test. 

We have six social media channels to keep you up to date. Our Facebook, Instagram and X accounts are verified with a blue tick badge next to our name.

Our social media channels are:

Census Facebook – facebook.com/2026CensusAU  

ABS Facebook – facebook.com/absstats

Instagram – instagram.com/absstats/ 

X (Twitter) – x.com/ABSStats

YouTube – ABSstatistics

LinkedIn – au.linkedin.com/company/absstats

Sometimes it can be difficult to tell when something is fake. We encourage you to report any inaccurate or suspicious information you read or hear through our contact us form.

If you think you've been scammed, you should:

• contact your bank or financial institution immediately if you think you’ve provided your account details to a scammer
• report suspicious activity through our contact us form and report the incident at www.scamwatch.gov.au.