What is Gross Regional Product (GRP) and how is it measured?

What GRP tells you about your local economy, and how to read it with confidence

Gross Regional Product (GRP) is the regional equivalent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It is built on value added - mostly made up of all profits and wages generated within an economy - plus the ownership of dwellings component. Because no official GRP figure is published for local government areas, the figure in Economic Profile is modelled by the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research (NIEIR), built up from local data and reconciled to the ABS state and national accounts.

Key concepts

Headline GRP

Headline GRP is the sum of value added by every local industry, plus the ownership of dwellings component, with estimates for interest, dividends, corporate tax and depreciation included. It reconciles to state and national accounts. The measure is generally used to measure economic value generated by an economy and for comparison against other benchmark economies.

The GRP family - more than one measure

NIEIR produces several GRP measures, and they answer different questions. They differ on two dimensions: whether value is attributed to where people live or where they work, and whether company surplus is included.

Local resident GRP attributes value to where employed residents live. Use it to compare the economic prosperity of local people, regardless of where they work. Total resident GRP adds dividends, interest and ownership of dwellings, showing the total income available for local decisions.
Local industry GRP attributes value to workplaces (close to total industry value added). It counts only the value added that stays local: wages and salaries plus the income of unincorporated businesses and unlisted companies. Headline GRP adds estimates of listed-company profits, interest, corporate tax and depreciation, imputed from state-level industry ratios, so that component reflects the industry average rather than the actual performance of local businesses. Total industry GRP adds property income and ownership of dwellings to local industry GRP.
Headline GRP is the GDP-equivalent measure, and the one that reconciles to official state totals.

Ownership of dwellings

Following the national accounts definition, the value accruing to owners of dwellings - actual rent received by landlords and imputed rent for owner occupiers - is counted in GRP and attributed to the location of the dwelling. It sits outside industry value added, which is why headline GRP is not simply the sum of industry value added. It is included because owner occupiers consume the same housing services as renters; if only actual rent were counted, regions with higher home ownership would appear to produce less, and comparisons across regions would not work.

Real, not nominal

All GRP figures in Economic Profile are real: they are price adjusted, so year-on-year movements represent volume growth rather than price inflation. The adjustment follows the ABS reference year for chain volume measures in the latest national accounts, currently 2023-24. The reference year moves each year as the ABS re-bases the national accounts, which mainly affects areas with commodity-heavy value added such as mining and agriculture.

Where to find GRP in Economic Profile

GRP sits among Economic Profile's headline statistics and economic value measures, alongside industry value added, output and local sales, with benchmarking against your region, state and Australia. Industry-level data by multiple measures shows which industries drive the total.

The smallest geography available

The economic model is built at local government area level, and that is the geography at which the published figures should be used. Estimates below the LGA can be modelled to order as custom work, but they carry wider error margins, because the tax, labour force and Census inputs that anchor the model are thinner for small areas. For sub-LGA employment questions, Census place-of-work data is the most detailed observed employment geography available - it reaches destination zone level, the small areas the ABS uses to record where people work.

Frequently asked questions

Q: Is GRP real or nominal?

A: Real. The figures are price adjusted in line with the ABS reference year for chain volume measures, currently 2023-24, so growth in the series reflects volume change, not inflation.

Q: What is the smallest area I can get a GRP figure for?

A: The published figure is at local government area level. Smaller-area estimates are possible as commissioned custom work, with wider error margins the smaller the area gets.

Q: Why does our GRP per worker look so different from a neighbouring council's?

A: Differences in industry mix matter most. Headline GRP also includes listed-company profits, interest, tax and depreciation imputed from state industry averages, so it can diverge from what local businesses actually earn. For a fairer comparison, benchmark on industry value added, which excludes those imputed components.

Q: Why did our GRP change from last year's published figure?

A: The whole dataset is remodelled every year as new data arrives, so every year in the series can move. Quote figures with their release vintage. See 'Why economic figures change between annual releases'.