Every council development application tracker in one place — organised by state, with the portal type each council uses and a link to its dedicated coverage page.
A DA tracker (development application tracker) is the public register where a council — or in some states, the state government — publishes development applications: who applied, what they want to build, where, and what stage the application is at. Most trackers let you search by address, application number, or date range, and view lodged plans and assessment documents.
People use DA trackers for three main reasons:
The catch: Australia doesn't have one national DA register. How you find a development application depends on the state — some states run a central portal, others leave it entirely to individual councils. This guide covers all 252 councils PlanInsight tracks, state by state.
Queensland has no single statewide DA register for council-assessed development. Each council publishes its own development applications through its own online tracker, and the software behind those trackers varies widely — some councils use Development.i, others ePathway, Technology One, Civica, or a system built in-house. That means the search experience, the fields available, and how far back the records go all differ from council to council.
Since 1 July 2021, all development applications in New South Wales must be lodged through the NSW Planning Portal, which provides a statewide application tracking search. Many councils also continue to run their own DA trackers alongside the portal, so for some councils you have two places to look — the central portal and the council's own system.
Victoria has no central public register of planning permit applications. Each council advertises and tracks its own applications, and most of the Victorian councils listed below use an ePathway portal hosted on the council's website. Coverage, search options, and document access vary by council.
South Australia moved to a single statewide planning system under the Planning and Design Code. Development applications across all councils are lodged and published through the PlanSA portal, so one register covers the whole state — regardless of which council area a property sits in.
The Australian Capital Territory has no local councils. Development applications are lodged with the territory's planning authority, and public notifications are published centrally by the ACT Government.
In the Northern Territory, development applications are exhibited centrally through the NT Government's planning notices system, which covers all council areas. Individual councils do not run their own DA trackers.
The official trackers above are free and authoritative — for a one-off check on a single property in a single council, they're exactly the right tool. Their limits show up when you need more than that: each tracker covers one council, most offer no alerts when something changes, and search interfaces vary from excellent to barely usable.
| Official council trackers | PlanInsight | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | Paid, with free trial |
| Coverage | One council per tracker | 252 councils, one search |
| Alerts | Rarely offered | Notifications when tracked DAs change |
| Property data | DAs only | DAs plus title, boundaries, zoning, and planning reports |
| Best for | One-off checks on a single property | Ongoing monitoring across councils |
If you check a DA once a year, bookmark your council's tracker and you're done. If you monitor development across multiple properties or councils, that's the job PlanInsight was built for.