NAPLAN results season, August 2027: national results
ACARA released the 2026 NAPLAN national results on 5 August 2026. National results for 2027 are expected in August, but no date is published. National results describe the country, not your child; your child's report comes from the school.
Last checked against the official sources.
National results are expected in August 2027, but no date is published. They describe the country, not your child. Your child's report comes from the school, and no 2027 results exist yet.
What national results are
Each year ACARA releases national NAPLAN results, which summarise how students across Australia, and by state and territory, are performing. They are a different thing from your child's individual student report, which arrives through your school.
The 2026 national results were released on 5 August 2026. ACARA has not published a 2027 date. ACARA's last four national releases (23 August 2023, 14 August 2024, 30 July 2025 and 5 August 2026) were all Wednesdays between 30 July and 23 August. We expect August again, but that is an expectation only.
What the 2026 release said
We quote only what ACARA published for 2026, from its national results page.
- Participation in Tasmania was too low in 2026 to support valid reporting of achievement.
- A technical problem on 11 March 2026 affected many students in Years 5, 7 and 9 during the online writing test. ACARA says the national writing results were minimally impacted and can validly be reported, and asks readers to take care when interpreting 2026 writing results.
- Results from 2023 onwards can be compared with each other, but not with results before 2023.
ACARA's national results page also links a downloadable 2026 commentary with the findings. We do not repeat figures here, so please read them at the source.
Nothing in these notes says anything about 2027. National results for 2027 will not exist until ACARA releases them.
What to do with national results
Media coverage in August often focuses on whether the national numbers went up or down. For your family, the useful information is your child's own report, read with the teacher. See how to read the report and proficiency levels.
A student who gets the same proficiency level in successive years, such as Year 3 and Year 5, may still be making progress, because the skills for each level get harder.
A calm word about levels
Developing and Needs additional support are not fails. NAPLAN is one part of a school's assessment and does not replace teachers' ongoing judgement.
If your child's report has not arrived by August
Ask the school first. ACARA says it cannot arrange replacement reports. The school can ask its state or territory test administration authority. See also July expectations.
NAPLAN is not an admission test
ACARA says NAPLAN is not designed to be a school admission test. NSW selective entry uses a separate placement test, explained in plain words at Selective. Our NAPLAN FAQ covers this too.
Checked against the NAP and ACARA sites on 7 October 2026.
Attribution: © Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) 2011 to present, unless otherwise indicated. This material was downloaded from the National Assessment Program website (www.nap.edu.au) (accessed 7 October 2026) and was modified. The material is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). ACARA does not endorse any product that uses ACARA material or make any representations as to the quality of such products. Any product that uses ACARA's material should not be taken to be affiliated with ACARA or have the sponsorship or approval of ACARA. It is up to each person to make their own assessment of the product.