February is the quietest month in the Australian house sitting year, and June is one of the busiest. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures put short-term resident departures at 821,070 in February 2026, against 1,150,920 in June 2026 and 1,558,840 in December 2025. Between the February floor and the December peak, the number of Australians leaving the country in a month falls by close to half. Behind a share of those departures is a home standing empty and an animal that needs someone in it, and the seasonal shape is stable enough from one year to the next to plan against.
That matters most to the person who lands a Christmas sit, applies steadily through February and March, and hears nothing back. The empty stretch is not a verdict on your profile. It is the calendar. Knowing where it falls turns "nobody will pick me" into "I applied in the wrong eight weeks". Across the seven Australian sitting platforms reviewed on 22 August 2026, no ranking page carried a seasonal demand pattern a sitter could plan against.
February is the floor, and June is the month sitters wrongly write off
For a sitter, departures matter more than arrivals, because a departure is the moment a house empties.
| Month | Short-term resident departures | Short-term resident returns |
|---|---|---|
| December 2025 | 1,558,840 | 869,410 |
| January 2026 | 1,078,770 | 1,665,100 |
| February 2026 | 821,070 | 891,460 |
| March 2026 | 997,680 | 910,450 |
| April 2026 | 1,088,710 | 1,092,380 |
| May 2026 | 994,870 | 922,460 |
| June 2026 | 1,150,920 | 917,500 |
Figures are from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Overseas Arrivals and Departures releases for December 2025, January 2026, February 2026, March 2026, April 2026, May 2026 and June 2026. June 2026 was the most recent release available when this was written.
Three things in that table are worth a sitter's attention. February is the floor, about 47% below December. March and May are near twins, within 3,000 trips of each other, and both sit roughly a third below the December peak. And June, which most sitters treat as dead, recorded more departures than April and was the second busiest of the seven months published, while its return figure stayed low precisely because those travellers were still away.
The December departure wave and the January return wave are also the same wave. Australia leaves in December and comes home in January, which is why the summer break is one continuous seven-week absence window rather than a Christmas spike. If you have no reviews yet, that window is still the realistic entry point, and getting a first sit is mostly a question of being ready before it opens.
What this data is and is not
These are overseas movements only, counted as trips rather than as people, and plenty of those travellers have no pet and no home that needs a sitter. Domestic travel is larger again and moves on its own timetable. Tourism Research Australia recorded 28.9 million domestic overnight trips in the March quarter of 2026 alone. Treat the shape of the ABS series as reliable and the volumes as a proxy, never as a forecast of how many sits will be listed.
Two stretches a year have no school holidays anywhere in the country
Australian school terms are staggered, so a break in one state usually overlaps a break somewhere else. Twice a year that stops being true and every state is at school at once. Those are the deepest troughs, and they are worth naming in advance.
| Quiet stretch | Last students back at school | First state out again | Roughly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Late summer 2027 | New South Wales western division, Thursday 4 February | Queensland and Victoria, Friday 26 March | Seven weeks |
| Late autumn 2027 | Australian Capital Territory, Wednesday 28 April | Queensland, Saturday 26 June | About eight weeks |
Term dates are as published by each department of education: New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT. New South Wales had not published a full 2027 calendar when this was written, so it is not the anchor in the second row. Northern Territory dates are left out because the Territory Government's page could not be checked, and Territory readers should confirm them directly. Departments do revise dates, so check your own state before planning around either row.
The peaks either side of those troughs are staggered too. Queensland and Victoria break at Easter on 26 March 2027, while Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT do not break until 10 April, so autumn is a five-week national window rather than a two-week one.
Off-peak sits come from absences that have nothing to do with school terms
School holidays create the peaks, not all of the demand. Homes that empty in March and May do so for reasons no term calendar will show you, and each reason shapes what the sit will ask of you.
| Reason the home is empty | When it usually falls | What the sit tends to look like |
|---|---|---|
| Long service leave | Any month, often chosen to avoid the school break | Four weeks to three months, planned a long way ahead |
| Work travel, secondments, conferences | February to June, September to November | Three to ten nights, short notice, often repeating |
| Winter trips away | June and July | Two to four weeks, longer than an Easter trip |
| Family illness, surgery, recovery | Unpredictable | Days to weeks, arranged in a hurry |
| Renovating, selling or relocating | Any month | Weeks, with tradespeople and inspections around you |
| Extended caravan and touring trips | Autumn through spring | Long, and frequently regional |
Long service leave is the most Australian reason a house sits empty in March
Long service leave is a genuine structural advantage for off-peak sitters and almost nobody writes about it. The Fair Work Ombudsman explains that most employees' entitlement comes from long service leave laws in each state or territory, which set how long someone must work to qualify, in some cases after seven years. This is general information only, and the detail differs by state, so an employer or the relevant state agency is the place to confirm any of it.
What matters here is behavioural, not legal. Someone taking six weeks or three months after a decade in the same job is not tied to a school break, and often picks a shoulder month deliberately because flights cost less. They book a long way out, and they want one sitter for the whole stretch rather than three in sequence. Long stretches are also among the harder sits to fill, because many experienced sitters would rather take three comfortable fortnights than one three-month commitment. Our guide to long absences and what changes past four weeks covers what to agree before you say yes to one.
Off-peak changes what you apply for, not how hard you apply
- Take the short sits. Two or three nights in your own city is the cheapest way there is to earn a completed booking, and on Sitterly a review can only be left once a booking is marked completed. Three quiet-month sits is a different profile going into December.
- Look past the inner suburbs. A fortnight in Brunswick or Bondi competes with everyone. The same fortnight in Ballarat, Toowoomba, Mandurah, Devonport or the Adelaide Hills competes with far fewer people. Regional sitting is where off-peak supply and off-peak competition part company.
- Build repeat homeowners, not applications. A homeowner who travels for work four times a year is the most valuable relationship an off-peak sitter can have. One good March sit that becomes four a year beats scrambling every school holiday.
- Say yes to the awkward parts. Daily medication, three animals rather than one, a pool and a garden, no public transport nearby. Off-peak these are what is left on the board, and they are exactly where a willing sitter wins.
- Look early and answer fast. Australian sitters regularly report being beaten to a new listing overnight by applicants in other time zones, and your Sitterly reply rating runs from 1 to 5 on how quickly you respond. In a thin month those are two of very few signals doing work for you.
- Put exact dates and a real location in the first two lines. "Flexible, happy to travel" tells a homeowner in Hobart nothing at all.
The quiet weeks are real, and pretending otherwise is how sitters get caught out
Off-peak sitting fills more of the year than most people expect, but it does not fill all of it, and a sitter with no other accommodation who banks on continuous sits through February will be caught short. The gap weeks are what experienced Australian sitters warn each other about and almost no platform writes down. Decide where you will stay when there is no sit before you need the answer, and read what continuous sitting between rentals actually involves alongside what the arrangement is genuinely worth.
The one-line version
Apply for December in October, apply for the shoulder months on the day the listing appears, and use February and March to collect the short local sits that make you an easy yes in December.
Off-peak house sitting, answered
- What are the quietest months for house sitting in Australia?
- February is the quietest on the ABS travel figures, with 821,070 short-term resident departures in February 2026 against 1,558,840 in December 2025. March and May are the next quietest and are almost identical to each other. The deepest calendar troughs are the seven weeks from early February to late March 2027 and the eight weeks from late April to late June 2027, when no state or territory is on school holidays.
- Is it worth applying for sits outside the school holidays at all?
- Yes, and the mix of work changes rather than disappearing. Off-peak listings lean towards long service leave absences, work travel, winter trips, renovations and family emergencies. A short off-peak sit is also the cheapest way there is to arrive at the December window with a completed booking behind you.
- Which month surprises sitters most?
- June. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures recorded 1,150,920 short-term resident departures in June 2026, more than April and second only to December across the seven months published. The June return figure is low because those travellers had not come home yet, which is why the month reads as quiet if you look at arrivals instead of departures.
- Do I get paid more for sitting off-peak?
- No. A house sit on Sitterly is a non-monetary exchange in every month of the year. No money changes hands for the sit in either direction, and there is no per-booking commission. What changes off-peak is how many other applicants you are up against, not what the arrangement is worth.
Your next quiet month starts sooner than the next peak
The February trough arrives every year, and so does the June wave most sitters skip. Browse the open sits and look at the months other people are skipping, and if you have not joined yet, create a sitter profile and get it finished before the next window opens.
