The following lists the top 25 (end of year) charting albums on the Australian Album Charts, for the year of 1981. These were the best charting albums in Australia for 1981. The source for this year is the Kent Music Report, known from 1987 onwards as the Australian Music Report.
| Top 25 albums of 1981 | |
|---|---|
| Other Australian top charts for 1981 | |
| top 25 singles | |
| Australian top 40 charts for the 1980s | |
| singles | |
| albums | |
| Australian number-one charts of 1981 | |
| albums | |
| singles |
| # | Title | Artist | Highest pos. reached | weeks at No. 1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Double Fantasy | John Lennon & Yoko Ono | 1 | 10 (pkd #1 in 1980 & 81) |
| 2. | Sirocco | Australian Crawl | 1 | 6 |
| 3. | Back in Black | AC/DC | 1 | 1 |
| 4. | Bad Habits | Billy Field | 1 | 2 |
| 5. | Making Movies | Dire Straits | 6 | |
| 6. | Icehouse | Flowers | 4 | |
| 7. | Face Value | Phil Collins | 2 | |
| 8. | Hotter Than July | Stevie Wonder | 3 | |
| 9. | Christopher Cross | Christopher Cross | 6 | |
| 10. | Corroboree | Split Enz | 1 | 3 |
| 11. | Zenyatta Mondatta | The Police | 1 | 1 |
| 12. | Tattoo You | Rolling Stones | 1 | 11 |
| 13. | Greatest Hits | Dr. Hook | 1 | 4 |
| 14. | The Jazz Singer | Neil Diamond | 10 | |
| 15. | Arc of a Diver | Steve Winwood | 5 | |
| 16. | The Beatles Ballads | The Beatles | 1 | 7 |
| 17. | Bella Donna | Stevie Nicks | 1 | 1 |
| 18. | Time | Electric Light Orchestra | 3 | |
| 19. | Stars on 45 Long Play Album | Stars on 45 | 1 | 2 |
| 20. | Devo Live (Mini LP) | Devo | 2 | |
| 21. | Long Distance Voyager | The Moody Blues | 7 | |
| 22. | Swingshift | Cold Chisel | 1 | 2 |
| 23. | Kings of the Wild Frontier | Adam and the Ants | 2 | |
| 24. | Chemistry | Mondo Rock | 3 | |
| 25. | Vienna | Ultravox | 4 |
These charts are calculated by David Kent of the Kent Music Report and they are based on the number of weeks and position the records reach within the top 100 albums for each week.