During the ongoing 2020 round of Population and Housing Censuses there has been an increasing interest in using administrative data across Asia-Pacific. While some countries, such as Turkey and Korea, are continuing a transition begun in earlier census rounds, others, such as Indonesia, are exploring the use of administrative data in their census for the first time. Key driving factors behind this emerging shift are the need to reduce costs, calls for more timely population and housing statistics for policymaking and challenges with declining response rates. In addition, the Covid-19 pandemic, which hit at a time when many countries were in the middle of planning large-scale fieldwork census operations, underscored the importance of exploring alternatives to canvassing the entire country through face-to-face interviews. One such alternative that many countries are considering is the use of administrative data.