The conservation status of "Macroderma gigas" includes listings of state or federal authorities and non-governmental organisations. The Queensland and South Australian state registers note the species as endangered and in Western Australia it is classified as vulnerable to threatening factors. The federal classification is vulnerable under the EPBC act 1999. Despite a well documented decline, the relevant criteria of legislation was not found to support a relisting of their status as endangered without analysis of genetic variation in the population. The relevant non statuary bodies, IUCN and "The action plan for Australian mammals" (2012), also list this species as vulnerable to extinction. The population estimate at the IUCN Red List (2019) is between four and six thousand mature individuals in total. The state population of Queensland is less than one thousand, and the large colony at Mt Etna has gone into decline. The Kohinoor maternity colony at the Top End is stable but vulnerable to mine collapse. The western populations are more numerous in the Kimberley, three to four thousand, and the Pilbara group is estimated at less than six hundred.