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Each Australian state has a governor to represent Australia's monarch within it. The governors are the nominal chief executives of the states, performing the same constitutional and ceremonial functions at the state level as does the governor general of Australia at the national or federal level. In practice, with notable exceptions the governors are generally required by convention to act on the advice of the state premiers or the other members of a state's cabinet. Unlike lieutenant governors in Canada's provinces, Australia's state governors are not subject to the constitutional authority of the governor general, but are directly responsible to the monarch. This means, for example, that the governor general may not issue pardons or commutations of sentence for any state offences, or issue any state honours.

Although the Commonwealth of Australia legally became a sovereign nation when it adopted the Statute of Westminster in 1942, the states had been established separately from (and prior to) the Commonwealth and retained their separate subordination to the British Government. The British Government retained the authority to intervene in the governments of the individual states under the Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865. As a result, the state governors continued to be formally appointed by the Queen on the advice of the British Foreign Secretary, as had been the case prior to 1942. In practice, however, the premier of each state recommended a prospective governor to the foreign secretary, who almost always acted in accordance with that recommendation. However, in 1976 the Foreign Secretary refused to transmit to the Queen the advice of the Premier of Queensland, Sir Joh Bjelke Petersen, to extend the term of Sir Colin Hannah as governor, on the grounds of the Governor's partisanship against the previous Commonwealth Government. In 1978, the Parliament of New South Wales passed the Constitutional Powers (New South Wales) Act, requesting that the Commonwealth Parliament legislate to address the constitutional anomaly of the United Kingdom Government's role in the constitutional affairs of the state. Eventually, identical Australia Acts were passed by the Commonwealth Parliament and the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1986, thus removing what remaining authority London had over affairs in Canberra. Under section 7 of these Acts, the King now receives advice on the appointment and termination of appointments of state governors from the relevant state premier.

The role of state governor in modern times is broken down into constitutional, ceremonial and social responsibilities. Regarding constitutional practices, in most cases the governor observes the convention to act on the advice of the state's cabinet (and/or premier). Nevertheless, the state governors, like the governor general, retain the full panoply of the reserve powers of the Crown. This has been shown on two recent occasions. In 1987 the Governor of Queensland, Sir Walter Campbell, refused to accept the advice of the National Party premier, Joh Bjelke Petersen, to dismiss five of his ministers and call fresh elections. Campbell believed that Bjelke Petersen had lost the confidence of his own party and was behaving irrationally. He was also reluctant to call an election for a legislature that was barely a year old, and felt that the situation was a political rather than a constitutional matter. Bjelke Petersen subsequently resigned. In 1989 the Governor of Tasmania, Sir Phillip Bennett, refused to grant a fresh dissolution to the Liberal premier, Robin Gray, after Gray lost his majority in the recent election. Although no one party had a majority in the new House of Assembly, Bennett had already been assured that the Tasmanian Greens would support a minority Labor government under Michael Field. Bennett thus took the view that Gray no longer had enough support to govern and could not advise him to call a second election. Gray then resigned; Bennett then commissioned Field as premier. In the event of a Governor General's death, incapacity, removal, resignation or absence overseas, each of the state governors has a dormant commission to become the Administrator of the Commonwealth, that is, to take on the Governor General's duties until he returns from overseas or a new appointment is made. The convention has been that the longest serving state governor is appointed administrator. When Peter Hollingworth resigned in May 2003, Sir Guy Green, Governor of Tasmania, took on that role, serving until Major General Michael Jeffery took office in August 2003.

A lieutenant governor takes on the responsibilities of a governor when that post is vacant or when the governor is out of the state or unable to act. In some states the lieutenant governor is also the chief justice. An administrator takes on those duties if both the governor and lieutenant governor are not able to act for the above reasons.

In 1976, South Australia appointed Sir Douglas Nicholls as the first (and, to date, the only) Aboriginal governor of an Australian state. Governors of non Anglo Australian background have been appointed in recent years. These include Ken Michael (Greek; Western Australia), Sir James Gobbo (Italian; Victoria), David de Kretser (Sri Lankan/Ceylonese; Victoria), Dame Marie Bashir (Lebanese; New South Wales), Alex Chernov (Russian: Victoria), and Hieu Van Le (Vietnamese; South Australia). Sir Matthew Nathan, Governor of Queensland from 1920 to 1925, was Australia's only Jewish governor until the appointment of Linda Dessau as Governor of Victoria in 2015. South Australia was also the first state to appoint a woman as governor, when Dame Roma Mitchell took office in 1991. With the appointment of Jeannette Young on 1 November 2021, Queensland currently has four female governors, more than any other state. Queensland is also the first state to have had two female governors in succession (Penelope Wensley succeeded Quentin Bryce), followed by Tasmania (Kate Warner in 2014 and Barbara Baker in 2021) and then Victoria in 2023. South Australia now has three female governors following the appointment of Frances Adamson who was sworn in on 7 October 2021. With the appointment of Margaret Gardner who was sworn in on 9 August 2023; New South Wales, Tasmania and Victoria will have had two each whilst Western Australia has only one so far. The Northern Territory, the only mainland territory to have an administrator, has had two female administrators (Sally Thomas and Vicki O'Halloran). Since 2021, every state Governor apart from that of Western Australia has been a woman. John Landy, a former governor of Victoria, and Marjorie Jackson Nelson, a former governor of South Australia, are former Australian Olympic medallists.

The Northern Territory received self government on 1 July 1978 under its own administrator appointed by the governor general. The Commonwealth prime minister, not the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, advises the governor general on the appointment of the administrator. In the lead up to the 1999 republican referendum, state governments were required to consider state links to the Crown and thus the validity of appointing the governor through the Queen. At a constitutional convention in Gladstone, Queensland, the states indicated that, if the referendum was successful, governors should be appointed by the parliament, although agreement on the exact method of appointment was not reached. As the referendum failed, no state altered the appointment method.