Australian rules football in Queensland (typically referred to as "AFL", or less frequently "Australian Football", "Aussie Rules" or "Australian Rules") was the first official football code played in 1866. The Colony of Queensland was the second after Victoria to adopt Australian rules football, just days after there rules were widely published. For two decades it was the most popular football code, however a strong desire for representative football success saw Queenslanders favour British football variants for more than a century. 120 years later in 1986 Queensland was the first state awarded a licence to have a club, the Brisbane Bears, in the national competition, also its first privately owned club. However the Gold Coast based Bears had a detrimental effect until the 1993 redevelopment of the Brisbane Cricket Ground (Gabba). In contrast the Bears transformation into a Brisbane and traditional membership based club resulted in enormous growth, and a tripling of average AFL attendances by 1996.

Queensland has two fully professional teams competing in the Australian Football League: the Brisbane Lions (1996) and Gold Coast Suns (2009). These two teams compete against each other in the QClash. The combined membership of these clubs (64,741 in 2022) is the lowest of any state.

The sport has surged in South East Queensland and the Cairns Region since the 1990s. The Brisbane Lions threepeat premiership era in the national Australian Football League (AFL) saw a participation boom and a sharp increase in drafted players. The Lions 3 Grand Final appearances in the national women's competition from its inaugural season in 2017 and 2021 premiership helped further fuel female participation despite a lack of success from the Lions and Suns senior men's teams. AFL in Queensland subsequently grew throughout the state. Ausplay puts Australian Football participation in Queensland third after soccer and rugby league, passing rugby union in player numbers in 2018, the first time since the 1890s. However, contrary to reports from the game's governing body, since 2019 the player base declined in contrast to increased numbers for all other football codes. Nevertheless an increasing number of players have found pathways to the elite professional national level. As at 2020 more than 100 Queensland males and almost 50 Queensland females had played at the sport's highest level (AFL/AFLW), however only a dozen have played more than 200 games.

Queensland was the first state to host the AFLW Grand Final (the inaugural 2017 AFL Women's Grand Final) and the second state in history to host the AFL Grand Final (the 2020 AFL Grand Final). AFL Premiership matches are now regularly played in Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Cairns. The AFL began matches in Townsville along with AFLW matches in the Moreton Bay Region, Mackay in the 2010s and the Sunshine Coast and Ipswich in the 2020s.

The state team, known as the "Maroons" debuted in 1884 and was competitive against New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory but played their last senior match in 1988. The side's poor record contributed to the popularity of representative football in other codes, particularly the Queensland Reds (union) and later the Queensland Maroons (league). Despite its historical record, the team won Section B national titles in 1974 and 1979. Zane Taylor holds the record for the number of representative caps for Queensland. The underage team has been more successful with 4 Division 2 titles at the National Championships, the most recent in 2015. The AFL wound up Queensland's senior representation in 1993 and underage titles in 2019 in favour of club academies.

The state has produced many great players. Erwin Dornau became the first born and raised Queenslander in the AFL in 1948. Jason Dunstall was the first Queenslander to be inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2002 and holds the AFL record of most goals for a Queenslander with 1254, the third highest tally in league history. Dunstall also holds the record AFL games for a player born and raised in the state (269). The state's 3 AFL Brownlow medallists include: Michael Voss, Jason Akermanis and Simon Black while these players were not both born and raised in the state all three are nonetheless multi-premiership players and Australian Football Hall of Famers. In the AFLW, the first Queensland born and raised player to win the league best and fairest is Ally Anderson (second Queenslander after Emily Bates) and shares the record for most games while Tayla Harris has the most goals.