NDIS CHANGES 2026: WHAT THEY MEAN

The NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 — UPDATED AUGUST 2026

The NDIS Amendment Bill 2026 provides the legislative framework to support new processes. It doesn’t itemise or describe those processes. While the Bill’s Explanatory Memorandum provides a lot more detail, it’s not set out for easy reference. We’ve pieced it together to provide an overview of what’s ahead, and what it might mean for your business.

The Bill addresses overspend by targeting NDIS eligibility, funding, and fraud. It takes financial control — big time! Caught in the crossfire, fundamental NDIS concepts have been redefined or removed (e.g. ‘reasonable and necessary’ gives way to a new form of ‘value for money’). The minister is given discretionary powers to alter eligibility and funding and to make large changes more easily in future.

In terms of Quality Management, these changes will significantly reduce providers’ ability to plan intelligently, deliver services, and manage risk. This article discusses three main ‘schedules’ (classes of change) that will most affect NDIS providers.

(We reference the Explanatory Memorandum unless otherwise noted).

INTRODUCTION DUE DATE	PROPOSED CHANGES
7 Days after Bill Adopted — Schedule 1, Parts 1 to 3	Tighter access and eligibility criteria. Stronger definition of impairment. Funding linked to functional capacity linked to a functional assessment process. Limit on Plan Reassessments.
1 October 2026 — Schedule 1, Part 4	Support Determination:Ministerial power to reduce funding to specific supports, groups of supports, or classes of participant. (Community Access Support has been slated for 50% cut, Improved Daily Living by 10%).
1 February 2027 — Schedule 1, Parts 5 and 6	Participant Plans to be renewed annually. No rollover of unspent funds. Planning includes new definition of reasonable and necessary. Power to constrain maximum funding on specific supports or classes of supports. (In addition to ‘Support Determination’).
1 October 2026 — Schedule 1, Part 7	Power to suspend dormant or unresponsive plans.
1 January 2028 — Schedule 1, Parts 8 and 9	Planning includes more-restrictive definition of permanent. Ineligibility where NDIS alternative services exist (e.g. workers compensation, Aged Care, Thriving Kids) assuming agreement of state governments, and in case of excluded impairments or chronic health issues.
7 Days after Bill Adopted — Schedule 2, Parts 1 to 4	(Slated as: SIL & Platform Providers — 1 July 2026; other high-risk supports — 1 July 2027) Mandatory provider registration for select supports, and enrolment for most others. NDIA powers to gather information and investigate possible fraud and legislative non-compliance. Requirements to retain records of NDIS funding spent. Power to issue fines for misusing funds or failing to retain appropriate records.
1 December 2026 — Schedule 2, Part 5	Shorter time for lodging claims: 90 days.
TBA or 24 months after Bill Adopted — Schedule 2, Part 6	( Slated as 1 October 2027 with 6-month transition) New rules governing Registered Plan Managers: Deed of Arrangement with NDIA. No related parties providing NDIS services No controlling interest in any other NDIS provider.
1 July 2028 — Not in the Bill	Support Coordinators Commissioning of new Support Coordination and Connection Service with capped program expenditure.

ACCESS AND PLANNING MEASURES

Eligibility and Access

Big changes for how participants access supports — tighter definitions and more-restrictive criteria based on permanent impairment and substantially reduced functional capacity (p.15).
… to be found permanent, the person’s impairment or impairments are likely to persist for the person’s lifetime. This means that the person’s impairment or impairments cannot be reversed or remedied and will continue to exist throughout the person’s life course, regardless of treatment undertaken or the passage of time. (p.62)
Needs that do not arise directly from an impairment that meets the disability requirement are no longer eligible for funding (p.24). A participant with an eligible impairment (e.g. intellectual disability) may lose funding to help manage a secondary non-eligible impairment (e.g. obesity or diabetes), even though their eligible impairment clearly makes managing health issues difficult. (pp.27-28)
A person will be ineligible where alternative support services exist, such as Aged Care, Workers Compensation, Motor Vehicle Insurance, personal liability insurance, or Thriving Kids (p.66). This provision requires that the states agree and establish alternative services.

Support Determinations

Support Determinations allow the Minister to reduce funding to any support, or category of supports, across the whole NDIS scheme or to specific classes of participants (p.29).
Support determinations are percentages applied to whatever amounts planners assess for reasonable and necessary supports. For example, a 25% support determination will reduce a $40,000 per year assessment for community access supports to $30,000.
The reduction comes into effect when a participant’s plan is renewed (see below). The assessment remains at $40,000 (in this case), but the payout is reduced for the duration of the 12-month plan.
Regardless of the participant’s assessed need, a support determination sets the percentage of funding available to them, and they will not have all of their community access or capacity building supports met. The Bill’s newly defined terms mean that “funding for some NDIS supports may be less than the actual cost of providing or acquiring the support, while still being reasonable and necessary” (p.30).
For providers, the support determinations proposed thus far mean funding reductions from 1 October 2026.

50% reduction in Community Access funding
10% reduction in Capacity Building supports, including Therapeutic Supports, Early Childhood and Development of Daily Living and Life Skills (About the changes to the NDIS)

This will immediately impact revenue for businesses that rely heavily on 0125 Participation in community, social and civic activities, and the impact will become more severe as clients’ plans are renewed.

Plan Reassessment vs Plan Renewal

The change from reassessment to renewal introduces a plan end date. Most plans will ‘renew’ on expiry and continue to fund reasonable and necessary supports for another 12 months. One-off funding (e.g. capital supports) and unused funds will not appear on the renewed plan (p.34).
A transitional arrangement will ensure that all plans are renewed or reassessed before 1 October 2027 to ensure the support determination mechanism can be applied to all plans (p.42).
The plan end date may also help solve the problem of participants staying on the scheme longer than expected — in particular, ageing participants tending to remain on the NDIS rather than moving to means-tested Aged Care services. The plan end date may offer a ‘natural’ point at which to eject no-longer-eligible participants.

FRAUD AND INTEGRITY MEASURES

Redefining ‘NDIS provider’

A new definition of NDIS provider will exclude retailers and suppliers (e.g. Bunnings). The definition is not finalised, but the legislation allows for redefinition under the “Rules.”
The redefinition is the next step towards mandatory registration for all providers delivering NDIS supports (by removing retailers), and greater accountability (see below).

Retention of Records

Providers, plan nominees and participants who self-manage their plans must now retain records relating to:
Claims for payment of an NDIS amount
The provision an NDIS support for which payment has been claimed.
There are different requirements and penalties:
Providers must keep records of claims and supports for 7 years. Failure to do so will attract a $40,000 fine.
Self-managed participants must keep records for 3 years, or as required.
Others must keep records — in English — for 5 years or as required.
Failure to keep records results in the undocumented funded amount becoming a debt to the NDIA.
This requirement will come into effect immediately.

Reducing Claim Times

The timeframe for making claims for payment will be reduced from 2 years to 90 days (p.79).
If you miss a deadline, you will need to prove exceptional circumstances. A busy admin is not exceptional. A participant in hospital or a natural disaster may be.
This is in effect from 1 December 2026 (p.107).

Civil Penalties and Regulatory Powers

The NDIA will have more power to address the misuse of NDIS funds and inaccurate claiming by issuing infringement notices (e.g. fines), compliance notices and enforceable undertakings (p.75).
Infringement notices and compliance notices may apply to participants, plan nominees, providers and any other person who may have access to a participant’s funds. Fines range from $20,000 to $80,000.
While for most providers this will have little effect, they should respond promptly to any NDIA (or NDIS Commission) infringement or compliance notice. And they should never sign an Enforceable Undertaking without legal advice.

Information Gathering

The NDIA will be able to compel providers (or any participants, or prospective participants) to provide information to the NDIA with 14 days’ notice (p.101). Failure to comply may result in a fine.
Further powers will also come into effect allowing NDIA investigators to remove and access the content of computers and phones (p.76).

GOVERNANCE ARRANGEMENTS

Pricing Determinations

The Minister will have the power to determine pricing — essentially, setting the prices that are contained in the Price Guide — for plan-managed or agency-managed supports (p.118). The pricing determination would set the maximum price, or the method to determine the maximum price, of an NDIS support or class of supports. The Minister may also determine circumstances in which the Agency could “pay above the maximum amount specified” (p.119).
To ensure that participants are not short-changed, the Minister will determine an indexation factor applied to relevant supports. Indexation factors “cannot result in ‘negative’ indexation for a group of supports” (p.117), implying that this method will not be used to reduce participant funding. However, it seems that determinations may reduce the maximum prices providers can charge.
While it is mandatory for the Minister to consider whether to make an indexation determination whenever a pricing determination is made or varied, the Minister is not required to make an indexation determination. (p.116)
Determinations will generally be made on 1 July each year (p.117). If a provider charges above the new determination, the difference becomes a debt owed to the NDIA. This is not a fine; it is a recovery of funds.

Differentiated Pricing

Here’s something positive! The price of a support or service might be set at different levels depending on factors such as:

The complexity of the participant’s support needs
The remoteness of the support-delivery location
In-person or telehealth
Provider’s relevant qualifications
Provider’s registration status (p.120)

Will it happen? We can only hope.

REGISTRATION

The NDIS Review and the NDIS Provider Registration Taskforce recommended mandatory registration for providers. Years later, we’re seeing the government moving in that direction, in part, and at a glacial pace.
We’re also seeing significant changes to Plan Managers’ and Support Coordinators’ operating context.

Mandatory Registration

While the Bill prepares the legislative ground, the announcements about mandatory registration happen elsewhere — the Press Club, the Explanatory Memorandum, and so on. This is what we know, currently.
From 1 July 2027:

Provider Enrolment — all providers (registered and unregistered) must provide a basic level of identifiable information. Providers must be enrolled by December 2027.
Mandatory Registration for high-risk supports (the Advanced and General Categories as described by the NDIS Registration Taskforce back in 2024). Providers of the supports in scope to register within 12 months from 1 July 2027.
- Advanced — including supports delivered in high-risk, ‘closed’ environments:
  Behaviour support and restrictive practices
  Specialist Disability Accommodations (SDA)
  Plan management
  Support coordination (including specialist support coordination)
  Early childhood supports and therapies
  Supported Independent Living (SIL, STA and ILO)
- General — probably including most support services delivered in-home or in the community, including high-intensity supports (e.g., high intensity daily personal activities, complex bowel care or sub-cutaneous injections), and supports involving “significant 1:1 contact” with people with a disability (e.g., personal care).

The new system will take 4 years to completely rollout, giving the government time to consider how best to register self-directed participants, and remaining providers.
Under the preferred policy option, mandatory registration may include a “Cost Recovery” process — this is a basically an application fee (Impact Analysis: p.6). In Aged Care, the equivalent application fees range from $2000 to $9000. Currently there is no cost recovery process — yes, an audit fee, but no additional application fee. So, for unregistered providers, the best time to act is now.

Plan Managers

Perhaps the biggest change is for Plan Managers. The government aims to cut the cost of plan management services by 30%. It proposes a Panel of Plan Management providers with few service providers, greater compliance obligations, and tighter restrictions on eligibility.
To be considered for the “preferred provider” list, Plan Managers will have to apply and establish a Deed of Arrangement (DOA) with the NDIA. Current Plan Managers are not guaranteed a DOA under the new system.
The DOA will include requirements such as:

Integrity, governance and reporting requirements
Key personnel requirements
Requirements specific to the handling of claims
Standards of information and communication technology.

There are also a range of restrictions on Plan Managers in this arrangement:

Plan Managers will not be able to provide any other NDIS supports
Key personnel of the Plan Manager provider cannot be key personnel of another provider
Related parties of the Plan Manager provider must not provide any NDIS supports or services other than plan management under the NDIS. Related parties include relatives of a person (e.g. spouse, sibling, adult child) and associated entities of the person.

Support Coordinators

Support Coordinators will eventually face a similar situation to Plan Managers, commencing from 1 July 2028. It’s proposed that the NDIA will commission a new support coordination and connection service with capped program expenditure. It’s likely that a tender (or commissioning) process will decide funding, services, and number of participants supported.
While the implementation of this reform was not legislated, it was incorporated into the Impact Analysis Assessment tabled as part of the legislation, which gives a strong indication that this is the direction support coordination is heading.
If so, it should greatly disrupt the support coordination market and its services — both for participants and for providers.

UPDATE

63 Amendments were made to the Bill before it was passed on 18 August 2026. Amendments pushed through at the last minute include:

Some participants will be able to request an exception (or plan variation) where they are affected negatively by support determinations. There are very specific circumstances in which this would apply.
People currently accessing NDIS and other service systems (such as injury compensation schemes) will remain on the NDIS, while after 1 January 2028, the alternative systems eligibility test will be applied to people applying for NDIS funding.
Plan Managers – the prohibition on plan managers delivering any other supports remains, however the conflict of interest with any “related” parties may remain, if that conflict of interest is managed. This means that a person can be a key personnel of both a plan management company and a company that delivers other supports.
Prohibition on NDIS providers offering kickbacks with the delivery of supports — no longer can providers offer alcohol and tobacco (!), cash, electronic devices etc. Large penalties apply.
New penalties can apply for:
- providing false or misleading information to the NDIA or NDIS Commission
- obtaining NDIS funds by deception, including through impersonation
- intentionally destroying records
Providers no longer have a “document immunity”, meaning they cannot refuse to provide information to a Court, tribunal or other authority.
The NDIS Commission can make, vary or revoke banning orders or anti-promotion orders by staff at a lower level within the NDIS Commission (while lower level, they’re still quite senior staff).
Stronger whistleblower protections for people who disclose misconduct in the NDIS.
The NDIA will now have to notify people of its intention to raise a debt, and there are timeframes for the submission of evidence.
Additional penalties for fraudulent conduct – new offences and penalties apply to NDIS providers or people who engage in fraudulent conduct.

CONCLUSION

We hope this article brings some clarity. The Amendment Bill has now passed and — except for the above amendments — everything has proceeded as expected. It means enormous changes, enormous uncertainty, and a range of new risks that will be difficult to manage. You should prioritise identifying and managing those risks. We’ve created some tools to help you do just that. They’re absolutely free to download. Go get ’em!
Taking care of your Quality processes is always a good strategy — now more than ever. So, stay in touch!