Support at Home vs the NDIS: Which One Are You Actually Eligible For?

Almost every case comes down to one date. You must be younger than 65 on the day you apply to the NDIS. Apply at 64 and you can become a participant. Apply at 65 and you cannot, no matter how significant your disability is.

Aged care runs on the other side of that line. To qualify for an aged care assessment you need care needs and you must be aged 65 or older, or an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person aged 50 or older, or aged 50 or older and homeless or at risk of homelessness.

So for most people the question answers itself. Under 65 and never applied: the NDIS is your pathway. Over 65 and never been an NDIS participant: aged care, through My Aged Care, is your pathway. The complicated cases are the people who are already in one system when their circumstances change.

Support at Home started on 1 November 2025 and replaced two programs: the Home Care Packages Program and the Short-Term Restorative Care Programme. If you or a family member had a Home Care Package, that funding transitioned across.

It is structured differently from the old packages. There are 8 classifications that fund ongoing services, 3 short-term pathways covering assistive technology and home modifications, restorative care and end-of-life care, and 4 transitioned Home Care Package classifications that preserve an equivalent level of funding for people who moved across from the old system.

The Commonwealth Home Support Program, the entry-level program that helps with things like cleaning and transport, has not moved. It will transition no earlier than 1 July 2027, and has been extended to 30 June 2029, so for now it continues to operate alongside Support at Home.

Support at Home has participant contributions set by government. What you contribute depends on the type of service and your financial situation, and the contribution arrangements for personal care are changing again from 1 October 2026.

The NDIS has no equivalent. A participant does not contribute to the cost of a funded support. That single difference catches families out more than any other, because someone moving from the NDIS to aged care at 65 can find themselves paying toward care that was previously free to them.

It is worth saying plainly: that is not a reason to stay in the NDIS if aged care suits you better, and it is not a reason to leave. It is just a number you should have in front of you before the decision is made rather than after.

Nothing happens automatically. If you are already an NDIS participant when you turn 65, you decide whether to keep using NDIS supports or move to aged care supports. If you choose to stay, the NDIA's position is that nothing changes.

What you cannot do is hold both. The NDIA is explicit that you cannot use NDIS and aged care supports at the same time, so this is a choice rather than a top-up.

There is one situation where the choice is made for you. If you move into residential aged care after turning 65, you have to leave the NDIS. Home-based supports do not trigger that, but a permanent move into a residential facility does.

First Nations participants have an earlier option. If you are a First Nations person and an NDIS participant, you can choose to access aged care supports from 50 years of age, or continue as an NDIS participant.

This is the case where timing genuinely matters, and where we see people miss out. Your NDIS application has to be complete, in the format the NDIA asks for, and received before your 65th birthday. An application that arrives the day after is not late, it is ineligible.

Gathering evidence from specialists takes weeks, sometimes months. If you are 64 and think you might meet the disability requirements, start now rather than at 64 and eleven months. Call the NDIA on 1800 800 110 and say you are approaching 65, because they can help you get it in on time.

If you miss it, aged care is still there and Support at Home funds real help at home. But the two systems fund different things at different levels, and for someone with a significant permanent disability the NDIS is usually the better fit. It is worth the effort to apply in time.

For aged care, you apply for an assessment through My Aged Care. An assessment organisation calls you within 2 to 6 weeks, then arranges a face-to-face visit. If you are approved, funding is allocated when it becomes available, and you enter a service agreement with a provider you choose.

For the NDIS, you make an access request and the decision turns on evidence from your treating professionals about your impairments and how they affect daily life. There is no waiting list for funding once you are found eligible, but the evidence bar is higher and the assessment is about permanence and functional impact rather than ageing-related need.

The practical difference for families: aged care tends to be quicker to start and lighter on paperwork, while the NDIS asks more of you upfront and generally funds more once you are in.

If you coordinate for someone approaching 65, the two things worth diarising are the application deadline for anyone not yet a participant, and the stay-or-switch conversation for anyone who is. Neither is urgent until it suddenly is.

For participants staying in the NDIS past 65, nothing about your referrals or their supports changes. For participants moving to aged care, the provider relationship usually has to change too, because NDIS registration and aged care registration are separate things.

We are a registered NDIS provider, so we support participants who stay in the scheme. If someone you coordinate for is moving to aged care, we will say so plainly and help you hand over rather than hold on to the referral.

If you are weighing this up, the two phone numbers that matter are the NDIA on 1800 800 110 and My Aged Care on 1800 200 422. Both can tell you what you would be eligible for in their own system, which is most of what you need to compare them.

If it is the NDIS side you are unsure about, our free eligibility checker walks through the age, residence, disability and early intervention requirements in the NDIA's own words and tells you what evidence to start gathering.

And if you already have an NDIS plan and want to talk about nursing or in-home support across Queensland, call us on 1800 402 205. We are a registered, nurse-led provider and we will tell you honestly if we are not the right fit.