Lasting Connection
NDIS Funding Changes (From 19 May 2025)
A practical guide for Support Coordinators
You may have noticed an increase in participants with NDIS PACE plans, and you may also know that plans are transitioning to a quarterly funding release system in line with the new system and legislative changes under the “Getting the NDIS Back on track No.1” act
The changes introduced by the amendment to section 33 are intended to provide buffers for all participants in the new plan format. These buffers fundamentally change how support should be planned and when funding can be used.
What’s Actually Changed?
Every new or reassessed NDIS plan since February 2024 now includes three key elements:
- Total Funding Amount
- Support Budgets
- Funding Periods
At a glance, it might look like a minor structural change, but operationally, it’s a completely different system.
Think of it like this:
| Old System | New System |
| Budget per line item | Budget split into categories (“buckets”) |
| Service bookings to pre-allocate funding | No service booking or “locked” funding |
| Annual spend timing | Funding released in instalments |
| Provider-led pacing | Agency-led pacing |
Breaking Down the Key Terms
Total Funding Amount
What it is:
The full value of the participant’s plan (e.g. $120,000)
What hasn’t changed:
The total funding itself.
What has changed:
You can no longer treat this as “available to spend”.
In practice:
This number is now context only, not something you can plan delivery against.
Support Budgets
Plans are now split into defined buckets:
- Core (flexible or stated)
- Capacity Building
- Capital
- Recurring
Each has its own allocated categories to which funding is applied. Additionally, we have mapped the previous plan budget categories to the new PACE categories:
| Support Budgets | PACE Budget Categories | Legacy Budget Categories |
| Core Support – Flexible | Assistance with Daily Life | Assistance with Daily Life (Includes SIL) |
| Assistance with Social, Economic and Community Participation | Assistance with Social, Economic and Community Participation | |
| Consumables | Consumables | |
| Transport | Transport | |
| Core Support – Stated | Home and Living | Assistance with Daily Life (Includes SIL) |
| YPIRAC – Cross Billing | New Category | |
| Capacity Building Support | Behaviour Support | Improved Relationships |
| Choice and Control | Improved Life Choices | |
| Finding & Keeping a Job | Finding and Keeping a Job | |
| Health & Wellbeing | Improved Health and Wellbeing | |
| Improved Daily Living Skills | Improved Daily Living Skills | |
| Improved Living Arrangements | Improved Living Arrangements | |
| Increased Social & Community Participation | Increased Social and Community Participation | |
| Lifelong Learning | Improved Learning | |
| Relationships | Improved Relationships | |
| Support coordination and psychosocial recovery coaches | Support Coordination | |
| Capital Support | Assistive Technology | Assistive Technology |
| Assistive Technology – Maintenance, Repair & Rental | Assistive Technology | |
| Home Modifications | Home Modifications and Specialised Disability Accommodation (SDA) | |
| Specialist Disability Accommodation | Home Modifications and Specialised Disability Accommodation (SDA) | |
| Recurring Support | Transport Recurring | New Category |
View further information on the support categories on the NDIS website
What this means for you:
- Services must align with the correct budget and category
- Budgets cannot be freely shifted across support budgets
- Flexibility to adjust supports is increased within each bucket
In reality:
You will no longer need to manage the budget, line by line, as defined by the NDIS. Instead, the plan can be used as desired within each support category.
Funding Periods
Funding is now released either upfront or in instalments, often quarterly or monthly.
Example:
$40,000 annual budget = $10,000 available per quarter
Key rules:
- You can only use what’s available in that period
- Unspent funds roll over (within the same plan)
- Periods must be confirmed, using NDIS participant portal, NDIS app or by reviewing the official PDF plan document
Why This Matters
While participants retained choice and control, earlier NDIS plan arrangements made it more difficult to change providers once supports had been established, since the providers would have year-long support plans in place. Participants also experienced plan overspend, and support would become ‘rationed’ towards the end of their funding period.
Now there are two safety constraints in place for the participant:
The participant is given more flexibility. With the removal of service bookings and a limit placed on support period, the process of changing support frequency, moving to a different provider or using more than one provider on a funding category becomes
Funding is guaranteed to be available for the life of the plan, and any reduced support periods due to overspend are minimised within a 3-month timeframe.
A Simple Way to Think About It
Supports will still need to plan for 12 months. However, with the way the funding periods are now set up, the participant and providers are pushed to review the support plans far more regularly.
- Funding arrives in instalments
- Services need to be paced
- Delivery is constrained by timing, not just totals
How to Work with This
Here’s a step-by-step approach you can use when reviewing an NDIS plan or a provider’s support plan. You can follow along with the steps using our free Excel Budget Planner.
See exactly what your NDIS budget can deliver
Step 1: Understand your Support Budgets
Using the NDIS plan document, you will be able to see the allocated amounts for each budget category and whether or not they are flexible or stated. This defines what supports are possible.
| Support Budget | Category | Total Budget | Budget Type | Management Type | Funding Period | Per Period Budget |
| Core | Assistance with Daily Life | $13,000 | Flexible | Self-managed | Quarterly | $3,250 |
| Core | Assistance with social, economic and community participation | $12,514.32 | Flexible | Self-managed | Quarterly | $3,128.58 |
| Capacity Building | Improved daily living skills | $4,655.76 | Stated – Speech Pathology | Plan-managed | Quarterly | $1,163.94 |
| Capacity Building | Improved daily living skills | $4,655.76 | Stated – Occupational Therapy | Plan-managed | Quarterly | $1,163.94 |
| Capacity building | Choice and Control | $1,000 | Stated – Plan Management | Plan-managed | Upfront | $1,000 |
| Capital | Assistive technology maintenance, repairs, rentals and trials | $1,000 | Stated – Maintenance and repairs of hearing aids | Plan-managed | Upfront | $1,000 |
| Recurring | Transport Recurring | $2,472 | Flexible | Self-managed | Fortnightly | $95.08 |
Important:
- Capital funding is often released upfront or requires NDIS approval for large purchases
- Always check funding periods before planning
Step 2: Convert to Service Capacity
This is where providers can be engaged to plan support around the funding period budget.
Example (Occupational Therapist):
- Budget = $1,163.94 / quarter
- Rate = $193.99 / hour
You can book:
- 6 hours per quarter
- 2 hours per month
Don’t forget travel costs:
- Kilometres are cost at $0.99 per KM
- Travel time is costed at 0.5 service rate per hour (e.g. OT travel rate = $97)
Step 3: Build Supports Around the Funding Period
Don’t ask:
“How can we book in for the entire year?”
Ask instead:
“What do we need to book for the next few months that will best benefit the participant’s needs now?”
This should inform:
Scheduling
- Weekly bookings
- Therapy frequency
Planning
- Review points
- Reporting budgets
Step 4: Build in a Buffer
We recommend 10–15% headroom across all supports.
This protects against issues like:
- Cancellations
- Unplanned needs
- Insufficient funds for plan review reports
Plans that get “maxxed out” are likely to run into issues and roadblocks later in the total plan period.
Step 5: Track These 3 Numbers
For each participant:
- Each support category budget total
- Remaining budget in the current period
- Committed budget (scheduled supports)
This is the simplest way to avoid:
- Over-servicing
- Rejected claims
- Cashflow issues
See exactly what your NDIS budget can deliver
What This Means when Planning Support
From what we’re seeing, the biggest shift is in how the budget spending is planned.
The stated funds are easier to plan for, since the plan states the total budget and how it will be released. Using this you can know how many hours are available for therapists, support coordinators, plan managers, etc.
The flexible funds will need to be changed and planned over the funding release periods as opposed to the full 12 months. This may sound like more work overall, but we see it as a positive change!
By planning on a more frequent basis, you can ensure that the participant’s current needs and goals are being focussed on.
Key Changes in Practice
Service Agreements need to reflect:
- Supports to be provided
- Cost of the supports
- Participant and Provider responsibilities
- Total budget
- Funding periods
- Relevant support category budget constraints
Participant conversations should be anchored around:
- Goals and priorities
- Sustainable delivery
- Freedom of choice to change supports / flexibility for changing needs
Plan Managers / Support Coordinators will need to:
- Work with Therapy Providers to plan for report writing, advocacy, and other hard-to-scope expenses
- Prepare the participant and Therapy Providers for the NDIS’s annual plan check-ins
- Review issues that a periodically released budget may cause (e.g. front-loaded needs, increased administrative burden, etc.)
- Encourage Therapy Providers to advocate for specific increases, changes or additions to participant plans
Therapy Providers will need to:
- Work with Plan Managers / Support Coordinators to plan for report writing, advocacy, and other hard-to-scope expenses
- Request that any agency-managed participants create a “myProvider” relationship to allow claims against the plan
- Ensure any agency-managed services are claimed via a bulk upload in the myPlace portal
- Get comfortable with the new myNDIS portal that allows them to see participant goals, contact details and budget information (depending on what consent the participant has granted)
- Plan support in line with the plan funding period, ensuring that the participants’ current needs are always at the forefront of each new support plan.
Common Mistakes to Watch For
These are the ones we’re actively helping support coordinators avoid:
- Planning against total budgets and not applying period limits
- Not accounting for already committed supports
- Over-servicing early in a period
- Not adjusting regular support rosters to match funding flow
- If a support category is agency-managed, the participant will need to create a ‘myProvider’ relationship to ensure the provider can claim against the plan (this is the alternative to service bookings)
Where We Can Support
As therapists, our role here is to help you:
- Translate support category budgets into paced support plans
- Assist review of capacity vs funding periods
- Adjust therapy intensity to avoid funding issues
- Keep participants progressing without risking gaps or overuse
If you ever want a quick review of a plan or a second set of eyes on service capacity, we’re always happy to work with you.
Frequently Asked Questions
| Question | Answer |
| What are NDIS funding periods? | NDIS funding periods are the timeframes in which your plan becomes available to us. Instead of receiving your full budget at once, funds may be released in stages (most commonly monthly or quarterly) |
| Can NDIS funding roll over between periods?” | Any unused funds within an NDIS funding period will roll over into the next period within the same plan. You can check your funding periods via the NDIS participant portal, app, or your official plan document. |
| How do I calculate NDIS therapy hours? | Review your plan and understand what budget is available over the course of the plan for your specified therapy. Divide that budget by the number of periods in your plan to give you a “per-period” budget. Then divide that amount by the therapy hourly rate to get your total therapy hours per support category period. |
Disclaimer:
The information on this website is provided as general information only and is not intended as professional, legal, financial, or medical advice.
We aim to keep content accurate and up to date; we do not guarantee its completeness or suitability for your individual circumstances. You should not rely solely on this information when making decisions, including those relating to the NDIS.
We recommend seeking independent advice and undertaking your own research before acting on any information provided.
To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any loss, damage, or outcomes resulting from reliance on this content.
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