How to read the plan document
Plans don't all look the same - older plans and plans on the newer computer system of the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), , are laid out differently. But every plan has the same three parts: a section about you and your goals, the funding itself, and a line saying how each budget is managed.
The NDIA's newer computer system, plus the app and portal participants use to see plans and balances. Plans on this system look different from older ones - and may show a fourth budget called Recurring.
Before reading anything else, find three things: the total funding, the split between budgets, and how each budget is managed (by you, a plan manager, or the NDIA). Those three facts decide almost everything else on this page.
Nobody reads an NDIS plan fluently the first time - the language takes practice, and that's a design problem, not a you problem. Mark what's unclear and ask: your My NDIS contact, a support coordinator, or us.
The three budgets - and sometimes a fourth
Every plan splits its funding into separate budgets, and the split matters more than the total, because each budget has its own rules about what it can pay for.
Everyday support - support workers, consumables, community access and respite stays. Mostly flexible inside this budget.
Skills and independence - therapies, support coordination, plan management. Funded per category, not flexible across them.
Bigger one-off items - equipment, technology, home modifications. Locked to what's been approved.
Appears on some newer plans only - fixed regular payments, like transport, paid to you automatically.
That no-transfers rule is the single most useful thing to know about a plan. A surplus in Capital can't rescue an empty Core budget, and vice versa - so it pays to watch each budget on its own, not just the total.
Core - the everyday budget
Core is the budget most people touch most weeks - the NDIA calls what it pays for core supports, and groups them into three categories:
- Assistance with Daily Life - support workers for everyday tasks like personal care, cooking, cleaning and yard maintenance. Our Daily Personal Support and Help at Home sit here.
- Consumables - everyday items such as continence products, and low-cost assistive technology like non-slip bathmats or small aids for dressing and eating.
- Assistance with Social and Community Participation - support workers who help you take part in your community and interests. Our Community Participation sits here.
Respite stays are paid from Core too - we've written a whole guide on that one: NDIS respite, explained properly Transport used to be a Core category as well; on newer plans it usually appears as regular payments in the separate Recurring budget.
Core is also the flexible budget: in most plans, funding can move between Core's own categories as needs change. The exception is anything marked as a - that funding is locked to its stated purpose.
Funding locked to a specific purpose in the plan. Stated funding can only be spent on that purpose - and other funding can't be redirected to top it up.
One honest note: because Core is flexible and gets used constantly, it's also the budget that runs out when spending isn't paced. The funding-periods section below is the NDIA's answer to exactly that.
Capacity building - the skills budget
Capacity Building funds supports that build independence over time rather than meet a daily need - and unlike Core, it is not flexible across its categories. Funding sits in the specific categories the plan includes, and stays there.
The category names are where most of the jargon lives. The ones people ask about most, translated:
- Improved Daily Living - therapies and assessments: occupational therapy, physio, psychology, speech.
- Support Coordination - a person who helps you understand the plan and connect supports (you may also see the formal name, "Coordination of Supports").
- Improved Life Choices - plan management: someone to handle the invoices and budget tracking.
- Finding and Keeping a Job, Increased Social and Community Participation - employment and skills-based community programs.
On newer plans (made in the NDIA's newer system, called PACE), some of these wear different names - Improved Life Choices appears as Choice and Control, and support coordination as Support Coordination and Psychosocial Recovery Coach. Same categories, same job.
One of those - support coordination - is a support we provide, and only if the plan includes it. If it's in yours, it's paid from the plan, not your pocket.
Capital - the equipment budget
Capital funds bigger, usually one-off items: assistive technology, vehicle modifications, home modifications. It's the least flexible budget of the three.
- Funding is tied to the specific items or categories the NDIA has approved - leftover Capital funding can't be repurposed for something else.
- Higher-cost items generally need quotes or an assessment (often from an occupational therapist) before the NDIA includes them.
- If a need changes mid-plan - equipment breaks, or circumstances shift - you can ask the NDIA for a plan change rather than waiting for reassessment.
Funding periods - the 2025 change
This is the newest rule, and the one that changes how a plan reads. Since 19 May 2025, new and reassessed plans release funding in - usually three months at a time - instead of making the whole year's funding available on day one.
Instalments a plan's funding is released in - usually every three months. Introduced from 19 May 2025 for new and reassessed plans, to make budgets easier to pace across the year.
The mechanics, plainly:
- Funding you don't use in one period rolls into the next period of the same plan - it isn't lost at the quarter's end.
- Funding unspent when the plan itself ends goes back to the NDIA - plans don't carry a balance into the next plan.
- Periods can be set differently for different supports, and if the structure isn't working, you can ask for a plan variation mid-plan - or raise it at reassessment.
Practically: bigger spends - like a block of respite nights - are worth timing with the periods in mind, and the my NDIS app is the quickest place to see what's released and what's left. A plan manager watches this for you, which is half the reason people use one.
What funding can - and can't - buy
Since 3 October 2024, what counts as an is defined by two lists: one of supports NDIS funding can buy, and one of things it can't. The out-list is mostly what you'd guess - everyday living costs like rent and groceries, and things other systems fund, like mainstream health care and education.
Since 3 October 2024, two official lists define what NDIS funding can and can't be spent on. Being on the "in" list doesn't make an item automatic - it still has to fit your plan and needs.
Two things stop the lists being the whole story. First, a support still has to pass the NDIA's test - the lists say what's possible, not what's approved. Second, there's a narrow "replacement supports" process for swapping in certain items that would otherwise be off-list, with NDIA approval first.
The NDIA's test for what it will fund: related to your disability, value for money, likely to work, and something the NDIS - not another system - should pay for.
The honest rule of thumb: if you're not sure a purchase fits, check before spending - with your plan manager, your My NDIS contact, or the NDIA directly. An awkward question up front beats a rejected claim later.
Who manages the money
Every budget in a plan is managed one of three ways - and the choice changes which providers you can use:
- Self-managed - you pay providers and claim it back. Almost any provider, registered or not; most flexibility, most admin.
- Plan-managed - a plan manager pays the invoices and tracks the budgets. Almost any provider, none of the paperwork.
- NDIA-managed - the agency pays providers directly. Registered providers only (Beyond is registered - no. 4050087183).
One 2026 change worth knowing: a small number of support types - supported independent living among them - now require a registered provider no matter how the plan is managed. For most everyday supports, the choice above still decides who you can use.
You can mix them - one budget self-managed, another plan-managed - and you can ask the NDIA to change how a plan is managed. Like everything else here, it's your call: how the money is handled is a decision the plan records, not one it takes away from you.