What Changes on 1 October 2026, and What It Means for Your Supports

Published by SESI Care Services · Updated September 2026 · 6-minute summary Quick answer: The NDIS changes on 1 October 2026 reduce two support budgets, Social, Economic and Community Participation and Improved Daily Living Skills. It is not a flat cut applied to every plan on the day. The reduction is applied as plans are created or reassessed from 1 October 2026, or renewed from 1 February 2027, and the NDIA has said it rolls out over the coming 12 months. Several groups of supports are not affected, including supports in employment, disability related health supports, high intensity supports and intensive and complex behaviour supports. Everyday essentials like personal care, household tasks, nursing care and equipment are not touched at all. The change is not a reviewable decision, so there is no appeal against the reduction itself, though you can still request a plan reassessment if your circumstances have significantly changed.

If you have heard that the NDIS changes on 1 October 2026 will cut your funding overnight, that is not what the rules say. From 1 October 2026 the National Disability Insurance Agency begins reducing two support budgets, but it reaches each participant at a different moment, and for a lot of people that moment is months away. This is what is actually changing, who it reaches and when, which supports are untouched, and what you can genuinely do about it.

Everything below is drawn from the NDIA’s own announcement of 17 September 2026 and the commencement timetable for the new NDIS laws. Where the Agency has not yet published detail, we say so rather than filling the gap with a guess.

Key takeaways

• Two support budgets are being reduced: Social, Economic and Community Participation, and Improved Daily Living Skills.
• The reduction is applied as plans are created or reassessed from 1 October 2026, or renewed from 1 February 2027. It is not a flat cut applied to every plan on 1 October.
• The NDIA has said the change rolls out over the coming 12 months.
• Several groups of supports inside those two categories are not affected, including supports in employment, disability related health supports, high intensity supports, and intensive and complex behaviour supports.
• Everyday essentials are not affected: help with eating, drinking, dressing, toileting, laundry, cleaning, nursing care, medication, home and vehicle modifications, personal mobility equipment and specialist disability accommodation.
• The change is not a reviewable decision. You cannot appeal the reduction itself, though you can still ask for a plan reassessment or variation if your circumstances have significantly changed.
• A new plan variation pathway is coming for participants who need 24 hour disability support. The NDIA has not yet published how it will work.

What the NDIS changes on 1 October 2026 actually do

The NDIA’s announcement is short and unusually specific. Starting from 1 October, some NDIS support budgets will be reduced over the coming 12 months, as part of the new NDIS laws. Two support categories are named:

• Social, Economic and Community Participation. This is the Core budget most people use for a support worker to get them out of the house: community access, social activities, groups, getting to an appointment or a class.
• Improved Daily Living Skills. This is the Capacity Building budget used to build skills rather than simply provide assistance.

The Agency has been direct that the effect will not be uniform. In its words, the impacts of this change will be different for every participant, because every NDIS plan is based on individual goals, circumstances and support needs. Nobody, including us, can tell you what your own number will be before you see your plan.

When it reaches you, and why the date matters

This is the part being reported badly, and it is the part worth getting right.

The reduction is applied at one of two moments:

1. When your plan is created or reassessed, from 1 October 2026. If your reassessment is booked for November, that is when it reaches you.
2. When your plan is renewed, from 1 February 2027. Renewals replace the old plan continuations under the new laws, and this is the second entry point.

So if your current plan is not due to be reassessed or renewed for another eight months, the money in it does not change on 1 October. Your existing plan runs as it is. The date that matters to you is your own plan date, not the calendar date in the headlines.

Worth knowing about February 2027 as well: when renewals replace continuations, unspent funds do not carry over. If you have been sitting on an unspent Core balance intending to use it “later”, later now has an edge on it. Our guide on what to do when NDIS funding is running low covers the opposite problem, and the same planning discipline applies in both directions.

What is not affected

The NDIA has named the exclusions plainly, and the list is broader than most of the commentary suggests.

Inside the two reduced categories, these groups of supports are not affected:

• supports in employment
• disability related health supports
• high intensity supports
• intensive and complex behaviour supports

And other parts of your plan are not touched at all. The Agency listed essential day to day supports specifically: help with eating, drinking, dressing, toileting, laundry, cleaning, nursing care, medication, home and vehicle modifications, personal mobility equipment and specialist disability accommodation.

Read practically, that means your personal care and your household supports are not in scope for this change. If a support worker helps you shower, dress and manage the house, that funding is not what is being reduced. What is being reduced sits in the budget you use to get out into the community.

The NDIA has said it will publish a full list of the supports that are not affected. At the time of writing that list has not appeared. When it does, it is worth reading before you accept anyone’s summary of it, including ours.

You cannot appeal it, and you should know that now

This is the single most important sentence in the NDIA’s announcement: this change is not a reviewable decision.

A reviewable decision is one you can contest, first through an internal review by the Agency and then, if you are still unhappy, at the Administrative Review Tribunal. The 1 October budget reductions sit outside that. There is no appeal pathway against the reduction itself.

What remains available is different, and narrower. You can still request a plan change, including a plan reassessment or a plan variation, if your circumstances have changed. The Agency will consider a reassessment where there has been a significant and ongoing change in your:

• ability to complete daily activities
• living arrangements
• education or employment circumstances
• available informal supports

That last one matters more than people expect. If a family member who was quietly providing hours of unpaid support has stopped being able to, that is a change in your available informal supports and it is on the Agency’s own list.

Since August 2026 only participants, plan nominees and child representatives can request this type of reassessment, and the NDIA has 90 days to decide. If you are going to ask, the paperwork is the whole game. Our NDIS plan reassessment checklist walks through what evidence actually moves a decision.

What to do between now and your plan date

Five things, in the order we would do them.

1. Find out your own plan date. Check the myplace participant portal or ask your plan manager or support coordinator. Until you know whether you are facing a reassessment in November or a renewal in June, you are worrying about a date that may not be yours.

2. Write down what your community participation funding actually buys. Not the hours, the outcomes. “Four hours a week so I can get to the gym and to my sister’s place” is a sentence a planner can work with. “Community access” is not.

3. Get the evidence current. If your last occupational therapy or physiotherapy report is two years old and your situation has changed, it is doing you no favours. This is the one piece of preparation that takes lead time, so it is the one to start now.

4. Check whether any of your supports sit in the excluded groups. If part of what you use is employment support, a disability related health support, high intensity or complex behaviour support, say so clearly at your reassessment. The exclusions only protect you if the Agency knows the support is one of them.

5. Ask your provider how they will handle a reduced budget. This is a fair question and the answer tells you a lot. A provider who will rebuild your roster around a smaller Core budget is in a different business from one who will quietly reduce your service and hope you do not notice.

What this means if you are in Melbourne

The practical consequence for a lot of Victorian participants is not that community participation disappears. It is that the same goal has to be reached with fewer funded hours, so the hours have to be worth more.

That changes what a good provider looks like. Consistent workers matter more when you have fewer sessions, because time spent getting a new person up to speed is time you no longer have spare. Grouping activities sensibly matters more. Knowing what is actually accessible near you matters more, and there is genuinely more to do in Melbourne’s south east than most plans use. Our guides to accessible days out across Casey and Cardinia and low cost community activities in Victoria exist for exactly this reason, and they get more useful as budgets tighten, not less.

If you want the wider picture of where these laws came from and what else is scheduled between now and 2028, our explainer on the NDIS Bill and what it actually means covers the legislation itself.

Frequently asked questions

Talk to SESI

SESI Care Services is a registered NDIS provider delivering disability support across Melbourne, including personal care, household tasks, community participation and transport. If your plan is coming up for reassessment or renewal and you want to talk through how to make a smaller community participation budget go further, get in touch. No pressure, no jargon.

Tell us what’s going on: sesi.com.au/referral · Call: 1800 017 374

This guide is general information based on the National Disability Insurance Agency’s announcement of 17 September 2026, the commencement timetable for the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Act 2026, and NDIA guidance current at September 2026. It is not advice about your individual plan. For questions about your own plan, contact the NDIA on 1800 800 110. SESI Care Services is a registered NDIS provider, provider number 4050144347, with an office in Narre Warren.