TL;DR: Parliament passed the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 on 19 August 2026. Providers are affected from the first tranche, which starts 7 days after the Governor-General signs the Bill: record keeping moves to 7 years, you can no longer request a plan reassessment for a participant, the NDIA gains stronger information gathering powers backed by civil penalties, and the Minister becomes the decision-maker on pricing. Claiming moves to a 90-day window in December 2026, and mandatory registration expands in July 2027.
Please note: Disability Insights is an independent publisher. We are not affiliated with the NDIA, the NDIS or the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, and we are not an NDIS provider or a registered provider. This article is general information only, not legal or compliance advice for your organisation. Always check ndis.gov.au and the Commission's guidance before acting.
What did Parliament pass, and when does it start?
On 19 August 2026 the Australian Parliament passed the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. The Bill becomes law once the Governor-General signs it, and the first group of changes takes effect 7 days after that signature.
In a special edition of the Provider Newsletter, NDIA CEO Graeme Head AO wrote that while the legislation allows the Agency to implement several changes from 7 days after signing, it will take the time to get things right. He also noted that some changes are already under way, including the rollout of mandatory registration for Supported Independent Living and platform providers. The remaining reforms are staged out to July 2028 on the NDIA's Securing the NDIS for future generations page, with consultation on the design of several of them still to come.
What changes 7 days after the new laws are signed?
Five changes hit providers in the first tranche: plan reassessment requests, record keeping periods, the NDIA's information gathering and penalty powers, who decides NDIS pricing, and the use of automated administrative action. Nothing in this tranche changes your prices or your registration status, but two items change your paperwork immediately.
You can no longer request a plan reassessment for a participant
Providers lose the ability to ask for a plan reassessment on behalf of a participant. Only the participant, their plan nominee or a child representative can make that request, and the grounds narrow to a significant and ongoing change in the participant's functional capacity and support needs, or in their living, education, work or informal support arrangements. The NDIA then has 90 days to decide whether to reassess.
If your support coordinators or service managers currently lodge these requests as part of their workflow, that process needs to change before the commencement date. The practical replacement is helping the participant or nominee lodge it themselves, with your evidence attached rather than your name on the request. Short-term and urgent changes continue to run through plan variations, which are unaffected. Our explainer on changes to unscheduled plan reassessments sets out the request pathway in more detail.
Record keeping moves to 7 years
Providers must keep records of supports and payments for 7 years. The corresponding periods are 3 years for participants and 5 years for nominees, so your retention obligation is the longest in the system by a wide margin.
New NDIS rules will explain exactly which records are captured. The NDIA has framed the change around claim verification: records exist so claims can be checked and payments made correctly, and money can be recovered where records do not support the claim. Three things are worth checking now:
- Your retention policy. If it currently says 5 years, or defers to your software vendor's default, it needs updating and a version-controlled sign-off.
- Your archive path. Seven years of shift notes, service agreements, invoices and progress reports is a storage and retrieval problem, not just a policy line. Test that you can actually produce a 2020 record on request.
- Your exit process. Records for participants who left, and for staff who left, still fall inside the period.
The NDIA's page on record keeping requirements is the official reference, and our guide on what happens during a compulsory NDIS audit covers how retained records get tested in practice.
Stronger compliance, information gathering and civil penalties
The NDIA will have stronger compliance, enforcement and information gathering powers to tackle fraud and non-compliance and to respond faster to suspicious behaviour. Providers may be required to give the Agency information when it asks for it, and a civil penalty may be issued where a provider does not comply with certain requirements under the NDIS laws, including the requirement to provide information.
The operational consequence is response capability. An information request with a deadline lands with whoever opens the mail, so make sure that person knows where it goes, that a named person owns the response, and that you can assemble participant records without a week of searching. Our guide to audits and compliance checks covers the same ground from the evidence side.
Pricing decisions move to the Minister
The Minister for Disability and the NDIS will have the power to make a pricing determination for NDIS supports, setting out the maximum amounts for those supports. The NDIA will be responsible for providing advice to the Minister for that purpose, and that advice will come through the existing Annual Pricing Review process.
There are no immediate changes to NDIS pricing. Providers should continue to follow the current pricing arrangements, which we cover in our 2026-27 NDIS pricing arrangements guide. What has changed is who holds the pen: from this point, price limits are set by a ministerial determination rather than by the Agency, which makes the Annual Pricing Review submission process the place where provider cost evidence has to land.
Automated administrative action
Computer systems will be able to carry out some administrative actions, including claims and payment processing. Oversight and safeguards apply to automated actions, decisions that are complex, discretionary or require judgement will continue to be made by people, and the NDIA must publish details of how and where automated systems are used.
For providers, the likely effect is faster and more consistent claim processing, alongside more consistent rejection of claims that do not match the rules. Clean claim data becomes worth more than it was.
What changes from October 2026?
Two changes begin phasing in from October 2026, and both land on the participants you support rather than on your registration. Support budgets for social, civic and community participation supports and capacity building daily activities will be progressively reset as participants' plans are reassessed or renewed.
A new plan variation pathway will also be created for participants with high support needs who require continuous 24-hour care to meet their disability-related care needs. If a meaningful share of your revenue sits in social and community participation line items, this is the change to model against your roster, because it arrives participant by participant at each reassessment rather than on a single date.
What changes from December 2026?
Claims must be submitted within 90 days of delivering a support. This is the single change most likely to cost providers money, and it applies to providers, plan managers and participants.
Anything that delays invoicing becomes a revenue risk: unsigned service agreements, missing shift notes, a finance function that batches monthly, or a plan manager sitting on your invoice. Before December, work out how long a typical support takes to reach a submitted claim, then find the tail. The claims sitting at 100 or 120 days today are the ones that will simply stop being payable.
What changes from February 2027?
Plan renewals begin, replacing the process of plan continuations. When a participant's plan is due to be reassessed it will either be reassessed by an NDIA planner or a new plan will be created with the same supports as the old plan, and unspent funds from the previous plan will not be carried over.
New criteria for deciding reasonable and necessary supports also start. They apply first to new participants and are then applied progressively to current participants as each plan is reassessed. The end of unspent-fund rollover changes the shape of participant spending near the end of a plan, and the new criteria change what your evidence needs to demonstrate. Reports that describe functional capacity and the support required to address it will carry the argument better than service history alone.
What changes from April 2027?
The NDIA begins introducing its new way of planning from April 2027, and has said it will share more information with participants before they move to the new process. This is a gradual rollout rather than a switchover.
Expect participant questions before you receive detailed provider guidance, which is the usual sequence with NDIA rollouts. The new way of planning page is where the Agency is publishing updates.
What changes from July 2027?
Mandatory registration requirements expand to cover more providers. The expansion targets providers who deliver personal care and daily living supports, and supports provided in closed settings such as supported independent living or group homes.
This sits on top of registration work already under way. Mandatory registration for Supported Independent Living and platform providers has already commenced, and the NDIA has confirmed the July 2027 expansion as the next step. Unregistered providers delivering personal care or daily living supports have roughly a year to decide whether to register or to change their service mix, and registration is not a fast process. Our SIL registration readiness guide and our piece on platform providers preparing for mandatory registration cover what the audit and application stages involve.
What changes from October 2027?
A trusted panel of plan management providers will be established, and participants will be supported to transition to a provider on that panel over 6 months. For plan managers, panel membership becomes the question that decides whether the business continues in its current form.
The design of the panel, including how providers get onto it, is one of the items the NDIA has flagged for further work. Plan managers should watch the consultation schedule closely rather than waiting for a final rule.
What changes from January 2028?
Access changes begin for new applicants, with existing participants reassessed over 3 years. Eligibility decisions will rest on a new standardised, evidence-based assessment of functional capacity informed by a Technical Advisory Group, with more consistent assessment of permanence, of whether an impairment can be alleviated or treated, and of access to other compensation schemes.
The NDIA has stated that people with permanent and significant disability will continue to be able to access the NDIS. For providers, the three-year reassessment of existing participants is the number that matters for demand planning.
What changes from July 2028?
A new commissioned support co-ordination and connection function will be introduced. The detail has not been published, but the word "commissioned" points to the NDIA buying that function rather than participants purchasing it from the open market with plan funding.
Support coordination providers should treat July 2028 as a strategic date rather than an operational one, and follow the consultation as the model is designed.
What should providers do in the next 90 days?
Most of the timeline is years out. The work that has to happen now is short, and it is mostly documentation and process:
- Rewrite the retention policy to 7 years and confirm your systems can actually retrieve records that old.
- Remove provider-initiated plan reassessment requests from your workflows and replace them with a participant-supported process before the commencement date.
- Name an owner for NDIA information requests, with a documented response path and a deadline tracker.
- Measure your service-to-claim time and fix the tail before the 90-day rule starts in December 2026.
- Decide your registration position if you deliver personal care, daily living supports or supports in closed settings, given the July 2027 expansion.
- Put the Annual Pricing Review on your calendar. With price limits now set by ministerial determination on NDIA advice, that review is the channel for cost evidence.
- Brief your participants. They are hearing about the reforms from the media. Our companion article on what the new NDIS laws mean for participants is written for that audience and includes the NDIA's explainer video.
Key Takeaways
- First tranche starts 7 days after signing. Providers keep records for 7 years, lose the ability to request plan reassessments for participants, face stronger information gathering powers backed by civil penalties, and move to ministerial pricing determinations.
- No immediate pricing change. Current pricing arrangements continue; the change is that the Minister now makes the determination on NDIA advice through the Annual Pricing Review.
- December 2026 is the cashflow date. Claims must be submitted within 90 days of delivering a support.
- February 2027. Plan renewals replace plan continuations, unspent funds are not carried over, and new reasonable and necessary criteria phase in.
- July 2027. Mandatory registration expands to personal care, daily living supports and supports in closed settings, on top of the SIL and platform provider rollout already under way.
- October 2027 and July 2028. A trusted panel of plan management providers is established, then a commissioned support co-ordination and connection function follows.
Where to check the official information
Detail for most of these changes will land in NDIS rules that are still being drafted, and the NDIA has said it will publish updates in the Provider Newsletter and on its website. Work from the source:
- Securing the NDIS for future generations carries the full timeline and the participant and provider timeline PDFs.
- Record keeping requirements is the provider-facing reference for retention.
- Pricing arrangements remains the current price source until a determination is made.
