Personal Care Under Support at Home Becomes Free on 1 October 2026: What to Check on Your First Invoice

Support at Home has three service categories, each with a different contribution rate:

Category	Participant contribution
Clinical Supports	Fully funded by the government. You pay 0%
Independence	Moderate, means tested, roughly 5% to 50% of the service price
Everyday Living	Higher, means tested, roughly 17.5% to 80% of the service price

From 01/10/2026, personal care moves from the Independence category into the Clinical Supports category. That is the entire change. Personal care becomes fully funded for approved participants, with no participant contribution.

Personal care in this context means help with showering and bathing, help with dressing and grooming, non clinical continence management, help with eating and personal hygiene, and assistance with self administration of medication.

The service list, service IDs, the workers who deliver personal care, and the way it is booked and delivered do not change. Only the contribution category changes. Personal care will still be drawn down from your Support at Home budget, but your out of pocket share of that cost goes from a means tested % to zero. The reform is estimated to cost around $1 billion over four years and was announced on 22/04/2026.

Six things stay the same, and it is worth being clear about them because they cause confusion.

1. You do not need to reapply or ask for the change. It happens automatically for anyone approved for personal care in their support plan.
2. Your assessment does not change. Your classification level, your quarterly budget, and your support plan are not adjusted. Personal care is still drawn from your budget, but the government pays 100% of that draw.
3. Contributions for other services continue. Independence services like transport or social support, and Everyday Living services like domestic assistance, gardening or meals, still attract your assessed rate.
4. The definition of personal care is not changing. Clinical continence management (for example, catheter care by a registered nurse) is a separate service type that was already in Clinical Supports.
5. The way personal care is delivered is not changing. Same workers, same qualifications, same visits.
6. Services delivered before 01/10/2026 still attract a contribution. This is the most common source of invoice confusion.

The change applies to services delivered from 01/10/2026, not services invoiced from 01/10/2026. Two examples make this clear.

Example A: personal care visit on 30/09/2026, invoiced on 08/10/2026. Delivered before the change. Your participant contribution still applies at your old means tested Independence rate. Correct behaviour.

Example B: personal care visit on 03/10/2026, invoiced on 15/10/2026. Delivered after the change. Your participant contribution is 0%. Correct behaviour.

If both visits appear on your October or November statement, you should see two different treatments of the same service type. That is not an error. It becomes an error when a provider bills the 03/10/2026 visit at the old contribution rate, or bills the 30/09/2026 visit at the new rate. Both happen during transitions and both are worth catching.

When your first monthly statement or contribution invoice arrives after 01/10/2026, check the following.

On the monthly statement (the summary document):

• Is personal care listed under Clinical Supports for services delivered on or after 01/10/2026? It should be.
• Is the participant contribution on those personal care services shown as $0.00? It should be.
• Are personal care services delivered on or before 30/09/2026 still shown with your old contribution rate? They should be. If they are shown at $0.00, the provider has misapplied the effective date.
• Are Independence and Everyday Living contributions unchanged from your normal rate? They should be.

The monthly statement is not a bill. It is a summary of services delivered and how the cost was split. Read it as an audit document, not as something to pay.

On the contribution invoice (the separate payable document):

• Are you being charged for personal care delivered on or after 01/10/2026? You should not be.
• Is the invoice using your correct means tested rate for Independence and Everyday Living services?
• Does the invoice separate services by delivery date around 01/10/2026? During the transition month, expect personal care split across the old and new arrangements.
• Does the invoice list an ABN and the correct provider name? A mismatch is a valid reason to hold payment while it is resolved.

If something looks off, raise it with your provider first. Ask for the delivery date, the service ID, and the contribution category applied. If the provider cannot resolve it, contact Services Australia on 1800 227 475, or the Older Persons Advocacy Network (OPAN) on 1800 700 600 for independent help.

It does not reduce Everyday Living contributions. Domestic assistance, gardening, meal preparation and shopping assistance still carry the highest participant contribution rate. If your out of pocket costs are dominated by these services rather than personal care, the 01/10/2026 change will not move your monthly total much.

It does not change the lifetime cap. The cap on lifetime non clinical contributions applies to Independence and Everyday Living services. Any contributions you made toward personal care before 01/10/2026 still count toward the cap, but new personal care from 01/10/2026 will not accrue further.

It does not fix invoice quality across the sector. The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission gained new enforcement powers in May 2026, including the power to order refunds for overcharging, but the day to day burden of catching an incorrect invoice still sits with participants and their families. That is exactly the gap Wayly was built to close.

Wayly's SAH Invoice Checker and Statement Decoder are designed for exactly this kind of transition. Both tools reflect the 01/10/2026 change automatically from that date, and both flag mismatches such as personal care wrongly charged at the old rate, or personal care delivered on 30/09/2026 wrongly shown as free.

Upload a contribution invoice to the SAH Invoice Checker and Wayly runs it against the rule engine and flags anything to raise before you pay. Upload the monthly statement to the Statement Decoder and Wayly explains it line by line so you can see how the personal care reclassification is being applied. Neither tool is a substitute for Services Australia or your provider. Both exist to give you a second set of eyes on what lands in your inbox.