Support at Home Costs and Contributions: What You Will Actually Pay

How Support at Home charging works

Home Care Packages charged a basic daily fee and, for some people, an income-tested care fee, whether or not you used your package that week. Support at Home replaced that with a simpler idea: you contribute a percentage of the price of each service you actually receive, and the percentage depends on two things - the type of service and your financial circumstances.

If you do not receive a service, you pay nothing for it. If your provider charges $70 an hour for cleaning and your rate for everyday living services is 17.5%, that hour costs you $12.25 and the government pays the rest.

The three service categories

Category	Examples	Who pays
Clinical care	Nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, care management, and personal care from 1 October 2026	Nobody - fully government funded
Independence	Personal care (until 30 September 2026), social support, community engagement, respite, therapeutic services, assistive technology	Moderate contribution
Everyday living	Domestic assistance, meals, gardening, home maintenance, transport	Highest contribution

Contribution rates by financial status

Your circumstances	Clinical care	Independence	Everyday living
Full Age Pension	0%	5%	17.5%
Part pension	0%	5% to 50%	17.5% to 80%
Self-funded with Commonwealth Seniors Health Card	0%	5% to 50%	17.5% to 80%
Self-funded, no card	0%	50%	80%

Where a range is shown, Services Australia places you within it based on an income and assets assessment. You will be asked to complete this assessment when you apply; if you decline, you are treated as a self-funded retiree without a card and charged the top rates.

Personal care becomes free from 1 October 2026

This is the most important recent change. Personal care - help with showering, dressing, toileting, eating and moving around - was placed in the independence category when the program launched, which meant even full pensioners paid 5% and self-funded retirees paid 50%. The government has since announced that from 1 October 2026 all personal care services move into the clinical category and become fully funded for every participant.

Services delivered before 1 October 2026 still attract the old contribution even if they are invoiced later. If personal care is the main thing you need, this change materially reduces your out-of-pocket cost.

Three worked examples

Assume a provider charging $75 an hour for personal care, $110 an hour for nursing, $68 an hour for cleaning and $85 an hour for gardening. All three people receive the same weekly services: two hours of nursing, four hours of personal care, two hours of cleaning and one hour of gardening (service cost $796 a week).

	Full pensioner	Part pensioner (mid-range: 25% / 50%)	Self-funded, no card
Nursing (clinical)	$0	$0	$0
Personal care - until 30 Sep 2026	$15.00	$75.00	$150.00
Personal care - from 1 Oct 2026	$0	$0	$0
Cleaning (everyday living)	$23.80	$68.00	$108.80
Gardening (everyday living)	$14.88	$42.50	$68.00
Weekly contribution, from October 2026	$38.68	$110.50	$176.80

The part pensioner's rates are illustrative; the actual percentage depends on the means assessment. The examples show why a provider's price list now matters so much: every dollar on the price feeds straight into your contribution.

The lifetime cap

There is a ceiling on what you can be asked to contribute over your lifetime. As at 20 September 2025 the cap was $135,318.69, indexed on 20 March and 20 September each year (fee schedule commentary in 2026 puts it near $137,900). Once you reach it, the government funds all of your services, including non-clinical care if you later move into residential aged care.

Contributions you made under Home Care Packages count towards the cap. People protected by the no worse off principle have a lower cap (around $84,500 at September 2025) matching the old package rules.

The no worse off principle

If you were receiving a Home Care Package, or were approved for one and on the National Priority System, on 12 September 2024, you cannot be charged more under Support at Home than you would have paid under the package rules. For a full pensioner who was not paying an income-tested care fee, that generally means continuing to pay nothing. Full details are in moving from a Home Care Package to Support at Home.

Financial hardship

If contributions would cause genuine financial hardship you can apply to Services Australia for hardship assistance, which can reduce or waive them. Ask your provider or My Aged Care for the hardship form; a provider cannot refuse or withdraw services while an application is being considered.

Costs that are not contributions

• Care management is funded from the 10% built into every quarterly budget; you do not pay a separate contribution on it.
• Package management fees, which some providers charged under Home Care Packages, no longer exist.
• Exit fees cannot be charged if you change provider.
• Assistive technology and home modifications are funded through the separate AT-HM scheme; contributions on those items follow the independence rate.

Reducing what you pay

Three levers move your bill. Complete the means assessment (declining it puts you on the top rates). Compare provider price lists, because the same hour of cleaning can cost $60 with one provider and $85 with another. And use your classification budget on clinical and, from October 2026, personal care first, since those are free to you.

If you would like help comparing provider prices for a specific area, the AusCareGuide aged care directory lists every registered provider by suburb, and our free placement help service can do the comparison for you.

Figures on this page are current as at August 2026. Support at Home budgets, contribution caps and pathway amounts are indexed on 20 March and 20 September each year, so always confirm the latest amounts with My Aged Care before making decisions. This guide is general information, not financial or legal advice.