Getting in

Who is eligible for a nursing home in Australia?

Updated 24 August 2026

Eligibility for government-subsidised aged care in Australia is decided on three things: your age, your care needs and your situation. My Aged Care publishes the qualifying conditions, checked on 23 August 2026: care needs, plus an age of 65 or older. The age threshold drops to 50 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. Income and assets do not decide whether you qualify. They decide what you contribute, and a separate means assessment works that out. An aged care assessment then settles two questions: whether the older person can receive funded aged care services at all, and which aged care program those services come from. Once an older person is assessed as eligible for aged care services, that eligibility generally lasts for life.

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What qualifies you for aged care?

Two conditions qualify a person for an aged care assessment, and both have to be met: the person must have care needs, and the person must reach one of the age thresholds. The Guide to Aged Care Law, last updated 2 October 2025, and My Aged Care's Should I apply? page, checked 23 August 2026, set out three age paths into the system:

Age 65 and over. Sixty-five is the general age threshold for government-subsidised aged care. A person of 65 or older who also has care needs meets both qualifying conditions and can apply for an aged care assessment.
From age 50 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with care needs qualify for an assessment at 50. The care-needs condition still applies at that age, so years alone qualify nobody.
From age 50 for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. A person who is homeless, or at risk of becoming homeless, reaches the same threshold of 50. Situation, the third basis of eligibility, covers circumstances of this kind.

Care needs are the second condition, and the assessment tests them for every applicant. At the eligibility stage, aged care in Australia is governed by the Aged Care Act 2024 and the Aged Care Rules 2025, which set out who can access funded aged care services and how the needs assessment decides it.

What happens in an aged care assessment?

An older person who has care needs and meets one of the age thresholds takes an aged care needs assessment as the next step. That assessment runs in four steps, from the older person's application through to the assessment organisation's decision.

Apply and give information about care needs. The application must include information about the older person's care needs. That information can be a declaration from the older person confirming care needs, a written statement explaining those needs, or relevant medical records.
The assessment organisation calls. After the application is submitted, an assessment organisation calls within 2 to 6 weeks. My Aged Care publishes that timeframe without a date on the page, checked 23 August 2026.
The face-to-face assessment. If the older person is eligible, the assessment organisation arranges a face-to-face assessment where that person lives.
The decision. The assessment organisation decides whether the older person is eligible for funded aged care services and which program delivers them.

Cost and choice of a nursing home

A means assessment decides what an older person contributes towards permanent care in an aged care home. Some aged care costs depend on financial circumstances, so what getting into a nursing home costs the older person comes out of that assessment.

Choosing a nursing home is a decision made across the 2,590 aged care homes in the Elderberry directory, which are run by 708 providers and hold 224,493 places as at August 2026.

How much money can you have in the bank for aged care?

No bank balance disqualifies you from aged care, because age, care needs and situation decide eligibility. What savings change is the size of your contribution, and more Australian Government assistance is available where income and assets fall below set levels.

One pair of thresholds removes the accommodation cost entirely. The Australian Government covers the full accommodation cost where income sits below $35,521.20 and assets sit below $64,500.00. My Aged Care publishes those amounts without a date, checked 23 August 2026, and states that they change with indexation.

For couples, the means assessment counts half of the combined income and half of the combined assets, whoever earned the income and whichever name holds the asset. That halving applies whether one partner or both enter care.

Financial hardship assistance covers people who cannot meet the costs of an aged care home for reasons outside their control. You ask to be considered for it, and if you qualify the Australian Government pays some or all of those costs.

Can self-funded retirees get My Aged Care?

Yes. Self-funded retirees can access government-subsidised aged care. Non-pensioners complete a means assessment form to give Services Australia, or the Department of Veterans' Affairs, their financial details. Completing a means assessment is not mandatory. Anyone who does not provide those details pays at the highest rates, and the maximum contribution rate can be applied. Declining the form raises the fees and leaves eligibility untouched.

Do you have to sell the house to pay for a nursing home?

No. The full accommodation cost never has to be paid upfront, and you can keep the family home, rent it out, or sell it when you move into an aged care home. My Aged Care's accommodation costs page, checked 23 August 2026, sets three ways to pay for a room:

A refundable lump sum. You pay an agreed amount as a refundable accommodation deposit, and the balance comes back to you when you leave the home. Retention applies where a resident first enters residential aged care from 1 November 2025 and pays some or all of the room price as a refundable deposit. The provider keeps 2% of the balance a year, and after 5 years no further retention amounts are deducted.
Non-refundable daily payments. You pay for the room in non-refundable daily payments across your stay, and nothing comes back to you when you leave.
A combination of both. You pay part of the room price as a refundable lump sum and the rest as non-refundable daily payments. The refundable part still falls under the retention rule above, because that rule applies to a deposit paid in full or in part.

Keeping the house does not expose its full value to the aged care means assessment. The cap sits at $214,884.00, current at 20 March 2026, and the assessment counts the lower of that cap and the home's net market value. For couples, the assessment treats each partner as the owner of half the home.

Your home is not counted as an asset at all while a protected person lives in it. My Aged Care's means assessment page, checked 23 August 2026, names these protected people:

Your partner or a dependent child. A partner or dependent child living in the home keeps it out of the assessment for as long as they occupy it.
An eligible carer of at least 2 years. A carer who is eligible for an income support payment from the Australian Government, and who has lived in the home with you for 2 years or more, protects the home from the assessment.
An eligible close relative of at least 5 years. A close relative who has lived in the home with you for 5 years or more, and who is eligible for an income support payment from the Australian Government, protects it on the same basis.

The Age Pension treats the house on its own timetable. A home you keep and do not rent out is exempt from the Age Pension assets test for 2 years after you move into aged care, according to Moneysmart's aged care page, last updated 18 August 2026. Selling the home instead puts its value into the Age Pension assets test.

What you pay once you are in an aged care home

Every resident of an aged care home pays the basic daily fee, whatever their means. The fee equals 85% of the basic age pension's single person rate, and based on current rates at 23 August 2026 the maximum is $66.80 a day, or $24,382 a year. Indexation adjusts the basic daily fee on 20 March and 20 September each year.

Your entry date decides which set of residential aged care fees applies to you. Two fee structures exist for people entering residential aged care from 1 November 2025 onwards, and one of them applies to each resident. The 'no worse off principle' protects anyone who held a Home Care Package, or sat approved and waiting for one, at 12 September 2024 or earlier and who moves into residential care afterwards. Residents who moved in before 1 November 2025 generally keep their existing fee types under that rule.

Clinical care in an aged care home carries no charge to the resident under the arrangements that began on 1 November 2025, because the government funds it in full. Two means-tested contributions sit beside the basic daily fee under those arrangements:

The hotelling contribution. This contribution is means tested and is capped at the hotelling supplement, which is $22.15 a day. Where income and assets sit below the thresholds, the government keeps paying the full hotelling supplement. My Aged Care lists the amount without a date, checked 23 August 2026, and the supplement is indexed in March and September each year.
The non-clinical care contribution. This contribution leaves out clinical care costs and carries a daily cap of $107.32. It stops at a lifetime cap of $137,917.01, indexed, or when 4 years of contributions have accumulated, whichever arrives first. Both caps change with indexation in March and September, checked on 23 August 2026.

Under the 1 July 2014 fee arrangements, the means tested care fee runs between $0 and $372.03 a day. The annual ceiling is $35,910.43 and the lifetime ceiling is $86,185.23. Indexation adjusts both ceilings in March and September. My Aged Care's costs and fees page carries no date for the amounts, which were checked on 23 August 2026.

Common questions

What are the changes to aged care in 2026?

One aged care change carries a 2026 date: personal care services under Support at Home become fully government funded from 1 October 2026. A recipient approved for the personal care service type in their support plan then pays nothing out of pocket for it.

How much money can I have in the bank and still get the full Age Pension?

A single homeowner keeps the full Age Pension while assets stay at or below $333,000, and a homeowner couple keeps it at or below $499,000 combined. Services Australia's assets test page, last updated 1 July 2026, sets a limit for each situation.

Situation	Full pension assets limit	Part pension cut off point
Single homeowner	$333,000	$733,500
Single non-homeowner	$600,000	$1,000,500
Couple, combined, homeowner	$499,000	$1,102,500
Couple, combined, non-homeowner	$766,000	$1,369,500

Assets that sit between the two columns produce a reduced pension.

What are the new rules for aged pensioners?

A part pension now cancels outright once assets pass your situation's cut off point, the right-hand column of the table above, and that rule took effect on 1 July 2026. The Department of Social Services reviews both the limits and the cut off points three times a year, in March, July and September.

How much money can an aged pensioner give away?

Giving money away does not remove it from the residential aged care means assessment. Gifted amounts above the gifting free areas count as a financial asset in that assessment, so your contribution is worked out as though you still held the money. The free areas are measured over the last financial year and over the last five financial years, and My Aged Care publishes the current amounts on its means assessment page.

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