Getting in

How do you put someone into a nursing home?

Updated 24 August 2026

You cannot put an adult into a nursing home against their will. In Australia an older person enters residential aged care by their own decision, or by the decision of an appointed decision-maker whose legal authority is already active. What family can do is open the path and support the person along it. That means requesting an aged care assessment through My Aged Care, taking the assessor's phone call and the home visit, then, once permanent residential care is approved, helping the person choose an aged care home and agree a room price in writing before the move. An aged care assessment settles eligibility for government-subsidised aged care. It does not settle where the person lives, and My Aged Care cannot hand a family member the power to decide that. Where care is needed sooner than the standard path allows, emergency entry and residential respite care can both begin before an assessment has happened.

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Can you make someone go into aged care?

No. No family member, carer or supporter can make an older person move into an aged care home. Registering as a supporter with My Aged Care carries no decision-making authority for the person you support. The supporter's role is to help the older person reach their own decisions, and registered supporters are barred from pressuring or forcing an older person into any decision, including a decision about care. An older person also cannot be pressured or forced into agreeing to register a supporter in the first place.

One group can make decisions on an older person's behalf: appointed decision-makers, such as a guardian or the holder of an enduring power of attorney, appointed under Commonwealth, state or territory arrangements. An appointed decision-maker can act only within the active legal authority they hold. That authority may become active only after the older person loses decision-making capacity. My Aged Care cannot hand anyone decision-making power over an older person, and it cannot alter or withdraw the powers of an appointed decision-maker.

Australia's aged care laws set out a Statement of Rights for older people accessing aged care. Among the rights it lists is the right of an older person to make their own decisions about their own life.

Who is eligible for a place in an aged care home?

An older person becomes eligible for a place in an aged care home through an aged care assessment, and eligibility for government-subsidised aged care rests on their age, needs and situation. The assessment determines both whether the older person is eligible and which program they are eligible for. My Aged Care sets two requirements for getting that assessment. The person must have care needs, and they must meet an age threshold: 65 years or older, or 50 years or older for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. Those requirements are current on the My Aged Care eligibility page as at 23 August 2026. The Department of Health and Aged Care states that residential aged care is not designed for people under 65 years of age.

Meeting both requirements qualifies the older person for the assessment. Nursing home eligibility is settled by the assessment itself, and approval for permanent residential care is one possible outcome of it. The same assessment can approve the older person for a different program instead, so qualifying for it commits nobody to residential care.

How to arrange residential aged care

Getting a place in a nursing home runs from the aged care assessment application to a room price agreed in writing before the move, and the actions in between are set out below.

1. Apply for an aged care assessment. The application is made on the My Aged Care online assessment application form. My Aged Care put the time to complete it at 15 to 20 minutes as at 23 August 2026. Have the Medicare card and general information about the older person and the other people involved in their care ready before starting.
2. Take the assessment organisation's call. After the application is submitted, an assessment organisation calls within 2 to 6 weeks, the timeframe My Aged Care stated as at 23 August 2026. On that call the assessor confirms the older person's needs and, if the person is eligible, arranges a time to visit them at home, or at their current residence, and carries out the assessment in person.
3. Choose the aged care home. If the older person is approved for permanent care, they are assigned a residential care place, and choosing an aged care home is then their decision, on the test of which home best suits their needs. The Elderberry directory lists 2,590 aged care homes run by 708 providers across Australia, holding 224,493 places between them (directory pull, August 2026).
4. Complete a means assessment. Services Australia does the aged care means assessment for most people. The Department of Veterans' Affairs does it instead for people who receive a DVA means-tested payment. The assessment can be done at any time before entering care. Completing one is not mandatory, but a person who skips it can be asked to pay contributions at the maximum rate. Services Australia then sends a fee advice letter. My Aged Care stated as at 23 August 2026 that the letter stays valid for 120 days, counted from the date of the assessment. If the person has not entered care inside that window, another means assessment is needed.
5. Agree the room price in writing. Everyone entering an aged care home must agree a room price in writing with the provider, and that agreement has to be settled ahead of the move-in date.

What is the fastest way to get someone into a nursing home?

Emergency entry does not wait for an aged care assessment. Under urgent circumstances an older person can enter residential aged care before any assessment or approval has happened. Within 5 days of entry the provider must help the person complete the Application for Emergency Residential Care, which is also the residential respite care form, and must submit it with its supporting information for referral to the local assessment organisation. Those emergency rules come from the Department of Health and Aged Care, whose page was last updated 4 February 2026.

Residential respite is a stay of limited length in an aged care home, and it best suits a person who needs carer support for most tasks. It can run for a few weeks at a time, and it is subsidised for up to 63 days in a financial year, counting planned and emergency respite together. The assessor can approve further extensions of 21 days at a time. Both limits are the ones My Aged Care published on its respite care page as at 23 August 2026.

Residential respite can also start before an assessment. In an emergency, a person who has not yet been assessed may still get residential respite care at an aged care home, and in those cases the provider can arrange an urgent assessment for the person.

What does an aged care home cost?

Every resident of an aged care home pays a basic daily fee, and its maximum is $66.80 a day, or $24,382 a year. My Aged Care published that maximum as current at 23 August 2026. Whether a resident pays anything beyond the basic daily fee, and how much, depends on the resident's means and on the date they entered care. A person who enters an aged care home on or after 1 November 2025 falls under the new fee arrangements. A person who had a Home Care Package, or was waiting for one, on or before 12 September 2024 keeps the protection of the 'no worse off principle' and pays the fees set by the 1 July 2014 arrangements.

The cost components of a place in an aged care home under the 1 November 2025 arrangements are set out below. Each rate is the amount My Aged Care published as current at 23 August 2026, and indexation moves those amounts during the year.

• Basic daily fee. The basic daily fee covers daily living services at the home: meals, cleaning, laundry and utilities. It is set at 85% of the basic age pension at the single person rate, and it is indexed twice a year, on 20 March and again on 20 September.
• Hotelling contribution. Some residents on the 1 November 2025 fee arrangements pay an additional hotelling contribution towards daily living services, again meals, cleaning and laundry. The contribution runs up to the limit of the hotelling supplement, $22.15 a day. Where the resident's income and assets fall below the thresholds that apply to the hotelling contribution, the government continues to pay the full hotelling supplement.
• Non-clinical care contribution. Some residents on the 1 November 2025 fee arrangements also pay a non-clinical care contribution, which covers personal care: bathing, mobility assistance and lifestyle activities. It is capped at $107.32 a day. A lifetime cap ends the contribution at $137,917.01 (indexed) in total, or at 4 years of cumulative contributions, whichever of those comes first.
• Clinical care. Clinical care costs in an aged care home are fully funded by the government under the 1 November 2025 arrangements.
• Accommodation. Accommodation is paid in one of three ways: a refundable lump sum amount, non-refundable daily payments, or a combination of both. Retention arrangements can apply to a refundable deposit, and indexing arrangements can apply to daily accommodation payments. The Australian Government pays the full accommodation cost where the person's income is below $35,521.20 and their assets are below $64,500.00. Indexation moves both of those amounts.

Two rules inside the means assessment govern the family home and a couple's shared finances. If the family home is kept, its value counts in the means assessment up to a cap. That cap, as at 20 March 2026, is $214,884.00, and where the house's net market value is lower, the lower figure is used instead. The home is not counted as an asset at all while it is occupied by a protected person such as a partner or dependent child. For couples, the means assessment counts half of the combined income and half of the combined assets, no matter which partner earns the income or which name holds the asset.

A person who cannot afford their aged care home costs for reasons beyond their control can request consideration for financial hardship assistance. If they are eligible, the Australian Government pays some or all of their aged care costs.

Helping someone settle into an aged care home

Settling in starts with the timing of the move. Moving in during a quiet part of the day gives the home's staff more time to help the new resident settle. Family members, a carer or a friend may want to stay for a while as the person becomes familiar with the home. Two further steps help the person settle in: meeting the home's manager, and asking staff what supports the home offers, such as counselling or 'buddy systems'.

After the older person moves in, aged care home staff should meet with the resident, and with family or friends if the resident wants them there, to discuss care needs and develop the resident's care plan.

A resident in an aged care home still decides what to do every day, and keeps control over their personal matters, their finances and their privacy.

Common questions

Can a doctor put someone in a nursing home in Australia?

No. A doctor cannot move an older person into residential aged care on their own authority. Decisions on an older person's behalf can only be made by an appointed decision-maker acting within the active legal authority granted under Commonwealth, state or territory arrangements, and a doctor holds that authority only if they have been appointed to it.

What do you do when an elderly parent can't take care of themselves?

An aged care assessment through My Aged Care is the first step for a parent who can no longer manage at home. The family can start that application with the parent, and the assessment then settles which government-subsidised program fits the parent's needs. The move into an aged care home still needs the parent's own agreement, unless an appointed decision-maker's legal authority is already active.

How do you deal with an uncooperative elderly parent?

A parent who refuses to move into an aged care home cannot be forced into one, and no family member or registered supporter can override that refusal. One offer a family can put to that parent is residential respite care. Deciding whether the parent moves into an aged care home falls to an appointed decision-maker only where that person's legal authority is already active and covers the decision. That legal authority can only become active once the parent has lost decision-making capacity.

What happens when a family can't cope with caregiving?

When aged care is needed urgently, before any assessment, three official channels are open, and each one covers a different kind of care:

• Carer Gateway, 1800 422 737. Carer Gateway is the channel for emergency respite care.
• My Aged Care, 1800 200 422. Calling My Aged Care arranges an aged care assessment for ongoing care, meaning care longer than respite can provide.
• Transition care. Transition care covers a short period of specialised care once a hospital stay ends, with nursing, physiotherapy and personal care among the services it provides.

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