Getting in

How do you get into a nursing home in Australia?

Updated 24 August 2026

To get into a nursing home in Australia, you apply for a free aged care assessment through My Aged Care and get approved for permanent residential care. You then apply to the homes you want and accept a place one of them offers. Eligibility for government-subsidised aged care in Australia rests on your age, your needs and your situation, and the assessment decides whether you are eligible and for which program. The order runs like this. You apply for the assessment. An assessment organisation calls you within 2 to 6 weeks of your application (as published by My Aged Care at 23 August 2026) and, if you are eligible, arranges a visit to your home. If you are approved, you receive a Notice of Decision letter and a support plan. Then you shortlist homes, apply, and accept an offer. A means assessment, which is not mandatory, sets what you contribute, and Services Australia carries it out for most people. Urgent entry without an assessment is possible in an emergency.

Find your perfect home

Tell us the area and care needs; we match you with rated aged care homes and real availability.

Start the free match

Who can get into a nursing home?

Eligibility for a place in a nursing home is decided by an aged care assessment, and it rests on three things: your age, your care needs and your situation. Nursing home is the everyday term for an aged care home, and permanent care in one is residential aged care. To qualify for the assessment itself, My Aged Care sets a needs requirement and an age requirement, and you must meet both.

• Care needs. The aged care assessment checks how much help you need with everyday tasks.
• Age. You must be 65 or older, or 50 or older if you are an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person, or 50 or older if you are homeless or at risk of homelessness. The Department of Health and Aged Care states that residential aged care is not designed for people under 65.

How do you apply for an aged care assessment?

You apply for the free aged care assessment in one of three ways, and all three feed the same assessment system. The application is the first step for anyone who wants government-subsidised aged care services.

• Online. The online application takes 10 to 15 minutes and you need your Medicare card on hand. You can complete it for yourself or on behalf of someone else, so an adult child can lodge the application for a parent.
• By phone. Phone My Aged Care on 1800 200 422 and apply on the call, with no online form to complete.
• In person. Book a time with an Aged Care Specialist Officer at a Services Australia centre by phoning 1800 227 475. An Aged Care Specialist Officer works through the application with you face to face at the centre.

After you submit the application, an assessment organisation calls you within 2 to 6 weeks (as published by My Aged Care at 23 August 2026). On that call the assessment organisation confirms your needs. If you are eligible, it books a visit to carry out the assessment where you live, at home or wherever you are currently staying. The assessment is free, and the call is the point at which a real date enters the process.

What happens when you are approved for residential aged care?

Approval for residential aged care arrives as a Notice of Decision letter and a support plan. Someone approved for permanent care is assigned a residential care place, and that place is what lets them go out and choose an aged care home suited to their care needs, now and for the long term.

Approval does not put you in a home. From that point the search, the applications and the decision to accept or decline an offer sit with you and your family.

How do you find and apply to an aged care home?

My Aged Care sets out five steps once you are approved for residential care, and they run in this order.

1. Check your assessment. Before you contact any provider, go back to the Notice of Decision letter and support plan you received when you were approved for residential care.
2. Find a provider near you. The Elderberry directory lists 2,590 aged care homes run by 708 providers, holding 224,493 places across Australia (pulled August 2026). Every aged care home must publish the maximum accommodation cost for each of its rooms, so you can compare prices before you spend a morning visiting.
3. Visit your shortlisted aged care homes. Star Ratings give you a comparable starting point for choosing an aged care home. Aged care homes receive an Overall Star Rating between 1 and 5 stars, along with four sub-category ratings covering Compliance, Staffing, Residents' Experience and Quality Measures. Of the 2,386 homes carrying an Overall Star Rating, 73.5% sit at 4 stars or more (Elderberry directory, pulled August 2026), so the overall figure rarely separates a shortlist on its own. Across the Elderberry directory, Staffing averages 3.02 stars and Residents' Experience averages 3.52 stars (pulled August 2026).
4. Apply to your preferred aged care homes. If you have found more than one home you like, apply to them all. Each home usually asks for an application form, your assessment copy and your current fee advice letter.
5. Accept an offer. You are never obliged to accept an offer. When you do accept, you finalise the arrangement with formal agreements.

The fee advice letter named in step 4 comes out of the means assessment. My Aged Care advises anyone who has not yet had a means assessment to arrange one, because the process takes time.

How does the means assessment set your fees?

The aged care means assessment sets what you contribute towards your care and your accommodation, and it is a separate process from the care assessment. Services Australia carries it out for most people, and the Department of Veterans' Affairs carries it out for people who receive a means tested payment from DVA.

Completing a means assessment is not mandatory. If you skip it, the maximum contribution rate can be applied to you instead, and without a completed assessment you get no government help towards the cost of living in the home. You can have your means assessed at any time, including before you enter care. The fee advice letter that results stays valid for 120 days, counted from your assessment date (at 23 August 2026), which is the reason to time it close to your applications.

Beyond the general test of your income and assets, two rules decide how a couple and a kept family home are counted.

• Couples. The assessment includes half of your combined income and assets, no matter which partner earns the income or whose name an asset sits in.
• The family home. A kept family home is included only up to a capped amount. That cap is $214,884.00, current as at 20 March 2026, or the home's net market value where that is lower. The home is not counted as an asset at all while a protected person lives in it.

A protected person can be your partner or a dependent child. The definition also covers a carer who is eligible for an income support payment from the Australian Government and has lived in the home with you for 2 years or more. A close relative counts too, if they are eligible for an income support payment from the Australian Government and have lived there with you for 5 years or more.

What will you pay to live in an aged care home?

Your cost of living in an aged care home is built from three parts: a basic daily fee everyone pays, a means-tested contribution towards your care, and a room price you agree in writing with the provider before you enter care. You do not need a lump sum in the bank to move in, because the room price can be paid as daily payments instead.

The basic daily fee

Every resident of an aged care home pays the basic daily fee, regardless of means. The fee is fixed at 85% of the basic age pension's single person rate. At current rates the maximum is $66.80 a day, or $24,382 a year (as published by My Aged Care at 23 August 2026). It is indexed each year on 20 March and 20 September, so the amount you pay moves twice a year.

Contributions towards your care

Which contribution applies depends on the date you enter care. People who enter an aged care home on or after 1 November 2025 fall under the newer fee arrangements. A second group is protected by the no worse off principle: people who were receiving a Home Care Package, or were approved and waiting for one, on or before 12 September 2024. If they later move into residential care, they pay under the 1 July 2014 arrangements.

• On or after 1 November 2025. Some residents pay a means-tested hotelling contribution of up to $22.15 a day, the limit of the hotelling supplement (current rate at 23 August 2026, indexed in March and September each year). If your assets and income sit below the thresholds, the government keeps paying the full hotelling supplement. A resident whose means assessment produces the full hotelling contribution may also be asked to contribute towards non-clinical care. That contribution is capped at $107.32 a day. It stops permanently at a lifetime cap of $137,917.01, or once 4 years of cumulative contributions are reached, whichever comes first. Both caps move at indexation in March and September (rates at 23 August 2026), and Support at Home fees count towards the same lifetime cap.
• Under the 1 July 2014 arrangements. The means tested care fee runs between $0 and $372.03 a day, capped at $35,910.43 a year and $86,185.23 across a lifetime (at 23 August 2026). Those caps also move at indexation in March and September.

Your room price

Before you enter care, you and the provider must agree the room price in writing. Every aged care home publishes a maximum price for each room, you and the provider can negotiate a lower price, and you cannot be charged above the published price for a room. A resident who can afford the room price is expected to pay it. Where a resident has less means, the government meets some or all of the accommodation cost.

You have three ways to pay the agreed price:

• A refundable lump sum. You pay the room price, or part of it, as a deposit, and the balance comes back to you when you leave the home. If you first enter permanent care on or after 1 November 2025 and you pay a refundable deposit, the provider keeps an amount calculated at 2% per annum of your balance. No further retention is deducted beyond 5 years.
• Daily payments. Daily payments work like rent, and you do not get them back when you leave care. The daily accommodation payment comes from the maximum permissible interest rate applied to the agreed room price, divided by 365. That rate is updated quarterly, and the rate applying to you is locked in on the date you and the provider agree the room price.
• A combination of both. You pay part of the room price as a lump sum and the remainder as daily payments, which lets a family cover what it can while the rest is spread across the stay.

A family member can pay part or all of your accommodation cost. Even when a family member pays it, a refundable lump sum counts as the resident's own asset in the means assessment. A payment from an adult child can therefore lift the contribution the resident is asked to make.

Financial hardship assistance

Financial hardship assistance is what you ask to be considered for when aged care home costs are beyond what you can pay, for reasons outside your control. Residents found eligible have some or all of their aged care costs paid by the Australian Government.

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

Two routes into an aged care home do not wait for an aged care assessment, and the first is an urgent entry. In urgent circumstances, an older person can enter residential aged care before any assessment or approval has happened. Within 5 days, the provider must help the person complete and submit the emergency entry form, which refers the entry to the local assessment organisation (Department of Health and Aged Care, page last updated 4 February 2026).

Residential respite care is the other route that does not wait for an assessment. In an emergency, a person who has not been assessed may still be able to enter residential respite care at an aged care home, and the provider can then arrange an urgent assessment. For emergency respite, contact Carer Gateway on 1800 422 737. For ongoing care that runs longer than respite can provide, phone My Aged Care on 1800 200 422 and ask for an assessment.

Residential respite is subsidised for up to 63 days in a financial year, counting both planned and emergency respite (at 23 August 2026). Your assessor can approve further blocks of 21 days at a time. During a respite stay you pay the basic daily fee, and the home may add a booking fee. The provider cannot charge an accommodation payment or a means tested care fee during that stay. Some aged care homes have no space for extra temporary residents, and respite approval does not guarantee a place.

Common questions

How much money can you have when going into a nursing home?

There is no maximum amount of money that stops you entering an aged care home. Eligibility is decided by the aged care assessment on age, needs and situation, and money enters at the means assessment, which sets what you contribute. Residents who can afford the room price pay it, and the government covers some or all of the accommodation cost for people with less means. Skipping the means assessment does not lower your fees, because someone who does not complete one can be charged at the maximum contribution rate.

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

No bank balance blocks entry to an aged care home. The means assessment thresholds are the numbers that change what you pay. If your income is under $35,521.20 and your assets are under $64,500.00, the Australian Government meets your accommodation costs in full (at 23 August 2026). Both amounts change with indexation. For a couple, half of the combined income and assets counts in the means assessment, whoever earns the income and whoever holds the asset.

Do you have to sell your house to go into a nursing home in Australia?

No, you are not required to sell your home to enter an aged care home. You can sell it, rent it out, or keep it. Selling the home puts its value into the Age Pension assets test. Renting the home out is a way to help cover the daily accommodation payment on your room price. If you keep the home and do not rent it out, it is exempt from the Age Pension assets test for 2 years after you move into aged care (at 23 August 2026). Moneysmart notes that this may differ if you are, or were, part of a couple. In the aged care means assessment itself, a kept home is counted only up to the capped amount.

What is the average cost of nursing home care in Australia?

No single national average tells you what a nursing home costs. Each resident's cost is assembled from three parts: the basic daily fee, a contribution set by your means assessment, and the room price you agree in writing with the provider. The basic daily fee is indexed on 20 March and 20 September each year, and the contribution caps change with indexation in March and September, so any figure quoted to you is accurate only as at its date. My Aged Care publishes the current fee rates, and every aged care home must publish its maximum accommodation cost for each room on the same site, so you can price a particular home rather than work from an average.

Find your perfect home

Tell us the area and care needs; we match you with rated aged care homes and real availability.

Start the free match