Getting in

How does aged care work in Australia?

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

Aged care sets no limit on savings. A bank balance changes what a person pays, and it does not affect their eligibility for government-funded aged care, which an assessor decides on age, needs and situation. The residential aged care means assessment counts every asset a person holds, financial assets included, and special rules cover some situations. In an aged care home, the contributions a large balance produces are themselves capped. The hotelling contribution is limited to $22.15 a day and the non-clinical care contribution to $107.32 a day, and indexation moves both caps in March and September. Savings above the point that reaches those caps do not raise either contribution further.

Q: How do pensioners afford aged care?

What a pensioner pays depends on the program. In an aged care home, the agreed room price does not have to be found as a lump sum. The resident can pay it as non-refundable daily payments, or as a combination of daily payments and a refundable lump sum. A resident assessed as low means has part or all of the room cost met by the government, through an accommodation supplement paid to the aged care home. Under Support at Home, full pensioners make the lowest participant contribution of any means group, and pay nothing at all for clinical supports. A pensioner who still cannot afford those costs, through circumstances outside their control, can apply for financial hardship assistance, which covers contributions, fees and accommodation in part or in full. {{CTA_WIZARD}}

Updated 24 August 2026

Aged care in Australia is a set of government-subsidised services that a person reaches through an assessment. An aged care assessor decides who qualifies, weighing age, needs and situation, not finances. A separate means assessment then sets how much of the cost that person pays. My Aged Care publishes 4 key steps for reaching Australian Government-funded aged care services (retrieved 23 August 2026). The steps are: explore your options, get assessed, find a provider, and set up your services. Care is delivered through 3 main programs. Two of them keep a person in their own home: the Commonwealth Home Support Program and the Support at Home program. The third is residential aged care, delivered in an aged care home run by a provider. Each program is government-funded, and what the older person contributes on top depends on their means.

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How do you get into the aged care system?

A person enters aged care by working through the 4 key steps set out by My Aged Care on its "How aged care works" page. The steps run in order.

Explore your options. The first step is working out which kind of care fits the help the older person needs. How aged care works varies from one person to the next. It turns on the type of care the person is eligible for, the provider they choose and their financial situation.
Get assessed. Step two is applying for an aged care assessment. An assessment organisation then calls within 2 to 6 weeks of the application (My Aged Care, "Should I apply?", retrieved 23 August 2026). It arranges a face-to-face assessment at the person's home. The assessor talks through the person's circumstances and needs, then works with them to identify the services that suit them best. Age sets the floor: the person needs to be 65 or over, or 50 and over if they are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, or homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. That age rule comes from My Aged Care's "Aged care homes" page (retrieved 23 August 2026).
Find a provider. The assessment outcome fixes what the person is approved for, and they then choose who delivers it. For Commonwealth Home Support Program services, the client and the provider agree fees before services start. Getting into an aged care home requires the room price to be agreed in writing with the provider ahead of entry.
Set up your services. Services begin under the program the assessor approved. In residential care, the government pays residential care subsidies and supplements straight to the aged care home.

Money does not decide entry. A person's savings and income do not settle whether they can move into a government-funded aged care home. They settle what that person is asked to pay. Eligibility for an aged care home rests on the assessor's finding about age, needs and situation, and moving a parent into an aged care home turns on that same finding about the parent.

What are the three main aged care programs?

The 3 main programs are the Commonwealth Home Support Program (CHSP), Support at Home, and residential aged care in an aged care home (My Aged Care, "How aged care works", retrieved 23 August 2026). The 3 programs differ in where care is delivered, how funding is allocated, and what the older person contributes.

Commonwealth Home Support Program. The Commonwealth Home Support Program gives older people entry-level support services that keep them living independently and safely at home. It needs no income and assets assessment. The client and the provider agree fees before services start. The client then contributes to that provider for as long as the services run, if they can afford it, and there are no exit fees. Someone who cannot afford to contribute towards their care does not miss out on the help they need, and can raise it with their provider.
Support at Home. The Support at Home program started in November 2025. It replaced the Home Care Packages Program, along with the Short-term Restorative Care Programme. Support at Home gives access to a defined list of services that support a person to live at home for longer. A person approved for ongoing services is allocated one of 8 classifications matched to their assessed care needs. Each classification carries a set quarterly budget. Those budget amounts are current as of 1 July 2026, and indexation lifts them on 1 July each year.
Residential aged care (aged care homes). An aged care home serves older people who cannot keep living independently at home, and who need ongoing help with everyday tasks or with health care. It provides a room, personal care, and nursing available 24 hours a day. It also covers social activities, everyday living services such as catering, and general health care. The Australian Government funds aged care homes across the country and pays that funding directly to the home.

Every government-funded aged care home must meet the Aged Care Quality Standards. The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission registers the providers that deliver residential care. Providers must also keep everything they do consistent with the Statement of Rights. That statement gives an older person a right to assessment that is fair and accurate, covering the funded aged care services they need.

Residential care also covers short stays. Each financial year, residential respite provides up to 63 days of subsidised care (My Aged Care, "Respite care", retrieved 23 August 2026). An assessor can approve further extensions, each one adding 21 days. A respite resident pays the basic daily fee and nothing else. There is no accommodation payment, no hotelling contribution, no non-clinical care contribution and no means tested care fee, and short-term care needs no means assessment.

How much do you pay, and who pays the rest?

What an older person pays for aged care is set by the program they are in and by their means, and the Australian Government subsidises the rest. Clinical care in an aged care home is fully government funded under the 1 November 2025 fee arrangements. Where a means assessment shows a person has less capacity to pay, the government contributes more.

What do you contribute under Support at Home?

Support at Home contributions are set by service category and by the participant's means, as a percentage of the service price. Clinical support services such as nursing and physiotherapy are fully government funded, so a participant contributes nothing for them. Everyday living services, which include domestic help and gardening, carry the highest participant contribution. Personal care services become fully government funded from 1 October 2026, so a person approved for personal care in their support plan pays nothing out of pocket for it.

Service category	Full pensioner	Self-funded, no CSHC, or means not disclosed
Clinical supports	0%	0%
Independence	5%	50%
Everyday living	17.5%	80%

Those two columns are the ends of the published scale (My Aged Care, "Support at Home costs and contributions", retrieved 23 August 2026). Full pensioners contribute least. Self-funded retirees without a Commonwealth Seniors Health Card contribute most. Part pensioners and self-funded holders of that card sit on a tapered rate between the two ends. A participant who withholds income and assets details from Services Australia is recorded as "means not disclosed", and their contributions are then set at the maximum rate.

What do you pay in an aged care home?

Anyone who moves into residential aged care from 1 November 2025 onwards falls under one of 2 fee arrangements: the 1 November 2025 arrangements or the 1 July 2014 arrangements. The 1 November 2025 arrangements are built from four charges (My Aged Care, "Aged care home costs and fees", retrieved 23 August 2026).

Basic daily fee. Every resident of an aged care home pays the basic daily fee, whatever their means. It covers daily living services such as meals, cleaning, laundry and utilities. The fee equals 85% of the basic age pension's single person rate, and the government indexes it every 20 March and 20 September. On current rates the maximum works out at $66.80 a day, which is $24,382 a year. The same daily rate appears in the residential care fee schedule that applies from 1 July 2026.
Hotelling contribution. The hotelling contribution is means tested and tops up the basic daily fee, up to the hotelling supplement limit of $22.15 a day. Indexation moves it in March and September each year. A resident whose assessed income and assets fall below the thresholds keeps the full hotelling supplement, paid by the government.
Non-clinical care contribution. The non-clinical care contribution leaves out the cost of a resident's clinical care, and it is capped at $107.32 a day. It also stops for good at whichever of two points arrives first: total contributions of $137,917.01, or 4 years of cumulative contributions. Indexation moves both of those caps in March and September.
Higher everyday living fee. The higher everyday living fee is optional. No provider can agree it or charge it before the resident has moved in, and no provider can make it a condition of getting a room. A 28-day cooling off period lets a resident cancel or vary higher everyday living services without a cancellation fee.

Residents on the 1 July 2014 arrangements pay a means tested care fee, which runs from $0 up to $372.03 a day. Those residents pay no more than $35,910.43 in a year, and no more than $86,185.23 across a lifetime. Indexation in March and September moves those caps too.

What do you pay for a room in an aged care home?

Accommodation costs in an aged care home come on top of the basic daily fee and the other care contributions. Every person who enters permanent care in an aged care home can be asked to contribute towards the cost of their room. The Elderberry directory lists 2,590 aged care homes, run by 708 providers and holding 224,493 places (pulled August 2026). Each of those homes must agree its room price in writing with the incoming resident before entry. There are 3 ways to pay that price: a refundable lump sum, non-refundable daily payments, or a combination of the two (My Aged Care, "Aged care home costs and fees", retrieved 23 August 2026).

A resident who can afford the room is expected to pay for it. For residents with less means, the government pays some or all of the accommodation cost. The government pays the whole accommodation cost for a resident whose income sits under $35,521.20 and whose assets sit under $64,500.00. Both amounts move with indexation, and both appear as the income free area and the asset free area in the residential care fee schedule from 1 July 2026. For a low means resident, the government pays the provider an accommodation supplement of up to $72.30 a day from 1 July 2026, based on the means assessment outcome.

The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing publishes the residential care Schedule of Fees and Charges. It lists the daily amounts, caps, interest rates and thresholds. The current edition took effect on 1 July 2026, and earlier editions applied from 20 March 2026, 1 January 2026 and 1 November 2025. A rate quoted from an older edition may no longer be what a provider charges.

What happens to your house and your savings?

The means assessment, not the aged care assessment, decides how a home and savings affect fees. Services Australia does the means assessment for most people. The Department of Veterans' Affairs does it for people who receive a means tested payment from DVA (My Aged Care, "Means assessments for residential aged care", retrieved 23 August 2026). Completing a means assessment is not mandatory. A person who skips it can be charged at the maximum contribution rate. A fee advice letter issued before entry stays valid for 120 days, counted from the assessment date. For a couple, the assessment counts half of their combined income and half of their combined assets. Who earns the income makes no difference, and neither does whose name an asset sits in.

The family home is treated on its own terms. If a resident keeps the family home, the means assessment counts its net market value, or $214,884.00 (the cap as at 20 March 2026), whichever of those two figures is lower. Couples are treated as owning the home in halves, so the assessment compares half of the home's net market value with the cap and includes whichever is lower. The home is not counted as an asset at all when a protected person lives in it. One example of a protected person is a carer who is eligible for an Australian Government income support payment and has lived in the home with the resident for at least 2 years.

Savings are counted through a deemed rate. The assessment applies a deemed rate of income to financial assets, so the income an asset actually earns is not what counts. Gifting money before entry does not remove it from the assessment. A gift of more than $10,000 within the last financial year still counts as a financial asset, and so does more than $30,000 given across the last five financial years.

A resident's means status is then locked to the date of entry. It does not shift while they stay in the same aged care home, however their finances change afterwards. Moving to a new aged care home requires a new means assessment.

What happens if you cannot afford aged care?

Financial hardship assistance covers people who cannot meet aged care costs for reasons beyond their control. If a person is eligible, the Australian Government pays some or all of their contributions, fees and accommodation. Each case is assessed on an individual basis (My Aged Care, "Financial hardship assistance", retrieved 23 August 2026). To apply, an applicant's assets must be no higher than $46,835.10, leaving out unrealisable assets. That ceiling equals 1.5 times the yearly basic age pension including supplements. Residual income also counts. An aged care home resident left with more than $165.05 a fortnight after paying essential expenses, a figure equal to 15% of the basic age pension, may not be eligible. The assistance does not stretch to extra service fees, additional service fees, or the higher everyday living fee.

Two protections operate before hardship assistance is reached. In the Commonwealth Home Support Program, a client who cannot afford to contribute still receives the help they need. In an aged care home, a means assessment showing less capacity to pay lifts the government's share, and the government meets every clinical care cost under the 1 November 2025 fee arrangements. Services Australia also runs a Financial Information Service, which is free and available to everyone.

Common questions

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

Aged care sets no limit on savings. A bank balance changes what a person pays, and it does not affect their eligibility for government-funded aged care, which an assessor decides on age, needs and situation. The residential aged care means assessment counts every asset a person holds, financial assets included, and special rules cover some situations. In an aged care home, the contributions a large balance produces are themselves capped. The hotelling contribution is limited to $22.15 a day and the non-clinical care contribution to $107.32 a day, and indexation moves both caps in March and September. Savings above the point that reaches those caps do not raise either contribution further.

How much money can you have before you have to pay for care?

No single threshold covers aged care, because each program applies its own test. The Commonwealth Home Support Program requires no income and assets assessment, and the client contributes only if they can afford it. Support at Home has no cutoff either. A participant's means category sets what share of each service price they pay, and clinical supports carry no contribution at any means level. For an aged care home, the figure that applies to one person comes out of their means assessment. The fee advice letter that assessment produces holds for 120 days from its date (My Aged Care, "Means assessments for residential aged care", retrieved 23 August 2026).

How much savings can I have if I am in a nursing home?

There is no savings figure a resident must stay under once they live in an aged care home, because their low means or not low means status is fixed at the date of entry. That status holds while they stay in the same aged care home, whatever their savings do afterwards. The contributions those savings fund also have an end point. The non-clinical care contribution ends for good once total contributions reach $137,917.01, or once 4 years of contributions have been made, whichever point comes first, with indexation moving that cap in March and September. Moving to a different aged care home is the event that reopens the means assessment.

How do pensioners afford aged care?

What a pensioner pays depends on the program. In an aged care home, the agreed room price does not have to be found as a lump sum. The resident can pay it as non-refundable daily payments, or as a combination of daily payments and a refundable lump sum. A resident assessed as low means has part or all of the room cost met by the government, through an accommodation supplement paid to the aged care home. Under Support at Home, full pensioners make the lowest participant contribution of any means group, and pay nothing at all for clinical supports. A pensioner who still cannot afford those costs, through circumstances outside their control, can apply for financial hardship assistance, which covers contributions, fees and accommodation in part or in full.

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

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