Will the funding actually cover everything you need? It's a fair question, and if you've been staring at a statement full of percentages wondering where your money's gone, you're not alone.
Here's the honest answer up front. Support at Home costs are shared between you and the government. For clinical care, the government pays the lot. For everything else you pay a share, and how big that share is depends a great deal on your own financial circumstances. And no, the funding doesn't always stretch to cover absolutely everything, especially when your health changes and your needs grow.
But that doesn't mean you're stuck. Let's walk through it in plain dollars, not percentages.
1. Who pays for what under Support at Home
Support at Home is the home care program that replaced Home Care Packages and Short-Term Restorative Care on 1 November 2025. Under it, every service falls into one of three groups, and the group decides what you contribute.
- Clinical care: nursing, physiotherapy and other allied health. The government pays 100%. You contribute nothing, no matter what your income or assets look like.
- Independence services: personal care, transport, respite and social support. A moderate contribution.
- Everyday living services: cleaning, meal preparation, gardening and home maintenance. The highest contribution.
One important qualifier on that 100%. The government pays the full cost of clinical care, but only up to the budget you've been allocated. This isn't Medicare, and it isn't limitless. Your funding arrives as a quarterly budget set by your classification, and clinical care is drawn from that same budget. Once the budget is spent, it's spent, whatever the service was. Section 4 sets out exactly how much that budget is.
A change worth knowing about right now. From 1 October 2026, personal care moves out of independence and into clinical care. That means help with showering, dressing and grooming becomes fully government funded, with no contribution at all. If personal care is a big part of what you need, your costs are about to fall.
2. Turning those percentages into dollars
The official system explains your contribution as a percentage of each service's cost, and that's a hard way to plan a household budget. Percentages don't tell you what leaves your bank account.
So let's translate. A percentage is just a slice of a dollar figure.
Say a cleaner costs $100 an hour and you're a full pensioner. Cleaning is an everyday living service, so your rate is 17.5%. Your contribution is $17.50. The government pays the other $82.50.
Now say that same person needs a nurse. Clinical care is 0% for everyone, so the nursing visit costs you nothing.
That's the whole trick. Once you know the price of the service and your rate for that type of service, you can work out exactly what you'll pay.
You're allowed to ask for it in dollars. A good provider will quote you in real figures: this service, this many times a week, this much out of your pocket. If a statement is all percentages and no plain numbers, ask them to redo it. It's your right to understand what you're paying.
Two things that make this easier:
- Work out your own contribution. Our Support at Home contributions calculator turns the percentages into dollars for your situation. The My Aged Care fee estimator does the same job on the government's site if you'd like to cross-check.
- Providers must publish their prices. Every provider is required to publish the price it most frequently charges for each service, both on My Aged Care and on their own website. You can compare before you commit.
3. What your contribution actually depends on
Your rate isn't random and it isn't the same for everyone. Services Australia assesses your income and assets, much like the Age Pension means test, and that sets your rate.
These are the standard rates that have applied since 1 November 2025:
- Full pensioner: clinical care 0%, independence 5%, everyday living 17.5%
- Part pensioner or Commonwealth Seniors Health Card holder: clinical care 0%, independence between 5% and 50%, everyday living between 17.5% and 80%, depending on your income and assets
- Self-funded retiree: clinical care 0%, independence 50%, everyday living 80%
It's worth being straight about what that means. People often hear "the government pays the biggest share", and for a full pensioner that's true across the board. For a self-funded retiree it isn't. On cleaning and gardening you'd be paying 80% and the government 20%. Knowing which end of that range you sit at changes the whole picture, so it's the first thing worth finding out.
Two protections that catch a lot of people by surprise:
- The "no worse off" principle. If you were receiving or approved for a Home Care Package on 12 September 2024, your contributions under Support at Home will be the same or lower than they were, even if you're later reassessed into a higher classification. If you paid no fees on your package, you will never pay contributions under Support at Home. Under this principle the rates are capped much lower: 0% across the board for full pensioners, and 25% for self-funded retirees. Grandfathered part pensioners sit between the two, ranging from 0% to 25% depending on their income and assets.
- A lifetime cap. Once your contributions reach $135,318.69 (as at 20 September 2025, indexed each 20 March and 20 September), you aren't charged again for the services you receive. People who moved across from a Home Care Package keep the lower HCP cap of $84,571.66.
4. What your budget actually is, in dollars
Your funding arrives as a quarterly budget, set by which of eight classifications your assessment placed you in. These are the amounts, current as at 1 July 2026 and indexed each 1 July:
- Classification 1: $2,752.50 a quarter ($11,010.01 a year)
- Classification 2: $4,112.84 a quarter ($16,451.35 a year)
- Classification 3: $5,634.20 a quarter ($22,536.81 a year)
- Classification 4: $7,617.13 a quarter ($30,468.51 a year)
- Classification 5: $10,182.38 a quarter ($40,729.53 a year)
- Classification 6: $12,341.32 a quarter ($49,365.27 a year)
- Classification 7: $14,915.00 a quarter ($59,660.00 a year)
- Classification 8: $20,034.28 a quarter ($80,137.12 a year)
Two things shape what actually reaches your services. 10% of the budget is allocated to care management: the coordination work behind the scenes, and it's already built into the figures above. And unspent funds carry over to the next quarter, up to $1,000 or 10% of your budget, whichever is greater. So a quiet quarter can leave a little in reserve for a busier one.
Equipment and home modifications sit outside all of this, funded separately through the Assistive Technology and Home Modifications scheme. A grab rail or a ramp shouldn't eat into your cleaning hours.
5. When your needs outgrow your budget
Here's where a lot of the worry lives. Your health deteriorates. You can't drive any more, and suddenly every appointment needs transport. The level you were approved for made sense a year ago and doesn't now.
You have real options.
Ask for a reassessment. An aged care assessor has a conversation with you about how things are going now, not how they were when you were first assessed. They're not testing you. They're listening, so your funding can be matched to what's actually needed. If your needs have genuinely increased, a reassessment can move you to a higher classification and a bigger quarterly budget.
Ask your provider for a support plan review. This is the lighter-touch version, and it's the right lever when the mix of services needs to change rather than the total amount.
Adjust how often you use services. You control the frequency. If the cleaning is fortnightly and money's tight, move it to monthly. If you've got more transport hours than you need this quarter, dial them back. Your care plan isn't set in stone. It's meant to flex with your life and your budget, and a good provider will rework it with you so the money lasts.
Prioritise what matters most. When the budget won't cover everything, be clear about what you genuinely can't do without. For a lot of people who can no longer drive, transport comes first, because without it appointments, groceries and connection all fall away. For others it's the nursing that keeps a condition stable. You get to decide the order, and you're allowed to tell your provider in plain words: this stays, this can wait.
Arrange extra services privately. You can enter a private agreement with your provider for services beyond your budget. You pay the full cost of those, with no government contribution, so it's worth pricing carefully, but it's there if you need more than the funding allows.
Apply for financial hardship assistance. If you genuinely can't meet your contributions and you meet the criteria, Services Australia can pay some or all of them through a fee reduction supplement. It's for special circumstances rather than a general safety net, and the criteria are strict, but if money is the barrier to care you need, it's worth asking about.
6. Will being reassessed mean you have to pay more?
This worry comes up constantly, and it's understandable. Nobody wants to ask for help and end up worse off.
A reassessment looks at your care needs, not your money. If your needs have increased it can move you to a higher classification, which usually means more of your care is covered, not less. Your contribution rate is a separate thing entirely, set through your income and assets assessment with Services Australia.
So a reassessment for higher care needs doesn't automatically mean a bigger bill. And if the "no worse off" principle applies to you, it's even clearer: your contributions stay the same or lower even if you're reassessed into a higher classification. If you paid nothing before, you'll pay nothing after.
7. If your bills feel too high
If your bills feel like too much, it's worth understanding where the money is actually going, and knowing how a provider is allowed to charge you.
How fees work now: administration and coordination costs are charged within the care management fee, which is capped at 10% of your quarterly budget. They can't be added on top as a separate line. Travel can be charged, but it should be billed on a per kilometre basis and set out clearly in your service agreement, not buried in a vague fee. Package management fees, which used to run alongside care management under Home Care Packages, are no longer permitted at all.
What to check:
- What are you paying in fees, as distinct from actual services? Ask for this in dollars.
- Is your care management charge sitting inside the 10% cap, or has admin been billed on separately?
- If you're being charged for travel, is the per kilometre rate written into your agreement, and does the distance look right?
- Are there charges for services you're not really using? These can quietly add up.
- Is your provider giving you a monthly statement you can actually read?
- Is the price they're charging you the same as the price they've published on My Aged Care?
If your provider can't or won't explain your bill in plain English, that's a sign something needs to change. You're allowed to switch providers, and moving to one who suits you better is often simpler than people expect.
8. Getting everything in plain English, in writing
Phone calls don't work for everyone. Medical appointments fill the day. Hearing loss makes calls hard. Complex conversations about money create stress, and holding numbers in your head while someone talks at you is a genuinely poor way to make decisions.
You can ask for something different, and you shouldn't have to fight for it. It's reasonable to request that a provider communicates with you by email, in plain language, with dollar figures rather than percentages, so you can read it in your own time and go back over it. If your hearing makes phone calls difficult, written communication isn't a special favour. It's simply how the relationship should work.
Ask for it explicitly and early, and note it in your service agreement. When we help you find a provider, we can factor it in from the start.
9. Knowing when your funds will run out
A quiet worry sits under a lot of these conversations: when does the money run out?
Your budget is set quarterly, and anything you don't spend only partly follows you into the next quarter. You can carry over up to $1,000 or 10% of your quarterly budget, whichever is greater. Anything above that is forfeited at the end of the quarter. It doesn't roll into an annual pool and it doesn't come back.
Ask your provider for a simple running balance: what's come in, what's gone out, what's left, in dollars. They're required to give you a monthly statement, so this is information you're entitled to. If you get it clearly each month you'll never be caught out. If they can't produce it, that's worth raising, and worth factoring into whether they're the right provider for you.
It's also worth remembering the lifetime cap. Contributions aren't open-ended. Once you reach the cap, you aren't charged again.
10. You don't have to work this out alone
If you've read this far and part of you is still thinking this is too much, that's okay. The system is genuinely confusing, the percentages are genuinely hard, and none of us were taught any of this.
We can help you understand your funding in real dollars, and match you one to one with a provider who communicates the way you need, keeps their fees clear, and works with your budget rather than against it. It's free to you, and there's no pressure at the end of it.
You get to stay in your home, on your terms, with the care you actually need. Let's work out how to make the numbers fit.
