New NDIS Laws Pass: What Starts on 27 August

The vote is done, and your plan did not change

Updated 24 August 2026. This article was first published on 20 August, before Royal Assent. The laws received assent on 20 August 2026 and the first changes start on 27 August 2026, so the dates below have been corrected.

Parliament passed the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 on 19 August 2026, and the Governor-General signed it into law on 20 August 2026. The first changes start on Thursday 27 August 2026. The NDIA was direct about what this means inside a household today: participants can keep using their plans and supports as usual.

That deserves repeating, because reform news reaches families as alarm more often than as information. The NDIA has confirmed no changes were made while Parliament was considering the laws. It also made a point we hear a lot in our homes: plans go up and down as a person's needs change, and that ordinary planning movement is not the same thing as a reform cut. If your plan shifts next month, ask why before assuming which of the two it was.

The first changes commence on 27 August 2026

The reform timeline published by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing puts the first group of changes at seven days after Royal Assent. Assent was given on 20 August 2026, which makes the start date Thursday 27 August 2026. This is the tranche arriving in days rather than years, and it is the one that changes plan reassessments and record keeping.

Four things start in that first group:

• Tighter criteria for unscheduled plan reassessments. You can still ask for one when your support needs have changed significantly and in an ongoing way, but only participants, plan nominees and guardians will be able to make the request.
• New requirements for participants and providers to keep records relating to NDIS claims.
• Stronger compliance, enforcement and information gathering powers for the NDIA, aimed at fraud and non-compliance.
• The Minister for Disability and the NDIS becomes the decision-maker on NDIS pricing.

The record keeping one is the sleeper. If you self-manage any part of your plan, this is the point to get your invoices and receipts into one place rather than three.

A Senate change that helps if you ever ask for a reassessment

Two amendments moved in the Senate on 18 August 2026 are worth knowing by heart, because they are the ones a family actually uses.

First, if the NDIA does not decide on a reassessment request within 90 days, the request is treated as refused, which opens your review rights. The practical effect is that silence stops being a dead end. You are no longer expected to keep re-lodging a request into a void.

Second, a change in your living, education, work or informal support arrangements no longer has to be unanticipated to justify an unscheduled reassessment. A foreseeable change counts. You only have to show it was significant and ongoing. For families who have been planning a move out of the family home for two years, that distinction matters.

The dates further out

From October 2026, participant budgets for social, civic and community participation and for capacity building daily activities are progressively reset as plans are reassessed or renewed. We wrote about the limits on that power in which parts of a plan a support determination can reach. The determination itself has to be made and published before anyone can say what a particular plan will look like.

From 1 February 2027, plan rollovers change for everyone. As plans reach their scheduled reassessment date, a renewed plan is created and unspent funds from the previous plan are not carried over. From 1 April 2027, participants start transitioning to new framework planning. That transition period runs until 31 December 2030.

Eligibility changes are the furthest out and the most misreported. They begin on 1 January 2028 for new applicants, with existing participants reassessed over three years. The NDIA has said people with permanent and significant disability will continue to be able to access the scheme.

What we would actually do this month

Keep your contact details current with the NDIA. That was always sensible and it matters more now that plan suspension has a defined contact process attached to it.

Find your plan's scheduled reassessment date and write it somewhere you will see it, because from February 2027 that date is when the rollover rules bite. Then check which budget each of your supports is drawn from, since these changes land unevenly across the three budgets. If you are unsure how yours is split, start with our explainer on how your plan is managed.

If a change affects someone living in one of our supported homes, we would rather the family hear it from us early than read it in a plan letter. We will keep tracking the rules as they are published.