Pending NDIS worker screening applications rose 92.8 then 26.2 per cent in the first half of 2026. The Commission put the first spike down to renewals

This is general information about what the Commission and one state say. It is not legal advice. Each state and territory runs its own screening unit and sets its own rules for working while a renewal is decided, so check with yours.

If your check expires before the renewal is decided

NDIS worker screening checks are now coming up for renewal for the first time. The Commission’s renewal FAQ says The first NDIS worker screening checks were issued from February 2021. They will expire from February 2026. A check is valid for up to 5 years from the date of the outcome, unless cancelled or revoked. Its worker screening page sets the window: You can apply to renew your worker screening check up to 90 days before the expiry date of your current check.

What happens at expiry is stated without softening:

If a worker is operating in a risk-assessed role for a registered NDIS provider, and their NDIS worker screening check expires, that worker must be removed from all risk-assessed roles immediately.

The exception is “work on application”, which the FAQ defines as meaning a worker with a valid NDIS worker screening check can continue working in risk-assessed roles while their renewal application is being processed. It has four conditions, and two of them fall on the expiry date.

Keep working

Only if all four hold

Your state or territory has a work on application policy; you apply to the same screening unit that did your original check (unless you moved state in the previous 5 years); you apply before the expiry date; and your employer verifies in the national database that you work for them before the expiry date

Stop

Out of risk-assessed roles at once

Your check expired and any one of the four is missing. You cannot return to a risk-assessed role for a registered provider until a clearance is granted

Self-managed participants

Your choice

Self-managed participants may choose to engage workers who do not hold a current check. The Commission recommends asking for one

The FAQ leaves the first condition to each state and territory. Victoria’s NDIS worker screening page, updated 6 October 2026, shows how the rule can split. For a first check, Victoria is a no clearance, no start state. You must not work whilst your first NDIS Check is being decided. For a renewal it is different: You may work if your NDIS Clearance has expired (after 5 years) and you have applied for a new NDIS Check if: the application has not been finally decided or withdrawn, you have not been given an interim exclusion, and you meet further conditions about past exclusions, orders and offences that the page lists. The page also says Victoria emails a reminder 120 days before expiry and again at 90 days.

For providers, the Commission’s page says Employers will get a notification when a worker linked to them has a worker screening check that’s expiring. The FAQ puts the timing at 90 days, and says a renewal cannot progress until the employer verifies it: Once verified, the worker screening renewal application will progress. A provider that sits on a verification request can cost a worker the work on application route. Providers reach the database through a Commission portal; our report on the portal changeover covers what moves when.

What the quarterly report counts

The Commission’s Quarterly Performance Report for April to June 2026, listed on its corporate reports page, counts individuals awaiting decision on their NDIS Worker Screening Check application as at end quarter, by state and territory. Its foreword, signed on 2 September 2026, says The number of Worker Screening applications pending clearance rose again, but only by 26.2% compared to last quarter’s 92.8%, marking a slowdown overall. A note on the chart gives the reason for the first rise: The spike in number of pending applications in Jan-Mar 2026 compared to previous periods is due to a dramatic increase in renewals applications.

Counts of individuals awaiting a decision at the end of each quarter, from Appendix C of the Commission’s Quarterly Performance Report Q4 2025-26. The report prints the state and territory rows; the national totals are our addition of them. Our totals reproduce the foreword’s 92.8 and 26.2 per cent exactly. “2.4 times” is our division.

Individuals awaiting a decision on an NDIS worker screening application at the end of each quarter, by the state or territory screening unit. From Appendix C of the Quarterly Performance Report Q4 2025-26. “Change” is 31 December 2025 to 30 June 2026, and the “All eight” row, are our arithmetic. Ordered by the 30 June count.

Two things in the table matter more than the national total. The rise was not even: Western Australia went from 202 to 1,470, Tasmania from 285 to 1,108 and South Australia from 13 to 342, while Queensland, which had the largest queue at December, fell back between March and June. And the count is of everyone waiting, first-time applicants as well as renewals. The report’s own note on pending applications says waiting may be a result of a number of factors including a risk assessment being undertaken by a worker screening unit and/or delays in information being provided by individuals or other relevant sources.

Scale changes the picture again. Set against the number of people holding a clearance, Tasmania’s queue is several times the others’.

“Clearances held” and “awaiting decision” are the report’s counts of individuals at 30 June 2026 (Appendix C). The last two columns and the “All eight” row are our arithmetic: people awaiting a decision per 1,000 holding a clearance, and the change in clearances held between 31 March and 30 June 2026. A rough measure of scale only, because the people waiting include first-time applicants who hold no clearance.

The last column is the one to watch. Across the eight jurisdictions the number of people holding a clearance rose by 19,724 in April to June, against 47,875 in January to March and 51,690 in October to December 2025, on our arithmetic from the same appendix. In Tasmania it fell, by 155. The report does not explain either movement, and it does not count expiries, so we cannot say how much of that is checks lapsing before a renewal was decided.

The queue shows up at the Commission’s own front desk too. The foreword says Worker Screening also composed the largest cohort of the 20,103 calls handled by the Contact Centre, making up 21.1% of the total. The report’s contact centre table puts the worker screening share at 13.6 per cent in October to December 2025.

How the renewal cycle has run

• February 2021The first NDIS worker screening checks are issued
• Late 2025Some workers may be able to renew from here, the FAQ says
• 1 February 2026The first cycle of renewals was scheduled to commence, the FAQ says
• 31 March 20267,870 awaiting a decision (our sum), up 92.8 per cent on the quarter
• 30 June 20269,929 awaiting a decision (our sum), up 26.2 per cent
• 2 September 2026The April to June report’s foreword is signed
• NextThe July to September 2026 report. The Commission gives no date; last year’s equivalent is in its November 2025 uploads folder

Dates as the sources give them: the renewal FAQ (February 2021, late 2025, 1 February 2026), the Quarterly Performance Report Q4 2025-26 (quarter-end counts, which we summed, and the foreword’s date) and the address of the July to September 2025 report on the Commission’s corporate reports page.

The report describes where the cycle stands in its own words: The Scheme has now completed its first 5-year cycle for Worker Screening checks, with the final wave of the original 2021 applications due for renewal this quarter. It does not define that final wave or say how many checks remain to be renewed after it.

Our view

This is opinion, built on the figures above. The foreword calls a 26.2 per cent rise a slowdown overall. The growth slowed. The queue did not shrink: on the report’s own state rows it was 2.4 times its December size at 30 June. For a worker whose check is about to lapse, the rate of growth is beside the point.

The report counts the queue but not the wait. It publishes the median calendar days from an audit recommendation to a registration decision for providers, and nothing comparable for workers. A median time to decide a renewal, by state, would answer the question workers and providers actually have.

The rule that matters most is set eight times over. The Commission’s FAQ sends a worker to the website of whichever unit issued the original check. One table on the Commission’s own page, listing which jurisdictions allow work on application for a renewal, would cost little and spare a worker a lapse. Until it exists, the safe course is the one in the standfirst: apply inside the 90 days, and make sure your employer verifies before the expiry date.

We will read the July to September 2026 report when it is published and report whether the queue fell.

What we could and could not check

We read Appendix C, the foreword and the worker screening and contact centre notes of the Quarterly Performance Report Q4 2025-26; the Commission’s worker screening pages for workers and for registered providers; its renewal FAQ; and Victoria’s NDIS worker screening page. We tried the screening unit pages for Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania on 10 October and each returned a bot check that we do not bypass, so we do not report their rules. The landing pages the Commission links for New South Wales, Western Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory did not state a renewal rule, and we did not follow them further. We did not ask the Commission or any screening unit for comment, and the report gives no processing times for worker screening. We make no claim about any provider or worker.