In force now: SIL registration, with a criminal penalty

From 1 July 2026, some supported independent living providers must be registered with the NDIS Commission. The Commission’s reform-hub page defines the captured cohort (a package of home and living support for people with higher support needs, where the person requires support for all or most of the day), creates a new registration group, “0138 – Assistance with supported independent living”, and requires certification audits plus a new supplementary SIL module of the Practice Standards. The penalty language is unusually direct for a regulator’s explainer: “Providing supported independent living without registration is a serious offence… The maximum penalty is 2 years’ imprisonment, a fine of 120 penalty units, or both.”

Providers who applied before 1 July may keep operating while their application is processed. The next cliff is 1 October 2026: a provider that has not applied by then must stop delivering SIL and follow the Commission’s participant-transition steps. The March wave of registration refusals we found in the enforcement register is worth reading alongside this: registration is now both mandatory for SIL and actively policed at the application gate.

The same 1 July package tightened provider-sale scrutiny. Minister for the NDIS Jenny McAllister’s 30 June release announced that providers must now notify the Commission “as soon as they become aware” that a sale of a registered NDIS business will occur, with new audits on significant changes to governance or operations, aimed at ending the sale of “‘cleanskin’ registered businesses”. The Minister’s framing: “These providers have a choice. They can shape up or ship out.”

1 October 2026: Thriving Kids begins

Thriving Kids is the first phase of Foundational Supports, the supports all governments have committed to build outside the NDIS, alongside mainstream services. The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing’s pages carry the numbers: $10 billion in joint funding over 5 years for Foundational Supports overall, and within that a $4 billion, 5-year commitment for Thriving Kids, aimed at children aged 8 and under with developmental delay and/or autism and low to moderate support needs, and their families, carers and kin. At least $1.4 billion of the Commonwealth’s $2 billion share flows directly to the states to deliver services.

The department’s stated timeline: rollout of state services from 1 October 2026, at scale from 1 January 2028, with NDIS access changes for that cohort also commencing 1 January 2028 so that “national services are in place ahead of changes to NDIS access arrangements”. Two design details matter for providers and allied health. First, children with permanent and significant disability, and those with high support needs, remain NDIS-eligible; Thriving Kids does not touch that cohort. Second, children already in the NDIS before 1 January 2028 will be reassessed under the eligibility criteria in place before that date, not the new rules. The access change itself still requires an amendment to the NDIS Act, which has not yet been made: a significant dependency sitting under the whole 2028 leg of the timeline. A House committee inquiry into Thriving Kids has reported (“No child left behind”), and the department states the government is considering it.

The Bill-dependent chain, to 2030

The government’s Securing the NDIS page sets out the implementation sequence for the changes in the Amendment Bill now before the Senate (final committee report due 14 August; the positions on it are covered in our companion piece). Every date below is the government’s own stated intent and depends on the Bill passing; none is law yet.

  • Royal assent + 7 daysTighter criteria for unscheduled plan reassessments commence
  • 1 October 2026Social and community participation budgets “progressively adjusted”; a $200 million Inclusive Communities Fund announced alongside
  • 1 February 2027Reasonable-and-necessary and plan-renewal changes progressively implemented
  • 1 April 2027New framework planning rollout begins, delayed from an earlier date “following consultation with people with disability and their families, carers and advocates”, per the page itself
  • July 2027Provider registration expansion commences, full implementation by end of 2030
  • 1 October 2027New plan management approach implemented
  • 1 January 2028NDIS and mainstream-services boundary changes apply to prospective participants; Thriving Kids at scale; cohort access changes commence
  • 1 July 2028New commissioned support coordination function begins
  • 2026 to 2030NDIS claims and payments systems uplift, rolled out from July 2026 to the end of 2030

How to read this calendar

Three different kinds of date are mixed here, and the difference is the practical point. The SIL dates are law in force now, with a penalty regime attached. The Thriving Kids dates are intergovernmental commitments with money attached, but the 2028 access change still needs an Act amendment. The Securing the NDIS dates are a stated implementation plan for a Bill that a Senate committee is still examining. A provider planning workforce, audit schedules or service mix over the next 24 months is planning against all three levels of certainty at once, and the level matters as much as the date. We will keep this calendar current as instruments commence or dates move.

Primary sources

  1. NDIS Commission, mandatory registration: supported independent living (updated 1 July 2026)
  2. Minister McAllister, crackdown on sales of NDIS businesses as mandatory registration set to expand from 1 July, 30 June 2026
  3. Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, Foundational Supports for people with disability
  4. Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, Thriving Kids
  5. Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, Securing the NDIS (implementation timeline)
  6. Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, inquiry into the Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill 2026
  7. Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, 2024 NDIS Act amendments (commenced 3 October 2024)