10,451active NDIS providers nationally at 31 March 2026; 4,591 active in NSW
5%of national payments go to the ten largest providers
54%top-ten payment share in the Far West NSW service district

The national series, and an honest note about its cliff

Share of national NDIS payments captured by the ten largest providers, quarterly, June 2019 to March 2026, per cent 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% Jun 2019: 17 per cent Jun 19 Sep 2019: 16 per cent Dec 2019: 16 per cent Mar 2020: 16 per cent Mar 20 Jun 2020: 16 per cent Sep 2020: 17 per cent Dec 2020: 17 per cent Mar 2021: 18 per cent Mar 21 Jun 2021: 19 per cent Sep 2021: 19 per cent Dec 2021: 20 per cent Mar 2022: 21 per cent Mar 22 Jun 2022: 21 per cent Sep 2022: 22 per cent Dec 2022: 22 per cent Mar 2023: 6 per cent Mar 23 Jun 2023: 6 per cent Sep 2023: 6 per cent Dec 2023: 6 per cent Mar 2024: 6 per cent Mar 24 Jun 2024: 6 per cent Sep 2024: 6 per cent Dec 2024: 5 per cent Mar 2025: 5 per cent Mar 25 Jun 2025: 5 per cent Sep 2025: 5 per cent Dec 2025: 5 per cent Mar 2026: 5 per cent Mar 26 22% at Dec 2022 6% at Mar 2023 17% 5%
Share of national NDIS payments captured by the ten largest providers, quarterly, June 2019 to March 2026. Source: NDIA Market Concentration dataset, downloaded 19 July 2026. The series steps sharply between December 2022 (22 per cent) and March 2023 (6 per cent); see the methodology note.

Read naively, the line says the ten biggest providers went from more than a fifth of the market to a twentieth in a single quarter over the 2022-23 summer. The dataset offers no accompanying documentation for that step, and a move of that size between two quarters usually says as much about how a measure is constructed as about the market it measures. We report the series exactly as the NDIA publishes it, flag the discontinuity, and do not assert a cause. What can be said on the published numbers: on both sides of the step, the direction is the same. The share drifted up from 17 per cent in mid-2019 to 22 by late 2022, and has drifted down from 6 to 5 since. On the agency’s current measure, national NDIS payments are very widely spread, across 10,451 active providers.

The geography is the real finding

Concentration at 31 March 2026, by state and territory: NSW and Victoria 10 per cent, Queensland 9, WA 17, SA 16, the ACT 24, Tasmania 26, the NT 27. The pattern is strict: the smaller the market, the larger the slice the biggest ten providers hold. And the NT’s figure, though the nation’s highest, has actually been falling, from 35 per cent in late 2023 to 27 now, on the same series.

Inside NSW, the district cut makes the point sharper still:

Share of NDIS payments captured by the ten largest providers in each NSW service district, 31 March 2026, per cent 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% Far West Far West: top ten providers hold 54 per cent of NDIS payments54% Murrumbidgee Murrumbidgee: top ten providers hold 35 per cent of NDIS payments35% Southern NSW Southern NSW: top ten providers hold 33 per cent of NDIS payments33% North Sydney North Sydney: top ten providers hold 31 per cent of NDIS payments31% Illawarra Shoalhaven Illawarra Shoalhaven: top ten providers hold 29 per cent of NDIS payments29% Western NSW Western NSW: top ten providers hold 28 per cent of NDIS payments28% South Eastern Sydney South Eastern Sydney: top ten providers hold 21 per cent of NDIS payments21% Mid North Coast Mid North Coast: top ten providers hold 20 per cent of NDIS payments20% Northern NSW Northern NSW: top ten providers hold 20 per cent of NDIS payments20% Central Coast Central Coast: top ten providers hold 19 per cent of NDIS payments19% Nepean Blue Mountains Nepean Blue Mountains: top ten providers hold 17 per cent of NDIS payments17% Hunter New England Hunter New England: top ten providers hold 16 per cent of NDIS payments16% Sydney Sydney: top ten providers hold 16 per cent of NDIS payments16% Western Sydney Western Sydney: top ten providers hold 13 per cent of NDIS payments13% South Western Sydney South Western Sydney: top ten providers hold 9 per cent of NDIS payments9%
Top-ten provider share of NDIS payments by NSW service district, 31 March 2026. Source: NDIA Market Concentration dataset. The NDIA’s “Other NSW” residual category (a very small payment band) is excluded; see the methodology note.

Far West NSW, the district around Broken Hill, is the standout: a 54 per cent top-ten share in a district whose total payments sit in the NDIA’s $30 to 40 million band. Murrumbidgee (35 per cent), Southern NSW (33) and Western NSW (28) follow the same rural gradient, while South Western Sydney, a billion-dollar-plus district, runs at 9 per cent. One metropolitan exception is worth noting so the pattern is not overstated: North Sydney sits at 31 per cent, showing that a concentrated district is not always a remote one.

What it means, and what it does not

Nothing in this data implies wrongdoing by any provider, and we make no such suggestion; these are structural facts about market geography, published by the agency itself. What the numbers describe is choice, or its absence. In a district where ten organisations hold half the payments, a participant changing providers, a support coordinator building a roster, or a new entrant weighing a thin market all face a different scheme than the national average suggests.

The NDIA knows this. Section 4.7 of its Q3 2025-26 Quarterly Report records that the agency “consulted with states and territories to make modifications to the pricing rules to support thin markets (locations with limited NDIS supports available) in regional Australia”. The concentration dataset is the quantified case for exactly that work, and as the new Pricing Schedule regime beds in, district-level concentration is one of the series we will re-pull every quarter to see whether the thin-market gap actually closes.

Methodology

Provider counts and concentration percentages are the NDIA’s own published figures, downloaded directly from the Active Providers and Market Concentration datasets at dataresearch.ndis.gov.au on 19 July 2026 (both current as at 31 March 2026). “Market concentration” is the NDIA’s metric: the percentage of total NDIS payments captured by the ten largest providers by payment value within a given geography and support class. Provider counts by state do not sum to the national total because a provider active in multiple states is counted in each. Payment sizes are published only as bands (for example “$30m to 40m”), the NDIA’s own de-identification; we report bands and never narrow them to point estimates. The national series contains an undocumented step between December 2022 and March 2023 (22 per cent to 6 per cent); we present the series as published and draw no conclusion about the cause. The chart of NSW districts excludes the NDIA’s “Other NSW” residual row (76 per cent share of a $1 to 5 million band), which describes a catch-all remainder, not a service district.

Primary sources

  1. NDIA, provider datasets: Market Concentration and Active Providers (both current as at 31 March 2026; concentration CSV, active providers CSV)
  2. NDIA, Quarterly Report to Disability Ministers, Q3 2025-26 (Section 4.7, thin-market pricing consultation)
  3. NDIA, pricing arrangements (the 2026-27 Pricing Schedule)