What is NDIS personal care? A family guide

What is personal care on the NDIS?

It's help or supervision with personal tasks like showering, dressing, eating and using the toilet.

This guide is for families and carers arranging care for someone, not for people looking for support work. NDIS personal care supports are help with the personal tasks of daily life, at home and in the community. The NDIA describes them as supervision or assistance that helps a person live as independently as possible. So a worker might help with a task, or stay close while your family member does it.

What do the official words actually mean?

Each name comes from a different NDIS document.

Key terms

Assistance with daily life: The support category to look for in a plan, part of core supports. It's wider than personal care: the NDIA says it can pay support workers for cleaning, yard maintenance, cooking and personal care.
Daily personal activities: The name on the NDIA's list of NDIS supports. It's the closest match to what families call personal care.
Assistance with self-care activities: The name of the support items in the NDIS pricing schedule. So if you're asking what assistance with self care is on the NDIS, it's personal care. It doesn't mean rest or time out.
Registration group 0107: The NDIS Commission's label for providers registered to deliver this support: assistance with daily personal activities.
A code like 01_013_0107_1_1: A support item number, used to claim payment. In this one, 01 is the support category and 0107 is the registration group.

Looking for NDIS personal care guidelines? The NDIA's guidelines page has no single guideline with that name. Most of the rules sit in its lists of NDIS supports and its guidelines on reasonable and necessary supports and disability-related health supports.

What does it include at home?

The NDIA's list names these tasks. A support doesn't have to be a named example, but it must fit the description.

Help with eating and drinking
Help with dressing
Help with toileting
Showering and bathing
Washing and drying hair
Cutting and cleaning fingernails and toenails
Moving and positioning

The NDIA also says a support worker's personal care may include general hygiene and helping someone take their medication. Ask the GP or pharmacist about the medicine itself.

Continence products come under a different category, consumables. Read more about continence support and aids. Teaching someone to manage more of their own care is a different support too, called development of daily care and life skills.

What isn't part of personal care?

Some things that sit close to personal care aren't NDIS supports, or belong somewhere else.

Things to check

Groceries. Everyday food, drinks, and cleaning, household and health products bought as groceries aren't NDIS supports.
Haircuts and beauty. Washing and drying hair is on the list. Cutting, colouring and styling aren't. Nor are manicures, pedicures or makeup.
Medicines and clinical treatment. These belong to the health system. The GP is the first person to ask.
Care in hospital. Hospital staff are responsible for personal care during a stay. NDIS funding can't pay a regular home worker to care for the person there, except in some cases of complex communication needs or behaviours. You can give hospital staff a written care plan to follow.
Help family already give. A support can't be the same as help family already provide. The NDIA also considers what's reasonable to expect from family and friends. It won't pay family members to deliver supports, except in exceptional circumstances.

How is it different from household tasks?

Personal care is about the person. Household tasks are about the home.

The NDIA describes household tasks as essential tasks a person can't do themselves because of their disability. That means meal preparation and delivery, house or yard maintenance, cleaning and laundry. The registration group is 0120, not 0107. Funding for both can sit under assistance with daily life.

Meals show the line. Helping someone eat and drink is on the personal care list. Preparing the meal is on the household list. The food itself is on neither.

How is it different from high-intensity supports and nursing?

The difference is the task and the skill it needs.

Personal care

Everyday personal tasks, like those above. The pricing schedule calls this level standard. Registration group 0107.

High-intensity supports

Eight listed tasks: complex bowel care, tube feeding, severe swallowing difficulty, tracheostomy care, urinary catheter management, ventilator management, injections under the skin and complex wound management. The worker needs extra qualifications and experience, but doesn't have to be a nurse. Registration group 0104.

Community nursing care

Disability-related nursing care for people with high care needs, needing a high level of clinical skill. It includes catheter care, skin integrity checks, tracheostomy care, medication management and intramuscular injections. Registration group 0114.

Some tasks appear on more than one list, so don't go by the name alone. The NDIA says only a nurse can change a urinary catheter, for example. The NDIS Commission's skills guidance says a trained worker may insert and remove an intermittent catheter, with a health practitioner's oversight, and that a health practitioner should insert in-dwelling and suprapubic catheters. A registered nurse decides if a task can be handed to a trained worker, and stays responsible for it. Ask the person's GP or health practitioner who should do each task. Our guide to high-intensity supports has more.

The levels can sit side by side. In one NDIA example, a man gets standard support for personal care and meals, and a trained worker at the high-intensity level three times a day for his insulin injections.

Nursing to treat a health event is different again. If a wound comes from a fall and isn't related to the person's disability, the health system looks after it.

How does personal care get into a plan?

The NDIA decides what goes in a plan. Personal care can be paid from NDIS funding if it's included in the plan.

Describe the real routineThe NDIA uses what it's told about how the disability affects day-to-day life. Say which tasks need help, how much and how often.
Gather evidenceA treating health professional can explain how the disability affects daily life and what help is needed, in an email, letter, assessment or report. The NDIA may not be able to include a support without enough evidence.
The planner decidesEach support must meet the reasonable and necessary rules. It must relate to the disability, be value for money and be likely to help. The NDIA planner also looks at how much is needed and how often.
Go to the plan meetingThe planner explains the decisions. New information at the meeting can change the plan. The person can bring a family member, friend or support coordinator.
Find it in the planLook for assistance with daily life. Newer plans may show it inside a funding component. The plan says if it's flexible or stated. Stated funding must be used exactly as described.
Speak up if needs changeA plan variation changes part of a plan. A plan reassessment makes a new one, after a significant and ongoing change, such as in daily abilities or help from others. Only the person, their plan nominee or child representative can ask for an early reassessment. The my NDIS contact can help with the information.

What's changing

Budgets for two other support categories are being reduced as plans are created or reassessed from 1 October 2026. The NDIA says essential day-to-day supports, like help with eating, drinking, dressing and toileting, won't be affected. From February 2027, new criteria for reasonable and necessary supports start with new plans. They include clearer guidelines on the personal care a parent is expected to give a child, not counting the extra support needed because of disability. A new way of planning begins from April 2027. From July 2027, mandatory registration expands for some providers, and the NDIS says this will affect those delivering personal care.

What can a normal morning of support look like?

This is an example we wrote, not an official routine. Every person and home is different.

Hello and a check-inThe worker arrives and asks how the person slept and what they'd like to do first. The person's choices set the order.
Getting upHelp to move from the bed to a chair, using any equipment the person already has. Equipment like a hoist is a separate NDIS support.
Toilet and showerHelp with toileting, then showering or bathing, with as much privacy as the person wants. They do what they can, and the worker helps with the rest.
Dressed and readyChoosing clothes, getting dressed, drying and brushing hair, and any other grooming the person wants help with.
BreakfastHelp with eating and drinking is personal care. Making the meal is a household task on the NDIS lists. If both are needed, ask how each is charged.
Before leavingThe worker checks the person is set for the day. Ask what notes the worker leaves, and who they tell if something seems wrong.

Maximum prices change with the time and day of the visit. See our guide to NDIS personal care rates.

What should you ask any provider?

NDIS personal care services are close and private, so it's fair to ask direct questions first.

Which of these tasks do your workers do now?
Can we choose a female or male worker?
Will it be the same worker most weeks? Who comes if they're sick?
Have your workers completed an NDIS worker screening check?
What happens if a task needs a nurse or high-intensity training?
Will every support and price be in a written service agreement?

What registration group 0107 tells you

A provider in this group has to meet the NDIS Practice Standards and go through certification audits. You can search the NDIS Commission's Provider Register. Right now, a provider must be registered to deliver this support to someone with NDIA-managed funding, but not plan-managed or self-managed funding.

If someone lives alone and the same worker always supports them, a registered provider must also assess the risks, monitor the quality of the support and the person's satisfaction, have written agreements or plans in place, and keep records.

NDIS (NDIA)1800 800 110Plans and funding questions
NDIS Commission1800 035 544Worries about the safety or quality of supports

In an emergency, call 000.

Sources, checked 6 November 2026

This guide is general information, not advice about a particular plan.

What is NDIS personal care? A guide for families.