Complete List of NDIS Support Categories and What They Cover
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How NDIS Support Categories Work Across the Three Budgets
The NDIS organises every funded support into 15 support categories across three budgets: Core, Capacity Building, and Capital. Each one has a specific job. If you know which category a support falls into, you know which budget it pulls from — and whether you can move money into or out of it.
There are over 650,000 participants and $40 billion+ in annual funding flowing through the scheme. The category system is how the NDIA keeps that money pointed at the right things. It sounds bureaucratic, and it is — but once you get your head around it, you stop making expensive mistakes. We see participants all the time who don't realise their psychology sessions come from a different bucket than their support worker hours. That's the kind of thing this guide clears up. Bookmark it for when you're looking at your plan or preparing for a planning meeting.
💡 Key distinction: Support categories are broad groupings. Support line items are the specific services within each category (e.g., "Physiotherapy" is a line item under the "Improved Daily Living" category). Your plan lists categories with dollar amounts; providers invoice against specific line items within those categories.
Core Supports categories
Core Supports are the budget you'll reach into most often. They cover everyday life, and they're flexible — you can move money between the four Core categories without anyone's permission. Here's what each one actually covers.
1. Assistance with Daily Life
What it covers: Support workers helping with personal care (showering, dressing, toileting, eating), household tasks (cleaning, laundry, meal preparation), and community access. This is typically the largest budget line in a plan. It can fund support workers in your home or in the community, including assistance with shopping, attending appointments, and participating in social activities.
Examples: A support worker helping you shower each morning. Someone to prepare meals because your disability prevents you from cooking safely. A support worker accompanying you to the gym or shops.
Flexibility: Highly flexible within Core. Can also fund short-term accommodation (respite) and assistance from a live-in carer.
2. Transport
What it covers: Funding to help you travel to work, study, appointments, and community activities when you can't use public transport independently due to your disability. Provided at three levels depending on your needs and work/study hours.
Examples: Taxi and rideshare fares, public transport tickets, fuel for your vehicle when used for disability-related travel, community transport services.
Flexibility: Flexible within Core. Transport funding is an allowance, not a reimbursement for individual trips (except for plan-managed and self-managed participants who claim per trip).
Learn more: See our detailed guide on NDIS Transport Funding.
3. Consumables
What it covers: Everyday items you need because of your disability. Think of these as products — not services — that you use and replace regularly.
Examples: Continence products (pads, catheters), wound care supplies, nutritional supplements (if prescribed for your disability), Auslan interpreting, low-cost assistive technology under $1,500 (like a tablet for communication, a specialised keyboard, or a simple shower chair).
Flexibility: Flexible within Core. If you spend less on consumables, you can use the money for other Core supports.
4. Assistance with Social and Community Participation
What it covers: Support workers helping you take part in social activities, community groups, recreational activities, and events. The support worker's role is to enable your participation — not to provide the activity itself. The NDIS funds the support worker; it doesn't fund the activity fees (e.g., the cost of a concert ticket or a gym membership).
Examples: A support worker taking you to a community garden group. Assistance attending a social club for people with disability. Support to participate in a local sports team.
Flexibility: Flexible within Core. This category also covers group-based community activities delivered by NDIS providers.
Capacity Building categories
Capacity Building supports are about getting better at things — building skills and independence rather than having things done for you. Here's the catch: unlike Core, each Capacity Building category is locked. You can't freely shuffle money between them without NDIA approval. We've seen participants assume they can borrow from their exercise physiology budget to cover extra psychology sessions and get a nasty surprise. Plan each category carefully.
5. Support Coordination
What it covers: A support coordinator helps you understand your plan, connect with providers, and coordinate your supports. This is a fixed allocation — it appears as a dollar amount for a set number of hours, not a pool you draw from flexibly. Support coordination has three levels: Level 1 (Support Connection), Level 2 (Coordination of Supports), and Level 3 (Specialist Support Coordination for complex needs).
Who needs it: Participants with complex needs, new participants, or anyone who needs help navigating the system. Not everyone gets support coordination — you need to ask for it at your planning meeting.
6. Improved Daily Living
What it covers: Therapy and assessment services: occupational therapy, physiotherapy, psychology, speech pathology, dietetics, podiatry, and other allied health. Also covers functional assessments and assistive technology assessments that determine what equipment you need.
Examples: Weekly physio sessions. A psychology appointment. An OT doing a home assessment. A speech pathologist working on communication skills.
Flexibility: Locked. You can't move this money into another Capacity Building category without approval. However, within Improved Daily Living, you can use the funding for different therapy types as long as they all relate to your goals.
7. Increased Social and Community Participation
What it covers: Skill-building that helps you participate in community and social activities more independently. Unlike the Core category of the same name — which pays for a support worker — this category funds training, mentoring, and skill development.
Examples: Social skills training. Community access mentoring. Support to learn how to use public transport. Peer support programs.
8. Finding and Keeping a Job
What it covers: Employment-related supports including job search assistance, workplace assessments, on-the-job training, and school leaver employment supports (SLES) for Year 12 graduates transitioning to work.
Examples: A job coach helping you find work. Workplace modifications assessed by an OT. SLES program for a school leaver. Support to maintain employment if your disability creates workplace challenges.
9. Improved Relationships
What it covers: Behaviour support and social skills development focused on building positive relationships. This is distinct from psychology (which is under Improved Daily Living) — it's about practical behaviour strategies and relationship skills.
Examples: Specialist behaviour support (including behaviour support plans by an NDIS-registered behaviour support practitioner). Social skills development programs. Family counselling related to the impact of disability on relationships.
10. Improved Health and Wellbeing
What it covers: Supports that help you maintain physical health and wellbeing, where the need is directly related to your disability.
Examples: Exercise physiology. Personal training adapted for your disability. Nutrition advice beyond what's covered under Improved Daily Living. This category doesn't cover gym memberships (that's a day-to-day living cost).
11. Improved Learning
What it covers: Supports to help you transition through school to further education, and assistance to participate in education.
Examples: Training for teachers and school staff about your disability. Specialist equipment for educational settings (if not provided by the education department). Transition planning from school to tertiary education or employment.
12. Improved Life Choices
What it covers: Plan management — funding for a plan manager to handle the financial administration of your NDIS plan. This is added to your plan on top of your support budgets at $104.45/month. It does not reduce your other supports.
Who it's for: Any participant who chooses plan management. You don't need to justify it — just ask for it at your planning meeting.
13. Improved Living Arrangements
What it covers: Support to find and maintain appropriate housing, separate from Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA). This is about the support to live independently — not the bricks and mortar.
Examples: Assistance finding a rental property. Support to set up a household. Help managing tenancy obligations. Independent living skills training.
Capital Supports categories
Capital Supports are the big-ticket items — equipment and home modifications. Each item is listed individually with a specific dollar amount, and this budget is completely locked. You can't move funds between items or into other budgets. If you don't buy the item, the money goes back to the NDIA.
14. Assistive Technology
What it covers: Equipment and technology over $1,500 that helps you with daily life because of your disability. Low-cost AT under $1,500 is covered under Consumables in Core.
Examples: Wheelchairs (manual and powered), hoists and slings, adjustable beds, communication devices, vehicle modifications, hearing aids, prosthetics. Each item requires a quote and often an assessment from an allied health professional (usually an OT) confirming it's necessary.
15. Home Modifications
What it covers: Structural changes to your home that are necessary because of your disability. These are major modifications — ramps, bathroom renovations, widened doorways — not minor adjustments.
Examples: Installing a ramp for wheelchair access. Converting a bathroom to be fully accessible (level-access shower, grab rails, under-basin clearance). Widening doorways. Installing ceiling hoist tracks. Modifications usually require an OT assessment and detailed quotes from builders.
Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA): A sub-category of home modifications, but for purpose-built or modified housing for participants with extreme functional impairment or very high support needs. SDA is separate from the home you live in — it funds the housing itself, not the support within it.
What the NDIS does not fund
The NDIS funds supports directly related to your disability — period. It's not a general welfare payment. Here's what sits outside the boundaries:
- Rent, mortgage, groceries, utility bills — day-to-day living costs everyone has.
- Medical treatment — GP visits, hospital stays, medications. These are Medicare or state health system responsibilities.
- Education costs — teachers, teacher's aides, school fees. The education system handles these.
- Gym memberships, sporting club fees — living costs, though a support worker to accompany you to the gym is funded.
- Holidays and entertainment — though support worker costs while on holiday may be covered if it connects to your goals.
- Anything another government system is responsible for — the NDIS is the funder of last resort.
For a deeper dive into what passes the "reasonable and necessary" test, see our guide on reasonable and necessary supports. For a breakdown of how budgets work together, see NDIS Plan Budgets Explained.