What the number is

Under the Australian National Aged Care Classification, each resident is assessed into a class with a weighting (a National Weighted Activity Unit), and the base subsidy a home receives is that weighting multiplied by the national price. The price is recommended each year by the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority, the same body that prices public hospital activity, and the Government then sets the rate. Get the price wrong in either direction and the consequences are sector-wide: it is the lever that decides whether the care-margin squeeze we report separately eases or tightens.

The anatomy of $295.64

IHACPA’s published advice shows its working, which is worth setting out because it explains why the number moves. The authority took the sector’s measured average cost per NWAU in 2022-23 ($221.50, adjusted for the care-minutes responsibility) and indexed it by a total of 32.8 per cent, comprising: 17.2 per cent for the Fair Work Commission’s work value decisions, 1.2 per cent for superannuation guarantee increases, and 11.9 per cent for inflation and general wage growth. It then added $1.59 for outbreak management costs. More than half the uplift, in other words, is the aged care wage case, whose final instalment lands on 1 August; the price is substantially a wages-recovery mechanism.

Step chart of the AN-ACC price per NWAU. $253.82 to 30 September 2024, $280.01 from 1 October 2024, $282.44 from 1 March 2025, $295.64 from 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2026, then unknown. $253.82 $280.01 $282.44 $295.64 ? to 30 Sep 2024 1 Oct 2024 1 Mar 2025 1 Oct 2025 AN-ACC price per NWAU; the step due 1 October 2026 is unpublished as at 18 July 2026
Four published steps and a blank where the fifth should be. Sources: IHACPA Residential Aged Care Pricing Advice 2025-26; price history as recited in the Government’s Quarterly Financial Snapshot Q1 2025-26.

The same advice contains a number families rarely see quoted: IHACPA’s estimate of the gap between what hotel services (accommodation, catering, cleaning) cost and what they earn: $6.24 per occupied bed day nationally in 2025-26, and $12.48 for homes with no additional-service fee revenue, both excluding maintenance estimated at a further $13 to $14. The daily life of a home runs at a loss before care even starts, which is the context for the accommodation-pricing debates elsewhere in the sector.

What is actually pending, precisely

  • The 2026-27 dollar advice. Unpublished. Last year’s equivalent, the 2025-26 advice containing $295.64, is dated July 2025; on that cadence the 2026-27 number is due about now, but IHACPA has announced no date and we will not guess one.
  • The 2026-27 framework (published 13 April 2026) settles the method: it was informed by a 2025 consultation that drew 47 submissions and 45 interviews with First Nations and multi-purpose service providers. Method, not money.
  • The new consultation (opened 9 July 2026, closing 5pm AEST Friday 21 August 2026) feeds the 2027-28 cycle. Its named focus areas are a preview of where the price mechanics go next: respite funding, cost collections, the split of administrative and care costs, and the transition impacts of the new Act. IHACPA chair David Tune: “This is an important step in ensuring our pricing and costing advice remains transparent, evidence-based and responsive to the needs of older Australians and the aged care sector.”

Meanwhile the in-home half of the system already has its 2026-27 costing: IHACPA published Support at Home pricing advice on 28 May 2026, with the pointed caveat that its recommended prices “do not represent a price cap, benchmark or guidance”; the Minister holds that pen, and has paused the caps. The residential sector is in the mirror-image position: the mechanism is settled, the number is late.

Why it matters, concretely: StewartBrown’s December 2025 survey shows direct care costs growing at 13.68 per cent against direct care revenue at 7.82 per cent under the current price, and providers face an April 2026-onward funding penalty of up to $33.41 per bed day for missed care-minutes targets calculated at that price. Every one of those numbers re-bases on 1 October. A provider signing enterprise agreements or setting fees for 2026-27 is doing so against a blank, and a family weighing a home’s fee letter should know the subsidy behind it is, for the moment, an unpublished figure. When the number lands we will report it the day it does.

How we worked this out

The current price, its indexation anatomy and the hotel cost gap are transcribed from IHACPA’s Residential Aged Care Pricing Advice 2025-26 (sections 3.2 and 4.2). The price history steps are as recited in that advice and in the Government’s Quarterly Financial Snapshot Q1 2025-26. The statement that no 2026-27 dollar figure exists is a dated observation: it reflects IHACPA’s published documents as checked on 18 July 2026, and will be superseded the day the advice appears. We have not estimated or modelled what the new price might be, deliberately.

Primary sources

  1. IHACPA, Residential Aged Care Pricing Advice 2025-26 (PDF; the $295.64 recommendation and its indexation breakdown).
  2. IHACPA, Pricing Framework for Australian Residential Aged Care Services 2026-27 (PDF, published 13 April 2026).
  3. IHACPA, consultation announcement, 9 July 2026 (closes 21 August 2026; feeds 2027-28).
  4. IHACPA, Support at Home Pricing Advice 2026-27 release, 28 May 2026.
  5. Quarterly Financial Snapshot of the aged care sector, Q1 2025-26 (price history and funding context).
  6. StewartBrown, December 2025 survey (cost growth versus the current price; the $33.41 care-minutes exposure).

Spotted an error? The correction form is on our tips page; we check every correction against the cited sources and log the outcome here.