From 1 January 2027, a newly built aged care home can be paid $30 a day for each low-means resident, for up to 25 years

What a provider can now be paid, and for whom

The money sits in the Aged Care Amendment (September Indexation and Other Measures) Rules 2026, made on 17 September and registered on 18 September. Most of that instrument is routine indexation. Part 3 of its Schedule 2 is not: it inserts a new subdivision into the Aged Care Rules 2025 creating the new home supplement and the significant expansion supplement. The explanatory statement says These new capital subsidy payments are part of the 2026-27 Budget measure Residential Aged Care Supply and Equity of Access.

From sections 231-60 to 231-90 of the Aged Care Rules 2025 as amended, compilation No. 11. A home cannot receive both: the expansion supplement applies only where the new home supplement does not.

The expansion test is generous in one respect. The Rules say a home is significantly expanded if the number of operational beds for the home increases by 40% or more after 1 November 2025, including because of an extension to the home or the conversion of offline beds into operational beds. Bringing mothballed beds back into use counts, not only new building.

The Capital Assistance exclusion is explained in the statement: it reflects that the Government has already made a contribution to the cost of construction through a grant. A provider that took a capital grant for a new home cannot also draw the daily supplement for it.

Who counts as a low-means resident

The supplement is paid per eligible resident, not per bed, so the definition decides the money. The Rules define a low means resident as someone receiving the concessional resident supplement, a supported resident carried over from the old system, or a low means individual: a person whose means tested amount, on the day they started care, was less than the maximum accommodation supplement amount. In plain terms, residents whose assessed means were too low to pay the full accommodation cost themselves. Respite residents are covered whatever their means.

For families, the supplement is a Commonwealth payment to the provider. Nothing in the provisions that create it charges the resident anything.

The window shrinks every year a home is late

Both supplements stop on 31 December 2051, whenever they start. The Rules spell out the consequence in their own worked examples: a new home determination that takes effect on 1 January 2027 runs 25 years, while one that takes effect on 1 January 2032 runs 20. A determination takes effect on the day the application is made, so a provider whose new home is already open gains nothing by waiting past 1 December.

At $30.00 a day, each eligible resident is worth $10,950 a year to the home (our arithmetic, 365 days). The Rules give no indexation for the amount; it is written in as a flat $30.00 and $15.00.

The second change: accommodation supplement from 20 March 2027

Schedule 8 of the same instrument restructures the existing accommodation supplement, the daily amount the Commonwealth pays toward a low-means resident’s room. The statement describes it as a change that increases and changes accommodation-related supplements and introduces an additional supplement for services with high supported resident ratios, and says it too is part of the Supply and Equity of Access measure.

Today a home with 40 per cent or more low-means residents gets the full amount and every other home gets 25 per cent less. From 20 March 2027, newly built or significantly refurbished homes move to three tiers set by their share of low-means residents, and every other home gets one flat rate.

Current amounts from section 230-15 as indexed from 20 September 2026 ($73.73 and $48.09), with the 25 per cent reduction in section 230-10 applied for homes under 40 per cent: $55.30 and $36.07 are our arithmetic, rounded to the cent. The 20 March 2027 amounts are those Schedule 8 writes into sections 230-10 and 230-15. The explanatory statement describes routine six-monthly indexation of aged care fees and supplements, so a later instrument may change either column; this compares the figures as written today. Any amount is reduced, or becomes nil, where the resident’s own daily means tested amount covers part or all of it.

Our reading: among homes that meet the privacy and space requirements, the biggest change goes to older homes with few low-means residents, up from $36.07 to $53.09, because the 25 per cent penalty for homes under 40 per cent disappears for them. The tiering instead lands on new and refurbished homes, where the top rate now needs 40 per cent, a step sits at 30, and the bottom tier gets the least. Put the two changes together and a new home with mostly low-means residents earns, for a resident whose own means tested amount is nil, $78.73 in accommodation supplement plus $30.00 in new home supplement: $108.73 a day from 20 March 2027.

One more change rides on the rewrite. The current section 230-15 sets a lower amount, $40.38, for homes that fail the Rules’ privacy and space requirements (for buildings whose plans were submitted after July 1999, for example, no more than 1.5 residents a room on average). The replacement section has two amounts only and no privacy and space test, so on its text those homes move to $53.09 as well. The explanatory statement does not mention this effect.

A smaller effect for some residents who pay

Item 9 of Schedule 8 changes the means tested care fee for residents in what the Rules call the post-2014 residential contribution class, a transitional group from the old system. Step 2 of that fee’s method subtracts the top accommodation supplement amount from the resident’s daily means tested amount; from 20 March 2027 the figure subtracted becomes $78.73 instead of $73.73. On our reading, for a resident whose fee is worked out that way and sits between nil and its cap, the daily fee falls by up to $5.00. Residents should check their own statement rather than rely on that arithmetic.

Why now

The explanatory statement ties both changes to an earlier review: In response to the recommendations of the Review, measures have been developed for the new post-2025 newly constructed home supplement and for the significantly expanded home supplement. The Review is the Residential Aged Care Accommodation Pricing Review. It also says the accommodation supplement changes respond to issues raised with the Review about the previous structure of the supplement. The instrument states the aim; it does not estimate how many homes or beds it expects to result, and the statement records that A detailed impact analysis was not required for this Instrument.

Providers who want to apply will need the System Governor’s approved form. The Rules say a refusal is a reviewable decision, and the Rules set a 14-day deadline for written notice of the outcome.