What changed on 1 October

Section 175 of the Aged Care Act 2024 requires a provider to ensure that at least one registered nurse is on site, and on duty, at all times at each of its residential care homes, unless it holds an exemption. For a home with few residents that is expensive per head, and the registered nurse supplement exists to help. The department describes it as a supplement that helps you employ extra RNs to meet the requirement to have an RN onsite and on duty at all times.

The Aged Care Amendment (September Indexation and Other Measures) Rules 2026, made on 17 September, repealed and replaced six of the supplement’s eight tables from 1 October. Its explanatory statement says the change increases the registered nurse supplement amounts from 1 October 2026 for approved residential care homes with a street address in the 2023 Modified Monash MM 1, MM 2, MM 3, MM 4 and MM 5 categories. The two tables for MM 6 and MM 7 were not touched.

Highest monthly amount for a Group A home, by location

  1. MM 1Metropolitan areas. $28,786 to $30,931, for a home averaging 20 or fewer residents. Up 7.45%. Largest rise
  2. MM 2, 3Regional centres and large rural towns. $30,536 to $32,032, 20 or fewer. Up 4.90%.
  3. MM 4, 5Medium and small rural towns. $72,840 to $74,647, 5 or fewer. Up 2.48%.
  4. MM 6, 7Remote and very remote communities. $86,378, 5 or fewer. Unchanged.
Amounts from the department’s schedules of subsidies and supplements effective 20 September 2026 (which lists them as applicable from 1 October 2025) and 1 October 2026 (p 4), matching sections 239-20(2) to (5) of the Aged Care Rules as compiled and as amended (F2026L01252, pp 30 to 31). Location names are the department’s Modified Monash Model categories. Percentages are our arithmetic.

The rise is not just at the top. We checked every step of all six replaced tables against the old ones: within each location band, every amount moved by the same proportion, give or take a dollar of rounding. A Group B home gets half the Group A amount, and its rises are the same in percentage terms.

Group A: highest monthly amount
LocationBeforeFrom 1 OctChange
MM 1$28,786$30,931+$2,145
MM 2, 3$30,536$32,032+$1,496
MM 4, 5$72,840$74,647+$1,807
MM 6, 7$86,378$86,378nil
Group B: highest monthly amount
LocationBeforeFrom 1 OctChange
MM 1$14,393$15,466+$1,073
MM 2, 3$15,268$16,016+$748
MM 4, 5$36,421$37,324+$903
MM 6, 7$43,190$43,190nil

The top step is a home averaging 20 or fewer residents in MM 1 to 3, and 5 or fewer in MM 4 to 7. Amounts are per home per calendar month, from the department’s two schedules (pp 4 to 5); the change column is our arithmetic.

Which homes get it, and who has to do anything

There are two kinds of qualifying home, and the Rules sort them each month. Both must report their registered nurse coverage on time and must not hold an exemption from the 24/7 requirement at any point in the month.

Group A and Group B, as the Rules define them

  1. Group AAverages no more than 50 residents a day over the month, and goes without a registered nurse on site and on duty for no more than 3 hours a day on average. The department’s plain version: at least 21 hours of RN coverage a day, or 87.5% of the time.
  2. Group BAverages no more than 30 residents a day, and goes without a registered nurse on site and on duty for more than 3 but no more than 12 hours a day on average: at least 12 and fewer than 21 hours of coverage. Paid at half the Group A amount.
Section 239-15 of the Aged Care Rules 2025, compilation No. 11, volume 2 (pp 101 to 102), and the department’s 24/7 registered nurse supplement page, last updated 13 March 2026. Wording paraphrased.

The supplement is not something a resident pays or a family applies for. The department calls it non-means tested, and says Services Australia pays it monthly with other residential subsidies.

You do not need to apply for the 24/7 RN supplement.

Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, 24/7 registered nurse supplement page, last updated 13 March 2026, read 8 October 2026.

The department adds that the coverage floors are not fixed: The minimum RN coverage will continue to be reviewed regularly and may be increased in the future.

The step at 25 residents matters more than the rise

The supplement is not paid per resident. It is a fixed sum for the home, set by the step its average falls in, and then spread across every resident day in the month. So the steps shape a small home’s budget far more than this month’s percentage.

Group A, MM 1: monthly amount from 1 October 2026, by average residents a day

  1. Up to 20$30,931
  2. Over 20, up to 25$27,580
  3. Over 25, up to 30$15,053
  4. Over 30, up to 35$12,218
  5. Over 35, up to 40$9,382
  6. Over 40, up to 45$6,547
  7. Over 45, up to 50$3,712
  8. Over 50nil
Bars drawn to scale. Amounts from section 239-20(2) as substituted by F2026L01252 (p 30) and the department’s 1 October 2026 schedule (p 4), which expresses each step as days of eligible care in the month (for a 31-day month, up to 620 days for the top step). A home averaging more than 50 is not a qualifying home under section 239-15. The other location bands have the same shape, with more steps below 20 in MM 4 to 7.
$49.89per resident day, MM 1 home averaging 20 residents in a 31-day month (was $46.43)
$35.59per resident day at an average of 25 (775 days, $27,580)
$18.68per resident day at an average of 26 (806 days, $15,053)

Our arithmetic: the monthly amount divided by resident days, as section 239-20(1) of the Rules sets the per-day amount. Group A home in MM 1.

The drop between an average of 25 and 26 residents is $12,527 a month for an MM 1 home (our arithmetic), and similar in the other bands: $12,973 in MM 2 and 3, $12,992 in MM 4 and 5. That step was there before 1 October too; the new tables keep the shape and lift the numbers.

Why the rises differ: what the papers say, and our reading

The explanatory statement gives one reason for the new amounts, and it ties the supplement to the base subsidy a home already gets:

The change will ensure residential care home supplement amounts will be set from 1 October 2026 so that, between base rates of residential care subsidy and the new home amounts of registered nurse supplement, registered providers operating homes with relatively few individuals receiving funded aged care services are sufficiently funded to meet the 24/7 registered nurse obligation.

Explanatory Statement to F2026L01252, p 5.

Neither the instrument nor the statement says why MM 1 gets about three times the percentage rise of MM 4 and 5, or why MM 6 and 7 get none. The department’s page explains only why remote rates are higher to begin with: to account for the extra costs that come with working in these areas.

The base subsidy the statement refers to differs by band in the Rules. For a non-specialised home, the base provider amount per resident per day is the national efficient price times 0.387 in MM 1 (0.50 before 1 April 2026), 0.53 in MM 2 and 3 and 0.58 in MM 4 and 5. At the new price of $303.19 that is $117.33, $160.69 and $175.85 a day (our arithmetic). MM 6 and 7 homes are funded differently: their base amount is worked out on operational beds, not occupied ones.

Our reading: the order of the rises follows those base rates. The band with the smallest base per resident got the largest rise, and the band whose base does not fall when beds sit empty got none. That fits the statement’s own test, base plus supplement, but it is our inference, not the department’s explanation, and we have not asked the department. A provider with a small MM 1 home has more reason than most to welcome this; a remote provider’s table has not moved since at least 1 October 2025.