Can I change my SIL provider mid-plan?

Yes. You can change your Supported Independent Living (SIL) provider at any point in your plan — you do not have to wait for a plan reassessment, and your SIL funding stays with you rather than with the provider. What you do need to check first is the notice period written into your service agreement, and whether your housing is tied to your support in any way.

This guide is written for participants and families in that position: what your rights actually are, what the practical steps look like in order, and the two situations — shared homes and provider-owned housing — where a change takes more planning than people expect.

Your funding belongs to you, not your provider

The NDIS is built around choice and control, and that includes choosing who comes into your home. The NDIA is direct about it: you can add, change or remove providers at any time by talking to your my NDIS contact or calling 1800 800 110. Its guidance on changing providers sets out the process.

Your SIL funding sits in your plan because of your assessed support needs. Changing who delivers those supports is a change of service agreement and service booking — it is not a change to your budget. In most circumstances the NDIA continues funding an existing SIL participant’s supports at the value already in the plan, and a new provider works within that approved budget.

Start with your service agreement

Your service agreement is the practical rulebook for ending the arrangement. It should tell you how much notice each side needs to give before services stop, sometimes called a notice period or cancellation period. Notice periods vary from agreement to agreement, so read yours rather than relying on what someone told you.

The NDIA notes you may be charged a fee if you end an agreement without giving the notice you agreed to. Ending it is normally as simple as written notice stating your intended last day — an email is fine, and keeping a copy is sensible.

If you cannot find your agreement, ask your provider for a copy. If any of the wording is unclear, your support coordinator or plan manager can read it with you before you sign anything new.

Find the new provider before you finish with the old one

The NDIA’s advice is to line up a new provider before you finish up with your current one, so there is no gap in your supports. In SIL that matters more than it does for most supports, because a SIL roster can cover the whole day and night. A gap of even a few days is not a scheduling inconvenience — it is a night without support.

In practice this means overlapping the dates: sign the new service agreement with a start date that meets or slightly overlaps the last day of the old one, then give notice.

Changing your support does not have to mean changing your home

This is the fear that stops most people from raising it, and it is worth separating out clearly. Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) funds the dwelling — the building and its design features. SIL funds the people who assist you in it. They are deliberately funded separately so that residents can change who supports them without changing where they live.

If you rent an SDA dwelling you hold a tenancy under your state or territory’s residential tenancy laws, and that tenancy is a separate arrangement from your support agreement. The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission expects SIL providers to keep housing and support arrangements documented, fair and consistently applied, and says participants should feel secure in their home rather than facing a loss of housing over support-related issues — its guidance on tenancy, housing and support arrangements is worth reading before you start the conversation.

Where the same organisation provides both the housing and the support, untangling the two takes more planning. Ask early, and ask in writing, what happens to your tenancy if you change support providers — before you give notice, not after.

If you live in a shared home

SIL in a shared house is priced for the household, because shift ratios are shared between the people living there. That does not remove your right to change providers, but it does shape how the change happens. Broadly there are two routes:

• The household changes provider together. Everyone living in the home moves to a new SIL provider at the same time. This keeps the roster intact and the housemates together, but it needs each resident (or their decision-maker) to agree.
• You move to a different home. If the household does not want to change, or the issue is the house rather than the support, then finding a vacancy elsewhere is the cleaner path — subject to availability and suitability.

A support coordinator can map both options with you, including what each would mean for your funding and your routine, before you commit to either.

The steps, in order

• 1. Read your service agreement. Note the notice period and how the agreement says notice must be given.
• 2. Tell your support coordinator or plan manager. If you do not have one, your my NDIS contact or 1800 800 110 is the starting point.
• 3. Shortlist and meet providers. Visit if you can. Meet the people who would actually be on your roster, not only the manager who takes the meeting.
• 4. Sign the new service agreement. Set a start date that joins up with, or slightly overlaps, your last day with the current provider.
• 5. Give written notice. State your intended last day, and keep a copy of what you sent and when.
• 6. Update the paperwork. Provider relationships can be updated in the my NDIS participant portal; if you are plan managed, your plan manager updates the service bookings.
• 7. Ask for a handover. Your care plan, behaviour support plan, medication information, health appointments and daily routines should move across so the new team is not starting from a blank page.

What a good handover looks like

Registered providers carry obligations here, and knowing them changes the tone of the conversation. When a provider stops delivering services to someone, the NDIS Commission expects it to work with the participant so they can keep accessing supports up to the date services end, to notify the Commission of the change, and to have a transition plan. That plan is expected to cover how affected participants are notified and supported, which other providers could support them, how the participant is helped to choose, and an assessment of the risks and how they will be reduced — the Commission sets this out in its guidance on stopping services you provide.

Those expectations sit with the outgoing provider. Asking “what does the handover plan look like?” and getting the answer in writing is a fair request, not an awkward one.

If raising it feels difficult

It is completely understandable to feel uneasy about telling people who support you every day that you are looking elsewhere. A few things make it easier:

• A family member, nominee or support coordinator can lead the conversation on your behalf.
• An independent advocate can sit in with you — advocacy services are free and are not connected to your provider.
• You can raise a concern without leaving. Providers should have a complaints process, and you can also complain to the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission on 1800 035 544 or through the Commission’s complaints page.

Sometimes the outcome of raising a concern is a change in roster, a change in worker, or a plan to fix a specific problem — and the provider stays. That is a legitimate outcome too. Our own feedback and complaints page explains how we handle concerns raised with us.

Questions worth asking a new SIL provider

• Are you registered with the NDIS Commission, and for which supports?
• Who would be on my roster, and how consistent are the workers week to week?
• How do you match workers to the people they support — language, gender, interests, cultural background?
• Is overnight support active or a sleepover arrangement in my case?
• If I need high intensity supports, how are your workers trained and supervised for those tasks?
• What is the notice period in your service agreement, in both directions?
• How do you handle a complaint, and who hears it if it is about a manager?

Our earlier guide on how to choose a SIL provider goes further into what the answers tend to reveal.

If you are looking at a new home as well

Where a change of provider also means a change of address, the search runs on two tracks at once: the home has to suit your access and support needs, and the household has to be a reasonable fit for you and for the people already living there. You can browse current SIL and SDA vacancies across Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia — including homes in Werribee, Tarneit, Sunbury, Melton and Perth — and every vacancy is subject to availability and suitability.

If you would like our team to talk through whether a particular home or roster could work, send the details through our referral form or call 1300 395 852 and we will come back to you about fit.

This article is general information for participants and families, not legal or clinical advice. For the current rules, check ndis.gov.au or the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission.