NDIS short term accommodation: how many days a year can you get?

The NDIA usually funds short term accommodation for up to 28 days a year, and you can use those days in a block of up to 14 days at a time or spread them across the year — one weekend a month, for example. Since October 2025 the agency has called this support short term respite, although the old name still turns up in plans, price guides and everyday conversation.

That is the short answer. The longer one matters more, because the 28 days are not a fixed entitlement everyone receives, the funding covers a specific list of things, and there is a shorter list it cannot be spent on at all. This guide is for support coordinators, participants and families working out whether respite belongs in a plan, how much of it, and what to check before booking a stay.

Short term accommodation is now called short term respite

In October 2025 the NDIA renamed the support. Its reasoning was that the old name described where the support happened rather than what it was for, and that carers and families already used the word respite and understood it. The agency also acknowledged that some people are uncomfortable with that word, and after consultation kept it because it is widely recognised — the notice is on the NDIA’s site under short term accommodation is now called short term respite.

For practical purposes the two names describe the same support and the same funding. If you are writing a plan request, a service agreement or a progress report this year, expect to see both, and do not assume a document is out of date just because it says short term accommodation. Before you claim, check the line item names in the current NDIS pricing arrangements rather than trusting the labels your practice software has carried over.

How many days, and how you can split them

The NDIA’s own guidance on what short term accommodation is says it is usually funded for up to 28 days per year, and that the funding can be used flexibly. In practice that means a household can shape the days around its own year:

• a single block of up to 14 days — long enough for a carer to actually travel or recover from surgery;
• one weekend a month, spread across the plan;
• individual nights booked around a carer’s shift work, appointments or another family member’s needs;
• school holiday periods, where the usual weekday routine falls away.

Two things about that number are worth being precise on. First, usually is doing real work in that sentence. Funding is based on the level of support the participant normally needs and on their circumstances, not on a standard allocation issued to everybody. Some plans have less than 28 days, some have none, and the NDIA can fund differently where a child would otherwise be at risk of entering residential care.

Second, this is flexible funding sitting inside the Core budget, which means it can be spent faster than anyone planned. The NDIA is explicit that funding must still be used in line with the plan, and that using more support than is needed can exhaust it before the plan ends. For a support coordinator that is a pacing conversation to have at the plan implementation meeting, not at month nine when the family rings about Christmas.

Who can get short term respite funding

The NDIA describes two conditions. The participant lives with their primary informal supports — family, friends or a carer — or receives daily drop-in support. And they receive disability-related support from that informal support for more than six hours a day.

The six-hour threshold is the part most often missed in requests. Respite exists so the person who usually provides that support can take a short break and keep going afterwards; if the informal support is lighter than that, a different mix of supports is usually the better fit. It is also not a substitute for normal time apart such as school, work or community activities, and it is not crisis accommodation. Where someone needs a place to stay urgently because a household has broken down, that is a different conversation with the NDIA and, often, with mainstream services.

What the funding actually pays for

• Support with everyday activities during the stay — showering, cooking, toileting and the rest of the assistance the participant usually needs. This is the core of it: the funding follows the support, not the bed.
• Standard accommodation — a hotel, motel, short stay rental, cabin, cottage, hostel or purpose-built respite accommodation.
• Support to stay at home, or in a homestay arrangement with a support worker, where the participant usually needs overnight support.

That last point surprises people. Respite does not have to mean the participant leaves the house. If it works better for the carer to go away while a worker stays in the participant’s own home, the funding can be used that way. Where overnight support is involved it is worth being clear early about whether the roster is active support or a sleepover, and whether anyone in the household needs high intensity supports such as seizure management, complex bowel care or enteral feeding — that shapes which workers can be rostered and how far ahead a booking needs to be made.

Respite funding should generally be used in the participant’s home state or territory. The NDIA may fund it elsewhere for people living in remote areas. Rates are standard and published in the pricing arrangements, and you should only pay for the supports actually used — a booking that quietly charges for a full day when the participant arrived at 4pm is worth querying.

What short term respite will not pay for

The NDIA’s list of what this funding cannot cover is short and specific:

• cruises, holiday packages, holiday accommodation and airfares;
• passports, visas, travel insurance or vehicle insurance;
• accommodation or travel costs for family members or support workers accompanying a participant on a holiday;
• theme parks, music, theatre, cinema, sporting events and conferences;
• food and meals.

Food is the one that catches families out. The support during the stay is funded; the groceries are not — the same principle that applies in a supported independent living home, where SIL pays for the people and not the shopping. The practical takeaway is that a respite quote should separate support hours from anything the participant is paying for privately, so nobody discovers the difference on an invoice.

Participants under 18

The NDIA may fund short term respite for children and young people in some situations — where their disability-related support needs are greater than what is typical for their age, and where a break helps the family keep caring, including for a parent’s own health or wellbeing.

What it does not do is replace ordinary parenting. Helping a child to the toilet, settling them to sleep, or straightforward babysitting are not disability supports, and a request built on those will not go far. A request built on the hours of physical assistance, supervision or overnight care a parent provides beyond what other parents provide usually will.

How to ask for short term respite in a plan

Start with the my NDIS contact. A participant can ask to change their plan if the current one does not include the respite support they need, or if their situation has changed — a carer’s health, a new job, a separation, a sibling moving out.

What tends to move a request along is the same discipline that works for any home and living evidence: an hour-by-hour picture of what the informal support provides on an ordinary day, what actually happens now when that person is unwell or away, and what the participant needs overnight. Our guide to the evidence a home and living request needs sets out how to write that up so it reads as fact rather than opinion.

It is also worth naming the alternatives you have already considered, because the NDIA will. Extra assistance with daily living hours in the home, more community access, or a short block of community nursing may meet the need without respite at all — and saying so makes the respite request more credible, not less.

Questions worth asking a respite provider before booking

• Are you registered with the NDIS Commission, and for which supports? What is your provider number?
• What is the support ratio during the stay, and does it change overnight or on weekends?
• Is overnight support active or a sleepover, and who is in the building?
• What is quoted as support, and what would we be paying for ourselves?
• How much notice do you need, and what is the cancellation policy?
• Who writes the handover, and what information do you want from us before arrival?
• What happens if the participant becomes unwell, or the stay is not working out?
• How do we raise a complaint, and will you tell us about the Commission’s complaints line?

Registered providers are held to the NDIS Practice Standards, which cover consent, risk, incident management and worker screening — reasonable headings for the questions above. Vitality Community Care is a registered NDIS provider, provider number 4-IPOHTV2, and our short term accommodation and respite page sets out how we run a stay. All respite bookings are subject to availability and suitability.

When respite is really a home and living question

One pattern is worth watching for. When a family is using every respite day it has, then asking for more, then asking again, the underlying question is often not respite at all — it is whether the current living arrangement is sustainable. Twenty-eight days a year is a break. It is not a support model for a household that has run out of capacity.

If that is where things are heading, it is kinder to everyone to start the home and living conversation early rather than after a crisis. Our pages on supported independent living and the current list of SIL and SDA homes show what supported accommodation actually looks like, and vacancies are listed by state, bedrooms and design category. Every placement is subject to availability and suitability. A referral can come from a participant, a family member, a support coordinator, an LAC or a hospital team through our referral form, or by calling 1300 395 852 and asking for intake.

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