If someone you care for is an NDIS participant approaching 65, you may already have heard conflicting things: that they'll "be moved onto aged care," that they'll "lose everything," or that "nothing changes." None of those is quite right. This guide covers the specific, harder question underneath all of it — if they get a genuine choice, how should the family actually think it through?
This is a companion to our shorter explainer, NDIS or My Aged Care — the basics, which covers the age boundary itself. Read that first if you're not yet sure which system applies. This page assumes you already know the basics and are further along — closer to actually making the decision.
Start with the fact that gets misunderstood most often: turning 65 does not automatically remove anyone from the NDIS. According to the NDIS, if you became a participant before your 65th birthday, you can stay on the NDIS once you turn 65, with no change forced on you at that birthday.
What actually triggers a change is not the birthday itself — it's a later event. Specifically, an existing participant leaves the NDIS if, after turning 65, they move permanently into a residential aged care facility for the first time, or start receiving home care services funded through the aged care system. Until and unless one of those things happens, an existing participant can keep their NDIS plan.
So the first message to take from this is a reassuring one: there is no cliff-edge on the birthday itself, and no requirement to decide anything on the day someone turns 65. The decision only becomes live when a move into residential aged care, or aged-care-funded home care, is genuinely on the table.
This is the part that deserves the most care, and where we want to be exact rather than reassuring. Once an existing participant moves permanently into residential aged care, or starts receiving home care services from the aged care system, after turning 65, they leave the NDIS. According to current NDIS guidance, at that point they are not able to ask the NDIA for an internal review of that outcome.
"This is not a decision to make on a form, on the phone, in a hurry, or on the strength of a single article — including this one."
NDIS guidance also describes a general pathway to become a participant again if a person's situation changes after leaving the scheme. But that is a fresh eligibility application against the NDIS access criteria — not an automatic switch back, and not a guarantee. For someone who left specifically because they took up permanent residential aged care or aged-care-funded home care after 65, treat re-entry to the NDIS as uncertain, not as a safety net.
In practical terms: moving to aged care is the one part of this decision that behaves as close to one-way as anything in either system. Staying on the NDIS keeps the door open in both directions for longer, because it doesn't trigger this exit condition. That asymmetry — one path that's genuinely hard to undo, one that isn't — should shape how much time and how many people are involved before a final decision is made.
This article is general information, not a recommendation for your situation. Nothing here is medical, legal, or financial advice, and it is not a substitute for confirming your own facts with the NDIA and My Aged Care directly. Every participant's plan, needs, and circumstances are different.
Neither system is simply "better." They're built differently, and the right answer depends on the person. Here is what to compare, side by side, for your own situation — not what to choose.
The NDIS funds participants directly, so the person (or their nominee) holds an individualised plan and has more say over how that funding is spent across a broad range of supports tailored to their goals. The aged care system generally funds providers to deliver services, within the structure of a home care or residential care package. If someone's current NDIS plan is highly individualised — a specific mix of therapy, equipment, transport, and community participation supports — it's worth asking explicitly how (or whether) an equivalent mix would be funded and delivered under aged care.
A move to aged care may mean changing providers, changing support workers, or changing how existing supports are delivered — even where the underlying need doesn't change. If continuity with a trusted provider or support worker matters, ask directly and in writing whether that continuity is possible under aged care, rather than assuming it.
Think beyond today. Aged care, including Support at Home, is generally structured around needs that tend to increase with age. The NDIS takes a broader lifelong, goals-based view. Ask both systems: if the person's needs increase in five or ten years, what does support look like then, under each option?
None of this tells you which to choose — that's the point. It tells you what to ask, in writing, before anyone signs anything.
This is the single most important practical step in this whole guide. Don't make this decision from a website, a call centre script, or a well-meaning relative's account of what happened to someone else. Talk to, roughly in this order:
Have all three conversations before treating any decision as final — ideally well before a residential aged care move or a home care package start date is locked in, since it's that specific event, not the birthday, that closes the door on staying with the NDIS.
This is a made-up scenario to illustrate the kind of thinking involved — not advice, and not a real person. Imagine a family whose father has been on the NDIS for years following an acquired brain injury, with a plan that funds allied health, home modifications, and a support worker he's known for a long time. He's about to turn 65.
A family in this position might reasonably start by confirming with the NDIA that nothing changes automatically at 65, so there's no need to rush a decision on the birthday itself. They might then ask his NDIA planner exactly what his plan would look like if he stays. Separately, they might ask My Aged Care what a comparable Support at Home package would fund, and whether his existing support worker could continue under that arrangement. If a disability advocate is available, they might loop them in specifically to sanity-check both answers before anyone signs anything. Only once those three conversations have happened — not before — would this hypothetical family feel ready to decide.
Don't decide alone, and don't leave it to the last minute. Because leaving the NDIS for aged care after 65 is, in practice, very hard to reverse, this is exactly the kind of decision to slow down for — start the conversations early, involve an independent advocate, and get everything that matters confirmed in writing before any residential aged care or home care service actually begins.
Separately from all of the above: the Disability Support Pension (DSP) and Carer Payment sit outside the NDIS / aged care boundary entirely. At 65, the DSP usually converts automatically to the Age Pension — this happens regardless of whether the person stays on the NDIS or moves to aged care, and doesn't affect either choice.
Last reviewed: August 2026. This is one of the highest-stakes decisions covered anywhere on this site, and NDIS and aged care rules change. Do not rely on this article alone — confirm your own facts directly with the NDIA (1800 800 110), My Aged Care (1800 200 422), and an independent disability advocate before deciding anything.
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