Participants, providers, SIL and scheme spending: every figure taken directly from the NDIA’s published quarterly report, with the table it came from. Figures are as at 30 June 2026 (Quarterly Report Q4 2025-26), the most recent report published. Nothing on this page is estimated or modelled.
Last updated 14 September 2026 · Data as at 30 June 2026 · Next NDIA report due for the September 2026 quarter
There were 782,013 active NDIS participants in Australia as at 30 June 2026, according to Table D.1 of the NDIA Quarterly Report Q4 2025-26. That is 7,557 more than the 774,456 reported at 31 March 2026 (a 1.0% increase in the quarter) and 20,571 more than at 31 December 2025 (2.7% over the half year). An active participant is someone who has met the NDIS eligibility requirements and has an approved plan, including those between plans.
| Quarter end | Active participants | Change in quarter | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 31 Dec 2025 | 761,442 | n/a | NDIA Q3 2025-26 (derived: 774,456 less 13,014 growth) |
| 31 Mar 2026 | 774,456 | +13,014 (1.7%) | NDIA Q3 2025-26 |
| 30 Jun 2026 | 782,013 | +7,557 (1.0%) | NDIA Q4 2025-26, Table D.1 |
The NDIS covers 2.8% of the Australian population, and the rate is far from even: 7.8% of all Australians aged 9 to 14 are participants, against 0.9% of those over 65 (Table D.13). Men and boys participate at 3.4%, women and girls at 2.1% (Table D.12).
| Measure | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Active participants (30 Jun 2026) | 782,013 | NDIA Q4 2025-26, Table D.1 |
| Net participant growth, Mar to Jun 2026 | +7,557 (1.0%) | Tables D.1; Q3 2025-26 |
| Active providers (Jun 2026 quarter) | 280,258 | NDIA Q4 2025-26, Table D.20 |
| of which registered / unregistered | 18,309 / 267,396 | Table D.20 |
| Payments to providers, 12 months to 30 Jun 2026 | $51.5 billion | Table D.24 |
| Payments for supports delivered in FY2025-26 | $48.6 billion (+5%) | Table D.22 |
| Committed supports in plans, FY2025-26 | $67.3 billion (+11%) | Table D.21 |
| Average payments per participant, 12 months | $67,500 | Table D.24 |
| Average annualised plan budget | $85,400 | Table D.23 |
| Participants receiving SIL (30 Jun 2026) | 36,874 (4.7%) | Tables D.4, D.11 |
| SIL payments, 12 months to 30 Jun 2026 | $16.6 billion | Table D.24 |
| Plan-managed participants | 69% | Table D.16 |
| Plan utilisation (Oct 2025 to Mar 2026) | 73% (SIL 87%, non-SIL 68%) | Table D.29 |
Two payment figures appear above because the NDIA reports both. Table D.24 counts every payment made in the 12 months to 30 June 2026, whichever year the support was delivered. Table D.22 counts payments by the financial year the support was delivered, so it excludes late claims for prior years and is the better like-for-like growth measure. A note on what is not here: we previously published market-share figures sourced to unnamed “sector analysis”. We could not verify them against NDIA data, so they have been removed.
New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland together hold 78% of all participants. Victoria has the second-most participants but the most active providers; New South Wales has by far the most participants in SIL.
| State / territory | Active participants | Share | In SIL | Active providers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | 230,427 | 29.5% | 12,284 | 83,368 |
| Victoria | 210,846 | 27.0% | 7,935 | 87,676 |
| Queensland | 166,633 | 21.3% | 7,428 | 72,585 |
| Western Australia | 70,243 | 9.0% | 3,547 | 27,586 |
| South Australia | 67,270 | 8.6% | 3,310 | 23,907 |
| Tasmania | 16,896 | 2.2% | 1,102 | 7,447 |
| Australian Capital Territory | 12,695 | 1.6% | 645 | 5,621 |
| Northern Territory | 6,894 | 0.9% | 623 | 2,595 |
| National | 782,013 | 100% | 36,874 | 280,258 |
Source: NDIA Quarterly Report Q4 2025-26, Tables D.1 (participants, share), D.4 (SIL) and D.20 (providers), all as at 30 June 2026. National participants include 93 in other territories and 16 with state not recorded. Providers operating in more than one state are counted in each.
Two other breakdowns matter for providers choosing where to operate. 67,907 participants (8.7%) are First Nations, rising to 54.1% of participants in the Northern Territory, and 68,402 (8.7%) are culturally and linguistically diverse, concentrated in Victoria (11.2%) and New South Wales (10.7%). 11,979 participants live in remote or very remote areas (Tables D.10 and D.11).
41% of participants are under 15. The two youngest age bands are the largest in the scheme, which is why early childhood and school-age supports dominate the provider market by headcount, while SIL, concentrated in participants over 45, dominates it by dollars.
| Age group | Participants | Share | In SIL |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 to 8 | 162,781 | 21% | n/a |
| 9 to 14 | 158,583 | 20% | n/a |
| 15 to 18 | 83,125 | 11% | 196 |
| 19 to 24 | 74,553 | 10% | 2,781 |
| 25 to 34 | 70,163 | 9% | 5,699 |
| 35 to 44 | 56,188 | 7% | 5,887 |
| 45 to 54 | 59,566 | 8% | 6,903 |
| 55 to 64 | 72,040 | 9% | 9,511 |
| 65 and over | 45,014 | 6% | 5,891 |
| Total | 782,013 | 100% | 36,874 |
Source: NDIA Quarterly Report Q4 2025-26, Tables D.2, D.3 and D.4, as at 30 June 2026. Table C.1 separately reports 162,781 children under 9 with active plans and 24,642 children who accessed early connections during the June quarter.
Autism is the primary disability for 45% of participants: 350,651 people. The next three groups combined (intellectual disability, psychosocial disability and developmental delay) account for a further 29%. Autism’s share is highest in South Australia at 51% and lowest in the Northern Territory at 31%.
| Primary disability | Participants | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Autism | 350,651 | 45% |
| Intellectual disability | 100,509 | 13% |
| Psychosocial disability | 66,122 | 8% |
| Developmental delay | 59,286 | 8% |
| Hearing impairment | 29,823 | 4% |
| Other neurological | 26,612 | 3% |
| Acquired brain injury | 20,487 | 3% |
| Other physical | 20,284 | 3% |
| Cerebral palsy | 19,041 | 2% |
| Global developmental delay | 18,879 | 2% |
| Multiple sclerosis | 12,531 | 2% |
| Down syndrome | 11,803 | 2% |
| Visual impairment | 11,299 | 1% |
| Stroke | 11,192 | 1% |
| Spinal cord injury | 6,644 | 1% |
| Other, including sensory and speech | 16,850 | 2% |
| Total | 782,013 | 100% |
Source: NDIA Quarterly Report Q4 2025-26, Tables D.8 and D.9, as at 30 June 2026. Down syndrome is reported separately from intellectual disability in the NDIA’s tables. The final row combines the report’s “Other” (15,117) and “Other sensory/speech” (1,733) lines.
Divide 782,013 participants by 280,258 active providers and the scheme averages 2.8 participants per provider. That single ratio explains the sector’s economics better than anything else: this is one of the most fragmented service markets in Australia, and the contest is local rather than national. The provider who owns three suburbs beats the provider who is vaguely present in thirty.
The scheme is still growing, but the rate is settling. Participant numbers rose 1.0% in the June 2026 quarter, against 1.7% in the March quarter, and payment growth by year of support has slowed from 19% in 2023-24 to 5% in 2025-26 (Table D.22). Plan budgets still rose 4.7% over the June quarter for active participants (Table D.27). Demand is not the constraint for most providers; being findable at the moment a participant, family member or support coordinator goes looking is. With 45% of participants autistic and 41% under 15, the family doing the looking is usually a parent.
Of the 280,258 providers paid in the June 2026 quarter, only 18,309 were registered with the NDIS Commission for the supports they delivered. The other 267,396 were unregistered, paid either through a plan manager (200,838 providers) or directly by self-managing participants (116,712). Registration status is assessed per support, so a provider delivering both registered and unregistered supports is counted in both groups.
| Provider group (Jun 2026 quarter) | Providers | Paid via |
|---|---|---|
| Registered, NDIA-managed funding | 10,842 | NDIA directly |
| Registered, plan-managed funding | 17,471 | Plan manager |
| Unregistered, plan-managed funding | 200,838 | Plan manager |
| Unregistered, self-managed funding | 116,712 | Participant |
| All active providers | 280,258 |
Source: NDIA Quarterly Report Q4 2025-26, Table D.20. Groups overlap, so rows sum to more than the total.
The practical consequence: the 10,842 providers able to bill NDIA-managed funding directly are competing for 6% of participants (Table D.16). Everyone else depends on plan managers and self-managers, which is where the referral relationships that actually fill a roster sit.
This is the most commercially important table on the page, because a participant’s funding management type determines whether they can engage you at all. Unregistered providers can only be paid through a plan manager or directly by a self-managing participant, never by the NDIA directly.
| Funding management | Share of participants | Share of plan budgets | Active providers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan-managed | 69% | 57% | 210,956 |
| Self-managed (fully or partly) | 25% | 11% | 133,703 |
| NDIA-managed | 6% | 31% | 10,842 |
Source: NDIA Quarterly Report Q4 2025-26, Tables D.16, D.17 and D.20, as at 30 June 2026. Self-managed combines 21% fully and 4% partly self-managed. Provider counts overlap across funding types. NDIA-managed participants are 6% of people but 31% of dollars.
Roughly seven in ten participants now use a plan manager. The NDIA’s March 2026 report counted only about 1,450 plan managers nationally, so each one carries hundreds of participants. For a provider, that means plan managers and support coordinators are concentrated referral gatekeepers, and there are not many of them.
Supported independent living is the highest-value support category in the scheme, and the one where a single vacancy costs the most. As at 30 June 2026 there were 36,874 participants receiving SIL, 4.7% of all participants, and SIL payments were $16.6 billion over the 12 months, an average of $451,800 per SIL participant (Tables D.10 and D.24).
| Period | Year to 31 Mar 2024 | Year to 31 Mar 2025 | Year to 31 Mar 2026 | 12 months to 30 Jun 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Participants with SIL supports | 34,310 | 36,432 | 36,808 | 36,874 |
| Total SIL payments ($m) | 13,391 | 15,228 | 16,398 | 16,600 |
| Average payment per SIL participant | $409,400 | $430,500 | $447,100 | $451,800 |
| Average committed SIL plan budget | n/a | n/a | n/a | $488,200 |
Sources: NDIA Quarterly Report Q3 2025-26, Table 10 (March-year series); NDIA Quarterly Report Q4 2025-26, Tables D.4, D.23 and D.24 (June 2026 column). The two series use different year-ends and are shown side by side rather than merged.
Three things stand out for SIL providers. Payments have grown far faster than participant numbers, 22% over the two March years against 7%, so the value per participant is rising rather than the pool. SIL participants skew older: 26% are aged 55 to 64 and 16% are over 65 (Table D.5). And SIL plans are used: utilisation is 87% for participants in SIL against 68% for everyone else (Table D.29). An unfilled room is the single most expensive problem a SIL provider has, and filling it quickly is worth real marketing spend.
Specialist disability accommodation is smaller again: 16,644 participants were using SDA at 30 June 2026 and a further 9,014 were SDA-eligible but not yet using it (Table D.10), a waiting pool larger than most people assume.
Core daily activities, which cover personal care, in-home support and SIL, take more than half of every dollar. The table shows payments for supports delivered in the year to 30 June 2026 by category.
| Support category | Paid, FY2025-26 ($m) | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Core: daily activities | 26,822 | 52% |
| Core: social and civic participation | 12,209 | 24% |
| Capacity building: daily activities (therapy) | 5,964 | 12% |
| Capacity building: support coordination | 1,238 | 2% |
| Capacity building: relationships (behaviour support) | 1,068 | 2% |
| Core: transport | 875 | 2% |
| Capital: assistive technology | 820 | 2% |
| Capital: home modifications | 697 | 1% |
| Capacity building: choice and control (plan management) | 646 | 1% |
| Core: consumables | 627 | 1% |
| Capacity building: social and civic | 261 | 1% |
| Capacity building: employment | 196 | 0% |
| Total | 51,452 | 100% |
Source: NDIA Quarterly Report Q4 2025-26, Table D.26. Shares are derived from the published totals and rounded; health and wellbeing, home living and lifelong learning categories (under $30m combined) are omitted.
| Financial year of support | Payments ($m) | Growth |
|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | 28,472 | 21% |
| 2022-23 | 35,268 | 24% |
| 2023-24 | 42,076 | 19% |
| 2024-25 | 46,224 | 10% |
| 2025-26 | 48,596 | 5% |
Source: NDIA Quarterly Report Q4 2025-26, Table D.22. The 2025-26 figure will rise as late claims are paid; the NDIA notes utilisation for the most recent months is still emerging.
The published data supports four observations. Participant numbers continue to rise every quarter, but the rate has eased from 1.7% to 1.0% between the March and June 2026 quarters. Payment growth by year of support has slowed for three consecutive years, from 24% to 5%. Plan management continues to hold about seven in ten participants, concentrating referral influence in a small number of plan managers. And SIL spending is growing faster than SIL participant numbers, meaning the money is deepening per participant rather than spreading across more of them.
The policy context is moving in the same direction. The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 was introduced on 14 May 2026 with slowing cost growth and clarifying eligibility as two of its four stated pillars (Quarterly Report Q4 2025-26, Introduction). It passed the Parliament in August 2026 and received Royal Assent on 20 August 2026 as Act No. 66 of 2026. Among other things it defines functional capacity, limits unscheduled plan reassessments, requires supports to relate directly to a participant’s eligible impairments and lets the Minister reduce funding for specified groups of supports. Providers planning on the growth rates of 2022 and 2023 should plan on something closer to this year’s.
Every figure above is taken directly from the NDIA’s published Quarterly Report Q4 2025-26 (covering the quarter to 30 June 2026), principally Appendix D, and we name the table it came from so you can check it yourself. Where a March 2026 figure is used for comparison it comes from the Q3 2025-26 report. The only derived figures are participants per provider (782,013 ÷ 280,258), the December 2025 participant count (774,456 less the 13,014 quarterly growth the Q3 report published), the under-15 total and share, and the category shares in the spending table, each marked where it appears.
What we deliberately leave out. Anything we cannot trace to a named public source does not go on this page. In our August 2026 review we removed three previously published claims: a “largest provider market share” figure, a “top 25 providers’ share of payments” figure, and a claim about the financial results of the ten largest providers. They were attributed only to unnamed sector analysis and we could not verify them against NDIA data. We would rather publish fewer numbers than unverifiable ones.
Currency. The NDIA publishes a report after each quarter. This page was updated on 14 September 2026 to the June 2026 report; the September 2026 quarter report is expected in late 2026 and we update within days of each release. Earlier figures are kept in the tables so the trend stays visible.
Who maintains this page, and why. NDIS Growth is a marketing agency that works only with NDIS providers. We keep this page because we use these figures every week in catchment analysis and growth plans for clients, and a wrong number costs them money. Each NDIA release is read in full by the team and every figure is re-checked against its source table before the page is updated.
Corrections. If you find a figure that does not match its cited table, tell us and we will correct it and note the change here. Nothing on this page is sponsored, and no provider or vendor has paid for inclusion.
This page is free to cite with a link: NDIS Growth, “NDIS Statistics (2026)”, ndisgrowth.com.au/ndis-statistics/, updated 14 September 2026. Journalists and researchers who need the underlying references can contact us; we reply within four business hours.
There were 782,013 active NDIS participants as at 30 June 2026, according to Table D.1 of the NDIA Quarterly Report Q4 2025-26. That is 7,557 more than the 774,456 reported at 31 March 2026, a 1.0% increase over the quarter.
280,258 providers received an NDIS payment in the June 2026 quarter (NDIA Quarterly Report Q4 2025-26, Table D.20). Of those, 18,309 were registered and 267,396 unregistered for the supports they delivered. Active means paid in the quarter; it is not the same as registered. Across 782,013 participants, that is fewer than three participants per active provider.
36,874 participants were receiving supported independent living (SIL) at 30 June 2026, which is 4.7% of all participants (Tables D.4 and D.11). SIL payments were $16.6 billion in the 12 months to 30 June 2026, an average of $451,800 per SIL participant (Table D.24). New South Wales has the most SIL participants at 12,284, followed by Victoria (7,935) and Queensland (7,428).
The NDIA paid $51.5 billion to providers in the 12 months to 30 June 2026 (Table D.24). Measured by the financial year in which the support was delivered, payments for 2025-26 were $48.6 billion, up 5% on 2024-25 (Table D.22). Total committed supports in participant plans for 2025-26 were $67.3 billion, up 11% (Table D.21).
The average annualised committed supports in a participant’s current plan was $85,400 at 30 June 2026, and average payments over the 12 months were $67,500 per participant (Tables D.23 and D.24). Averages are misleading here: a participant in SIL averages $451,800 in annual payments, while most plans are a small fraction of that.
New South Wales, with 230,427 active participants (29.5% of the national total), then Victoria with 210,846 (27.0%) and Queensland with 166,633 (21.3%). Western Australia has 70,243, South Australia 67,270, Tasmania 16,896, the ACT 12,695 and the Northern Territory 6,894 (Table D.1, as at 30 June 2026).
45%. Autism is the primary disability for 350,651 of the 782,013 active participants at 30 June 2026 (Tables D.8 and D.9). Intellectual disability is next at 13% (100,509), then psychosocial disability at 8% (66,122) and developmental delay at 8% (59,286).
321,364 participants, or 41%, are under 15: 162,781 aged 0 to 8 and 158,583 aged 9 to 14 (Table D.2). The 9 to 14 age group has the highest participation rate of any age band at 7.8% of the Australian population in that group (Table D.13).
69% of active participants are plan-managed, 21% are fully self-managed, 4% partly self-managed and 6% NDIA-managed (Table D.16, 30 June 2026). By dollars, plan-managed funding is 57% of plan budgets, NDIA-managed 31% and self-managed 11% (Table D.17). Unregistered providers can only be paid through plan-managed or self-managed funding.
Yes, but more slowly. Participants grew 1.0% in the June 2026 quarter and 2.7% over the half year since December 2025. Payments by financial year grew 5% in 2025-26, down from 10% in 2024-25 and 19% in 2023-24 (Table D.22). The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Act 2026, which received Royal Assent on 20 August 2026, lists slowing cost growth as one of its four pillars.
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