NDIS — eligibility and access

You're potentially eligible if all of the following are true:

• You're under 65 (under 50 if you're Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander).
• You live in Australia and you're an Australian citizen, permanent resident, or hold a Protected Special Category Visa.
• You have a permanent (or likely-to-be-permanent) disability that significantly affects your daily life — communication, mobility, self-care, learning, social interaction, or self-management.

The NDIS doesn't have a list of approved conditions. Eligibility is about the impact of your impairment, not the diagnosis label.

The NDIA has 21 days to decide on your Access Request once they have your full application. If they ask you for more information, they have an extra 14 days from when you provide it.

You'll need evidence from a treating health professional that says, in plain English:

• what your impairment is,
• that it's permanent (or likely to be permanent), and
• how it affects your daily life across the standard areas the NDIS asks about.

The NDIA wants to see functional impact, not just a diagnosis. The most common reason people get knocked back is that the evidence describes the condition but not the impact.

Because that's the actual test. The NDIS is funding the impact, not the condition.

You have two options:

1. Ask the NDIA for an internal review of the decision. You have 3 months from the decision letter to do this.
2. If the internal review still doesn't go your way, you can apply to the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) within 28 days of the internal review decision.

You have to do internal review first. You can't skip straight to the ART.

Yes. Children under 9 with developmental concerns may also be served by the new Thriving Kids program (rolling out from October 2026 to January 2028) which is a separate Foundational Supports system, not the NDIS. For children with significant and likely-permanent disability, the NDIS pathway still applies.