The Real Cost of Aged Care in Australia in 2026 (AUD)

Name: Aged Care Cost Australia 2026: Real Fees in AUD by Care Type (2026 Data) | ImAlive
Creator: I'm Alive
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Keywords: aged, care, cost, australia, 2026:, real, fees, in, aud, by, care, type, (2026, data), |, imalive

Residential aged care in Australia carries a maximum basic daily fee of A$66.80 per day — about A$24,382 a year — set at 85% of the single basic Age Pension (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, 2026). Home-based Support at Home budgets run from A$11,000 to A$78,106 a year across eight levels. This page lays out the AUD aged-care cost ladder from named primary sources, and shows where a free daily check-in fits for the great majority of older Australians who want to stay in their own home.

Last updated: June 2026

Overview: how much does aged care cost in Australia?

Aged care in Australia is partly subsidised by government and partly paid by the older person, so the out-of-pocket cost depends heavily on the care type and the person's means. The clearest single figure is residential aged care's maximum basic daily fee of A$66.80 per day — about A$24,382 a year — which every permanent resident pays and which is fixed at 85% of the single basic Age Pension, indexed each March and September (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing / My Aged Care, 2026). For care delivered at home, the Support at Home program that commenced on 1 November 2025 replaced Home Care Packages and provides annual budgets ranging from A$11,000 at Classification 1 to A$78,106 at Classification 8 (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, 2025). What the person actually contributes toward that home-care budget is then scaled to their pension status: a full pensioner pays 0% toward clinical care, 5% toward independence services and 17.5% toward everyday-living services (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, 2025). Above the basic daily fee, residential residents can also face a means-tested care fee and an accommodation payment (a refundable deposit or a daily charge); these vary by individual and by provider and are set out in the Department's published Schedule of Fees and Charges rather than as a single national number. With about 4.2 million Australians now aged 65 and over — 16% of the population (AIHW, 2020) — and most of them wanting to remain at home, the cost question for families is increasingly about home care, not just nursing homes.

Key statistics

These verified AUD figures come from the Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing (My Aged Care), the Productivity Commission's Report on Government Services, and the AIHW. They frame the cost ladder a family climbs from staying at home through to permanent residential care, and the headline numbers a household needs when budgeting for aged care.

A$66.80/day

Residential basic daily fee

~A$24,382/yr; 85% of single Age Pension

Source: Dept of Health & Aged Care (My Aged Care), 2026

A$11,000/yr

Support at Home — lowest annual budget

Classification 1 of 8

Source: Dept of Health & Aged Care, 2025

A$78,106/yr

Support at Home — highest annual budget

Classification 8 of 8

Source: Dept of Health & Aged Care, 2025

17.5%

Full pensioner — everyday-living contribution

vs 5% independence, 0% clinical

Source: Dept of Health & Aged Care, 2025

4.2 million

Older Australians (65+)

16% of the population (2020)

Source: AIHW, Older Australians

~87,597

Home-care access waitlist

people waiting, March 2025

Source: UTS / AIHW GEN, 2025

Australia's aged-care cost ladder (AUD)

This flagship table sets out the published cost of each rung of Australian aged care in AUD, from a free daily check-in at home through to permanent residential care, with the basis for each figure and its source. Read it as a ladder: most older Australians sit on the lowest, home-based rungs and only a minority ever reach permanent residential care. Every dollar figure below is a verified primary-source number; where a fee is individual or means-tested and therefore has no single national value, the table says so rather than inventing one. The residential basic daily fee of A$66.80/day and the Support at Home range of A$11,000–A$78,106/yr are the two figures families most often need.

Cost of aged care in Australia by type (AUD, 2025–26)

Care type / rung	Cost (AUD)	Basis	Source
Daily check-in app (stay at home)	A$0 free tier	Free; optional one-time Lifetime A$4.99 / Family A$29.99 / Family Plus A$39.99 — no monthly monitoring fee	ImAlive published pricing
Support at Home — Classification 1 (lowest)	A$11,000/yr	Annual government budget for ongoing home care, lowest of 8 levels (from 1 Nov 2025)	Dept of Health & Aged Care, 2025
Support at Home — Classification 8 (highest)	A$78,106/yr	Annual government budget for ongoing home care, highest of 8 levels	Dept of Health & Aged Care, 2025
Support at Home — full-pensioner contribution	0% / 5% / 17.5%	Share the participant pays toward clinical / independence / everyday-living services	Dept of Health & Aged Care, 2025
Assistive Technology & Home Modifications (AT-HM) — device funding	Up to A$500 / A$2,000 / A$15,000	Upfront yearly funding tiers for assistive technology incl. personal/medical alarms (from 1 Nov 2025)	Dept of Health & Aged Care, 2025
Residential aged care — basic daily fee	A$66.80/day (~A$24,382/yr)	Paid by every permanent resident; 85% of single basic Age Pension, indexed Mar & Sep	Dept of Health & Aged Care (My Aged Care), 2026
Residential aged care — means-tested care fee	Individual (no single value)	Income- and asset-tested; capped per the Department's Schedule of Fees and Charges	Dept of Health & Aged Care, Schedule of Fees and Charges
Residential aged care — accommodation payment (RAD/DAP)	Provider-set (no single value)	Refundable deposit or equivalent daily charge agreed with the provider	Dept of Health & Aged Care, Schedule of Fees and Charges

Figures are published Tier-1 AUD amounts current for 2025–26. The means-tested care fee and accommodation payment (RAD/DAP) are individual or provider-set and have no single national dollar value, so they are shown qualitatively rather than as a fabricated number. AT-HM device tiers and Support at Home budgets took effect on 1 November 2025.

Residential aged care: the basic daily fee everyone pays

The one residential fee every permanent resident pays, regardless of means, is the basic daily fee. In 2026 the maximum basic daily fee is A$66.80 per day — roughly A$24,382 a year — and it is deliberately pegged to 85% of the single basic Age Pension so that pensioners always retain at least 15% of their pension after paying it (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing / My Aged Care, 2026). Because it is tied to the pension, it is reindexed each March and September, so the dollar amount drifts upward over time. On top of this, residents with higher income or assets may pay a means-tested care fee, and most pay an accommodation cost — either a lump-sum refundable accommodation deposit (RAD) or an equivalent daily accommodation payment (DAP). Those two charges are individual and provider-set; the Department publishes the caps and method in its Schedule of Fees and Charges rather than as one national figure, which is why this page does not quote a single dollar value for them. The honest summary is that residential care starts at about A$66.80/day in unavoidable basic fees and rises from there depending on means and accommodation.

Home care: Support at Home budgets and what the person pays

From 1 November 2025, the Support at Home program replaced the Home Care Packages Program and Short-Term Restorative Care, expanding from 4 to 8 funding levels (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, 2025). The eight ongoing classifications carry annual budgets from A$11,000 at Classification 1 up to A$78,106 at Classification 8. Crucially, that budget is what the government and participant together fund for services — not the bill the older person receives. How much the person contributes is scaled by both the service category and their pension status: a full pensioner pays 0% toward clinical care, 5% toward independence services and 17.5% toward everyday-living services (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, 2025). So for clinical care, a full pensioner pays nothing out of pocket; their contribution rises only for the lower-acuity 'everyday' help such as cleaning or meals. The legacy Home Care Package levels (1 to 4) that Support at Home replaced had their own annual subsidies, but those amounts varied by indexation date across sources and have now been transitioned, so the current, verifiable figures to budget against are the Support at Home A$11,000–A$78,106 range and the 0% / 5% / 17.5% pensioner contributions.

Support at Home participant contributions, full pensioner (2025–26)

Service category	Participant pays	What it covers	Source
Clinical care	0%	Nursing, allied health and other clinical services	Dept of Health & Aged Care, 2025
Independence	5%	Personal care and support that keeps a person independent at home	Dept of Health & Aged Care, 2025
Everyday living	17.5%	Domestic help such as cleaning, gardening and meals	Dept of Health & Aged Care, 2025

Percentages are the contribution rates for a full pensioner under Support at Home (from 1 November 2025). Part-pensioners and self-funded retirees contribute more. The annual budget that these percentages apply to ranges from A$11,000 (Classification 1) to A$78,106 (Classification 8).

The waitlist: a self-funding gap of 9 to 15 months

The published cost of home care assumes you are actually receiving it — and many Australians are not yet. By March 2025 about 87,597 people were on the home-care access list; more than 88,000 had been approved but were not yet receiving care, and over 120,000 were still waiting just to be assessed (UTS; National Seniors Australia; AIHW GEN, 2025). Medium-priority waits ran 9 to 12 months, and the highest-need Level 4 waits ran 12 to 15 months or more, though the Government has pledged to cut average waits to about 3 months by 2027 (UTS, 2025). For a family, that gap is the hardest part: a parent has been assessed as needing help, but the funded package — and the funded personal alarm under the AT-HM scheme's A$500/A$2,000/A$15,000 tiers — may be the better part of a year away. During that wait there is no government-funded safety layer in the home, which is exactly the window a free, no-referral daily check-in is designed to fill.

Most older Australians want to stay home — and that is the cheapest rung

The cost ladder matters because the overwhelming preference is to stay on its lowest rungs. Most older Australians want to age in place rather than enter residential care, and home-based support is far cheaper to the system and usually to the family than permanent residential care at A$66.80/day plus means-tested and accommodation costs. The policy itself now reflects this: the Aged Care Act 2024 and Support at Home are built around helping people 'stay at home longer', backed by a roughly A$4.3 billion investment (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, 2025). For the many who are ageing at home — including the 35% of Australians aged 85 and over who live alone (ABS Census 2021, via AIFS) — the practical safety question is not which expensive service to buy, but the simplest one: would anyone notice promptly if something went wrong on an ordinary day? That is a A$0 question, and it sits below every paid rung on the ladder.

How the cost ladder compares to a daily check-in

Set against the funded aged-care ladder, a daily check-in is the lowest-cost rung by a wide margin. Residential care's basic daily fee alone is about A$24,382 a year (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, 2026); Support at Home budgets reach A$78,106 a year (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, 2025); and even Australia's stand-alone medical alarms typically cost hundreds of dollars upfront plus an ongoing monthly monitoring fee — for example, Tunstall's 24/7 Connected Care is published at A$31.30/month and MePACS home-alarm monitoring at A$42/month (Tunstall Healthcare; MePACS, published pricing). A daily check-in app, by contrast, is free to start with no monthly monitoring fee, with optional one-time tiers of Lifetime A$4.99, Family A$29.99 and Family Plus A$39.99 (ImAlive published pricing). It does not fund care or replace a Support at Home package — it does the one thing no package on the ladder funds: a simple, automatic confirmation that someone is OK today, and a quiet alert to family if a check-in is missed.

Annual cost: aged-care rungs vs a daily check-in (AUD)

Option	Indicative annual cost (AUD)	What it is	Source
Residential aged care (basic daily fee only)	~A$24,382/yr	A$66.80/day basic fee, before means-tested and accommodation costs	Dept of Health & Aged Care, 2026
Support at Home (highest level budget)	Up to A$78,106/yr	Classification 8 annual home-care budget (government + participant)	Dept of Health & Aged Care, 2025
Monitored medical alarm (example monthly fee)	~A$376–A$504/yr	Ongoing monitoring at A$31.30/mo (Tunstall) to A$42/mo (MePACS), plus upfront device	Tunstall Healthcare; MePACS, published pricing
Daily check-in app	A$0 (free tier)	Free to start; optional one-time Lifetime A$4.99 / Family A$29.99 / Family Plus A$39.99, no monthly fee	ImAlive published pricing

Monitored-alarm annual figures are the monthly monitoring fee × 12 (A$31.30 × 12 ≈ A$376; A$42 × 12 = A$504) from each provider's published pricing, and exclude the upfront device cost. A daily check-in is a safety-notification layer, not aged care, and does not fund or replace a Support at Home package.

Why a daily check-in helps

Aged care in Australia is a real and rising cost — A$66.80/day for the residential basic daily fee, up to A$78,106/yr for the highest home-care budget — and most families will rightly spend on the care a parent genuinely needs. But while a funded package is being waited on for 9 to 15 months, or for the many older Australians who are independent and simply ageing at home, the single thing money does not have to buy is someone reliably noticing if something goes wrong. A daily check-in closes that gap for free: one tap confirms you are OK, and a missed check-in quietly notifies a chosen family member — no GPS tracking, no monitoring centre, no device to wear or charge, and no monthly fee. It is the lowest, cheapest rung on the aged-care cost ladder, and for someone who wants to stay home and stay independent, it is often the only rung they need for a long time.

Sources

Related Data & Guides

Medical alarm cost Australia 2026 Australia aging in place statistics Australia living alone statistics Dementia statistics Australia Aged care cost comparison: Australia, Singapore & NZ ImAlive in Australia How it works Pricing

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does aged care cost in Australia in 2026?

It depends on the care type. Residential aged care's maximum basic daily fee is A$66.80 per day — about A$24,382 a year — which every permanent resident pays (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing / My Aged Care, 2026). Home-based Support at Home budgets run from A$11,000 to A$78,106 a year across eight levels, of which the participant pays only a scaled share.

What is the basic daily fee for residential aged care?

The maximum basic daily fee is A$66.80 per day in 2026, roughly A$24,382 a year. It is set at 85% of the single basic Age Pension and is reindexed each March and September (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing / My Aged Care, 2026).

What is Support at Home and how much does it cost?

Support at Home is the home-care program that replaced Home Care Packages on 1 November 2025. It has eight ongoing classifications with annual budgets from A$11,000 (Classification 1) to A$78,106 (Classification 8) (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, 2025). That budget is funded by government plus a scaled participant contribution, not billed in full to the person.

How much does a full pensioner pay under Support at Home?

Under Support at Home, a full pensioner pays 0% toward clinical care, 5% toward independence services and 17.5% toward everyday-living services such as cleaning and meals (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, 2025). So clinical care is fully covered, and contributions apply only to lower-acuity help.

What replaced Home Care Packages in Australia?

The Support at Home program replaced the Home Care Packages Program and Short-Term Restorative Care on 1 November 2025, under the new Aged Care Act 2024, expanding from 4 to 8 funding levels (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, 2025).

Are the old Home Care Package Level 1–4 amounts still used?

No — the legacy Home Care Package levels (1 to 4) were replaced by Support at Home on 1 November 2025, and their old annual subsidies varied by indexation date across sources. The current, verifiable figures to budget against are the Support at Home A$11,000–A$78,106 annual range and the 0% / 5% / 17.5% pensioner contributions (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, 2025).

What is the means-tested care fee for residential aged care?

It is an income- and asset-tested fee some residents pay on top of the basic daily fee. It is individual rather than a single national amount, and its caps and method are published in the Department of Health's Schedule of Fees and Charges. Because it has no one fixed value, this page does not quote a single dollar figure for it.

What is a RAD or DAP in aged care?

A Refundable Accommodation Deposit (RAD) is a lump sum paid for a resident's room, and a Daily Accommodation Payment (DAP) is the equivalent paid as a daily charge instead. These are provider-set and agreed individually, so there is no single national dollar value; the Department publishes the rules in its Schedule of Fees and Charges.

Is home care cheaper than residential aged care?

For most people, yes. Most older Australians prefer to age in place, and home-based support is generally cheaper than permanent residential care, which carries a basic daily fee of A$66.80/day plus means-tested and accommodation costs (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, 2026). The Support at Home program and the Aged Care Act 2024 are explicitly built to help people stay at home longer.

How long is the wait for home care in Australia?

By March 2025 about 87,597 people were on the home-care access list, with 88,000+ approved but not yet receiving care and 120,000+ waiting just to be assessed. Medium-priority waits ran 9 to 12 months and Level 4 waits 12 to 15+ months, with a Government pledge to cut average waits to about 3 months by 2027 (UTS / AIHW GEN, 2025).

Can the government fund a personal alarm for an older Australian?

Yes. From 1 November 2025 the Assistive Technology and Home Modifications (AT-HM) Scheme provides upfront yearly funding for assistive technology, including personal and medical alarms, across three tiers of up to A$500, up to A$2,000 and up to A$15,000 (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, 2025). Families may still face a wait before funded support arrives.

How does a daily check-in app compare in cost to a medical alarm?

Australia's monitored medical alarms typically charge hundreds of dollars upfront plus an ongoing monthly monitoring fee — for example A$31.30/month (Tunstall) to A$42/month (MePACS) on published pricing. A daily check-in app is free to start with no monthly monitoring fee, with optional one-time tiers of Lifetime A$4.99, Family A$29.99 and Family Plus A$39.99 (ImAlive published pricing).

How many older Australians are there, and do they want to stay home?

About 4.2 million Australians are aged 65 and over — 16% of the population (AIHW, 2020) — and most prefer to age in place rather than enter residential care. Among the oldest, 35% of people aged 85 and over live alone (ABS Census 2021, via AIFS), which is why a simple safety check at home matters.

Does a daily check-in replace a Support at Home package?

No. A daily check-in is a safety-notification layer, not aged care, and it does not fund or replace a Support at Home package. It does the one thing no funded package does: confirm someone is OK each day and quietly alert family if a check-in is missed — for free, with no device to wear and no monthly fee.

What is the cheapest aged-care safety option in Australia?

On the cost ladder, a free daily check-in is the lowest rung. It sits below Support at Home (A$11,000–A$78,106/yr), residential care (A$66.80/day basic fee) and even monitored alarms (around A$31–A$42/month plus a device). It costs A$0 to start and gives family the same core reassurance — someone notices if something is wrong — with no GPS tracking and no monthly monitoring fee.

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