NDIS Corporate Plan 2025-2026: What Providers Need to Know

Each year, the NDIA releases its NDIS corporate plan to set out priorities, budgets, and performance measures for the next four years. The 2025–26 plan builds on recent reforms, including new legislation introduced in October 2024, and continues the NDIA’s focus on participant outcomes, market stewardship, and scheme sustainability.

For NDIS providers, this plan isn’t just background reading, it’s a guide to where the Scheme is heading. Understanding the plan helps you anticipate compliance changes, prepare for participant expectations, and adjust service models to stay sustainable in a changing environment.

In this blog, we’ll unpack the key changes in the NDIS corporate plan 2025–26, what they mean for you, and how you can align your organisation with the NDIA’s priorities.

What the NDIS Corporate Plan 2025–26 Is All About

The corporate plan is the NDIA’s roadmap for delivering a stronger, fairer, and more sustainable NDIS. It’s refreshed annually but guided by a four-year outlook.

The 2025–26 plan is framed around three key activities:

1. Improve participant experience and outcomes- making it easier for people to use the NDIS, helping them to reach their goals, and ensuring the Scheme delivers value.
    
2. Develop a high-performing NDIA for participants - building staff capability, investing in technology, and embedding integrity safeguards.
    
3. Facilitate NDIS markets to deliver accessible and innovative supports - ensuring that the NDIS continues to be affordable, targeted, and effective for generations to come.
    

It also acknowledges the five-year transition period required to fully implement the October 2024 legislative changes, which clarify what the Scheme pays for and how planning will work in the future.

Key NDIS Changes Providers Need to Track

Stronger Participant Outcomes and Experiences

The NDIA is sharpening its focus on helping participants live more independent and connected lives. Key national targets include:

• 26% of participants in employment by 2025.
   
• 46% in regular community and social participation.
   
• 76% reporting satisfaction with the NDIS.
   
• 70% satisfied with their progress towards personal goals.
   
• More than 90% having mainstream or community supports in their plans.

For providers, it is important to align your services to support independence, community participation, and employment pathways. These targets will shape funding priorities and how provider performance is evaluated.

Laws and Compliance

Legislation that commenced in October 2024 plays a central role in the corporate plan. The changes set clearer boundaries on what the NDIS will and will not fund, how plan funds should be managed, and how the NDIA will act to prevent misuse of participant budgets.

Alongside these changes, the plan introduces new performance measures such as claim integrity checks, strengthening the Agency’s ability to detect fraud and ensure funds are used appropriately.

NDIA Commitment to Staff and Technology

The NDIA is investing in its people and systems to improve service delivery:

• Building a more inclusive workforce, aiming for 22% of NDIA staff with disability by 2026 and 25% by 2029.
   
• Rolling out improved IT systems to strengthen cyber security, streamline claims, and make participant portals easier to use.

The corporate plan also commits to meeting Participant Service Guarantee timeframes at least 80% of the time and resolving 80% of issues on first contact through the National Contact Centre. The Agency has also set a target that more than 90% of claims will be paid within three business days once validations are complete.

Facilitating NDIS Markets

A significant addition in the 2025–26 plan is the explicit commitment to facilitating markets. This includes monitoring provider availability, addressing service gaps, and ensuring participants can access the supports they need wherever they live.

The NDIA also commits to releasing NDIS pricing arrangements and price limits annually, providing clearer guidance on what supports should cost and helping to maintain a sustainable provider market.

For providers: Collaboration is key. Expect to work more closely with health, education, and community systems, and position your services as complementary to mainstream supports.

Budget and Financial Sustainability

The plan reinforces the focus on sustainability, with the budget for reasonable and necessary supports set at $49.8 billion in 2025-26 and projected to grow to $62.2 billion by 2028-29.

This growth is closely monitored through performance measures that track average annual payments per participant and annualised Scheme growth. Ensuring the Scheme remains affordable while continuing to meet participant needs is a priority that will shape both funding decisions and provider accountability.

What This Means for NDIS Providers

For providers, the corporate plan signals a future where services will be assessed not just on delivery but on outcomes. Supports that contribute to employment, inclusion, and goal achievement will be prioritised, while compliance requirements will be strengthened through claim integrity checks and clearer funding rules.

Providers will also see greater market oversight, with the NDIA monitoring service gaps and pricing trends. This creates both challenges and opportunities: providers that can demonstrate value-for-money services, strong compliance, and innovative models of care will be best positioned to grow.

How Providers Can Stay Ahead of the NDIS Changes

To stay aligned with the 2025-26 priorities, providers can:

• Review service models to ensure they support measurable outcomes such as employment, community participation, and mainstream integration.
   
• Strengthen compliance systems, with accurate documentation and processes that can stand up to integrity checks.
   
• Invest in staff training so teams deliver inclusive, evidence-based supports aligned with participant goals.
   
• Build partnerships across education, health, and community sectors to ensure participants have strong mainstream supports.
   
• Plan for sustainability, adjusting service delivery to reflect both participant needs and long-term Scheme growth.

At Labour Care, we help NDIS providers prepare for these changes through consulting, training, and compliance support.

Building a Better NDIS Together

The NDIS Corporate Plan 2025–26 provides a clear direction: deliver stronger participant outcomes, embed compliance and fraud prevention, enhance NDIA service performance, and build a sustainable provider market.

For providers, this is both a challenge and an opportunity. By aligning with the plan’s priorities, you’ll not only stay compliant, you’ll also deliver more meaningful, future-ready supports for the people who rely on you.

Labour Care can help you align your services with the NDIA’s 2025–26 priorities. Contact us today to prepare your team and systems for the future of the NDIS.

FAQs about NDIS Corporate Plan 2025–26

1. What changed from last year’s NDIS corporate plan that providers should know?

Two big additions: a formal NDIA function to prevent, detect, investigate and respond to misuse or abuse of NDIS funds, and a new Key Activity 3 focused on facilitating NDIS markets.

2. How will the NDIA strengthen fraud prevention in 2025–26?

The NDIS Corporate Plan 2025–26 expands the Fraud Fusion Taskforce and implements the Commonwealth Fraud and Corruption Control Framework to better protect participant funds.

3. What role will providers play in NDIA’s market facilitation efforts?

The NDIA commits to releasing annual NDIS pricing arrangements and price limits to improve transparency and sustainability, while monitoring service gaps and accessibility.