Supported Independent Living (SIL) Explained: What It Funds, Who Qualifies, and 2025-26 Costs

Supported Independent Living, or SIL, is one of the NDIS's 'home and living' supports. In plain terms, it's funding for support workers to help or supervise you with everyday tasks in your home, so you can live as independently as possible while building your skills. The NDIS describes SIL as personal support for people with higher support needs who need some level of help at home all the time, which can mean support up to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The single most important thing to understand is that SIL pays for people, not property. It funds the staff who help you cook, manage personal care, take medication, get to appointments or build daily-living and social skills. It does not pay for the house, and it can't be used for rent, groceries, household bills or other day-to-day living expenses. Those costs come out of your own income, just as they would for anyone else.

SIL also isn't funded everywhere. The NDIS does not fund SIL while you are in hospital or in prison, because other systems are responsible for your support in those settings.

If you need help for less than 24 hours a day, SIL might not be the right support for you, and the NDIS may look at other home and living options instead. SIL is best thought of as the 'support' layer of your living arrangement, which can sit alongside other supports like housing funding.

SIL is generally for people with higher, ongoing support needs at home. It's most often used by people who live with housemates who also have NDIS funding and share their supports, but it can also be funded for someone who needs support to live alone.

The NDIS doesn't simply take your word that you need SIL. It looks at the type of supports you need each day because of your disability, and this picture is usually developed by an allied health professional, such as an occupational therapist. If you're new to SIL, or the NDIS doesn't have enough information, you may be asked to get an assessment first.

When deciding whether to fund SIL, the NDIS weighs it against the usual funding criteria, including whether it represents value for money compared with other home and living supports, and whether a different option would better suit your needs. The decision, and the reasons for it, are explained during your planning conversation and set out in your approved plan.

Because the decision is needs-based and individual, two people in the same house can have very different SIL funding. There's no single dollar figure that applies to everyone.

SIL covers the regular, scheduled help and supervision you need with daily tasks inside your home. The exact mix depends on your plan, but it commonly includes the kinds of supports below.

• Personal care, such as showering, dressing and grooming

• Help with meals, including planning, cooking and eating

• Taking medication and managing routines

• Household tasks like cleaning, laundry and tidying (with you, to build skills)

• Supervision and safety, including overnight support where needed

• Building daily-living and social skills, and help getting to appointments

SIL focuses on support inside and around the home and on the routines of daily life. Supports that take you out into the community for activities or work are usually funded separately, not from your core SIL budget. If you're unsure whether a particular support sits inside SIL or in another part of your plan, ask your planner or support coordinator to confirm.

SIL funding isn't a flat allowance. Your provider works with you to build a 'roster of care', which is a detailed plan of the support everyone in the home needs across a typical week. The roster divides the 24-hour day into 30-minute blocks across all 7 days, and records who supports you, when, and at what staff-to-participant ratio.

The ratio matters because it drives the cost. A 1:1 ratio means one support worker for you alone, while 1:2 or 1:3 means a worker is shared between two or three participants in the home at that time. Shared ratios reduce the cost per person, which is why SIL is so often delivered in shared homes. In shared arrangements, the NDIS looks at everyone's needs together to make sure the roster is right for the whole household.

Overnight support is handled in two ways. If you need up to two hours of awake help overnight, the NDIS funds a 'sleepover'. If you need more than two hours of awake support overnight, it funds 'active overnight' support, where the worker stays awake to assist you.

Most people are funded at the 'standard' support level. A 'high-intensity' level applies where you need support workers with extra qualifications and experience, for example because of complex health needs or behaviours of concern. Your needs level and your price level are related but not identical, so it's worth asking your provider to explain how the roster translates into your funded amount.

SIL is charged by the hour, using the same support-worker price limits as other daily-life supports in the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits. For 2025-26, the standard rate for weekday daytime support (roughly 6am to 8pm, Monday to Friday) is capped at $70.23 per hour. Rates step up for less convenient times, with higher caps for weekday evenings, Saturdays, Sundays, public holidays and overnight active support, and a higher set of rates again for high-intensity support.

These limits are maximums, not fixed prices, and they're indexed. From 1 July 2025 the NDIS increased relevant support-worker price limits by 3.95%, reflecting the minimum-wage rise under the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award. Price limits are reviewed regularly, so always confirm the current figure in the latest NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits before relying on a number.

Because SIL is built from a personalised roster, the total annual cost varies enormously, from tens of thousands of dollars for lighter, shared support up to several hundred thousand dollars for round-the-clock, high-intensity, one-to-one care. Any single 'average' figure you see online is indicative only. Your actual funding is whatever the NDIS approves for your roster of care, and that's the number that counts.

One more cost worth knowing about: the NDIS generally funds a small number of 'irregular' SIL support days for one-off situations outside your normal roster, typically 10 days a year for standard support needs and 15 days a year for high-intensity needs.

SIL is easy to confuse with other home and living supports, but they do different jobs. Knowing the difference helps you understand what each part of your plan is actually paying for.

• SIL funds the support workers who help you in your home. It is not the house and it is not your rent.

• Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) funds specially designed or built housing for people with extreme functional impairment or very high support needs. SDA pays the housing provider, not your support workers.

• An Individualised Living Option (ILO) is a more tailored, flexible way to design and fund your living and support arrangements, often used as an alternative to traditional shared SIL.

Many people have a combination. A common setup is SDA for the home, SIL for the support inside it, and a reasonable rent contribution that the participant pays themselves from their own income, along with everyday bills like electricity. If you're weighing up options, ask whether a shared SIL home, an ILO or another arrangement best fits how you want to live, not just what's available.

Getting SIL usually starts in your planning conversation. Because the NDIS bases the decision on the daily support you need due to your disability, it helps to come prepared with evidence, often an occupational therapist's assessment, that sets out your support needs clearly. If SIL is approved, you'll typically also have support coordination funding to help you find a provider and build your roster of care.

Once SIL is in your plan, you choose who delivers it. Your provider works with you to develop the roster of care and, in a shared home, to make sure the arrangement works for everyone living there. You're entitled to ask how rosters, ratios and shift times affect your funding, and to seek a provider whose approach and staff are a good fit for you.

Before committing to a SIL provider, it's worth checking their standing on the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission's provider register. You can confirm whether a provider is registered, and search for any banning orders, compliance notices or other enforcement actions recorded against a provider or worker. This is a quick, independent way to do your homework.

Finally, keep the operational guidelines handy. The NDIS updates its SIL guidance and pricing regularly, so if a rule, rate or ratio matters to your situation, confirm it against the official NDIS page rather than a third-party summary.