SIL Mandatory Registration: What Providers Must Do Before 1 October 2026

The biggest regulatory change for NDIS home and living providers in years is now in force. From 1 July 2026, providers of supported independent living (SIL) must be registered with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, and existing unregistered SIL providers who have not applied by 1 October 2026 must stop delivering SIL. If you deliver SIL, or you are a sole trader providing substantial daily supports in someone's home, the clock is running. Here is what the change means and what to do about it.

This article is general information based on NDIS Commission guidance current at August 2026. The transition arrangements are detailed and depend on your situation, so check the Commission's SIL mandatory registration pages for your specific pathway.

What counts as SIL under the new rules

The Commission has defined supported independent living for the purposes of mandatory registration. In summary, a provider is delivering SIL where:

• the participant requires support at all times of the day, or for most of the day
• the assistance helps the participant live as autonomously as possible in their home and access the community, by assisting with or supervising daily life tasks
• the provider is managing and delivering the package of home and living supports.

It is not SIL if the person only receives a few hours of support a day or week, or if the participant chooses and manages their own support workers, including directing, planning and rostering them. That carve-out matters for independent support workers engaged directly by self-managing participants.

The key dates

• 1 July 2026: mandatory registration for SIL took effect. A new registration group, 0138 Assistance with supported independent living, now exists, and the Applications Portal accepts applications for it. Delivering SIL without registration from this date can breach the NDIS Act, with a maximum penalty of 2 years imprisonment, 120 penalty units, or both.
• 1 October 2026: the deadline for existing unregistered SIL providers under the transition arrangements. If you were delivering SIL and choose not to apply, or have not applied by this date, you must stop providing SIL and follow the Commission's notification and participant transition steps.

What registered SIL providers must comply with

All registered SIL providers need to:

• undergo certification audits (the two-stage audit type, not the simpler verification pathway)
• comply with the core module of the NDIS Practice Standards
• comply with the new supplementary SIL module of the Practice Standards
• meet all other conditions of registration, including worker screening for key personnel and risk-assessed roles.

Already-registered providers holding group 0115 (assistance with daily life tasks in a group or shared living arrangement) have their own transition pathway, and the Commission is updating certificates to include 0138. The same 1 July 2026 rules also brought in mandatory registration for NDIS digital platform providers (new group 0137).

What to do now if you are affected

• Confirm whether your services meet the SIL definition. This is the threshold question. The Commission's pathway pages step through each situation, including sole traders.
• If you are an existing unregistered SIL provider: apply before 1 October 2026. Applying is what keeps you inside the transition arrangements.
• Prepare for a certification audit. You will be assessed against the core module and the SIL supplementary module. That means governance, incident and complaint systems, risk management, workforce records, and SIL-specific documentation such as rosters of care, participant matching and shared living arrangements need to be in order, implemented and evidenced.
• Do not wait for the audit to build your evidence. Registers, training records and version-controlled documents take months to accumulate. Auditors want to see them in use, not freshly printed.

Getting your documentation SIL-ready

Our Complete NDIS Provider Document Library (330 editable documents) covers the core module set plus SIL-relevant operational documents including onboarding, participant matching and property records, and the High Intensity Supports Add-On covers the clinical procedures many SIL participants need. Everything is editable, version-controlled and mapped to the Practice Standards. The usual honest caveat applies: documents must be customised to your operation and backed by implementation evidence. No document pack, ours included, makes you registration-ready by itself, and audit outcomes always depend on your actual practice.

Frequently asked questions

Does a SIL provider have to be registered?

Yes. From 1 July 2026 providing SIL requires registration with the NDIS Commission. Existing unregistered SIL providers must have applied by 1 October 2026 to continue operating under the transition arrangements.

What happens if I keep delivering SIL without registering?

It is a serious offence. The Commission states the maximum penalty is 2 years imprisonment, a fine of 120 penalty units, or both. Providers who stop must follow formal notification and participant transition steps.

Does mandatory SIL registration affect independent support workers?

Only if what they deliver meets the SIL definition. Where a self-managing participant chooses, directs and rosters their own workers, that arrangement is expressly not SIL. Workers providing a few hours of support a day or week are also outside the definition.

What audit does a SIL provider need?

Certification: a Stage 1 desktop audit and a Stage 2 onsite audit, assessed against the core module and the SIL supplementary module of the Practice Standards.

Sources: NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, Mandatory registration and transition pathways for SIL and Apply for registration, accessed August 2026.