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An assistance animal is an animal specially trained to help you do things you can’t do because of your disability. These are things the animal wouldn’t naturally do otherwise, like guiding you through crowded places.
To be included in your plan, an assistance animal must, among other things, be an NDIS support that is related to your disability support needs.
An assistance animal is an NDIS support if it is one of the following:
- accredited under a State or Territory law that provides accreditation of animals trained to assist someone with a disability to alleviate the effect of the disability
- accredited by an animal training organisation prescribed by the Disability Discrimination Act regulations
- accredited by a registered NDIS provider who is registered to provide assistance animals under s73E of the NDIS Act
- trained to assist a person with a disability to alleviate the effect of a disability and to meet the hygiene and behaviour standards expected for an animal in a public place. To learn about how we decide this, go to How do we decide if an assistance animal is trained to assist a person with a disability?
What's a registered NDIS provider?
A registered NDIS provider may be registered with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission (the Commission). Generally, if a provider isn’t registered with the Commission, they’ll be registered with the relevant state or territory authority for assistance animals.
You can search for registered providers using the Provider finder tool.
Your state and territory will also have websites for providers who are accredited and registered providers in that state or territory.