You must spend your funding on the supports set out in your plan. 

There are things you can’t spend your funding on such as items that are illegal or relate to your day to day living costs. Learn more about what you can’t spend your funding on.

We divide your supports into 4 different budgets:

• Core Supports
  These supports help you with everyday activities, like help to take part in activities in the community. This budget is mostly flexible so you can use funding from one support category to pay for something in another support category.
   
• Capacity building supports
  These supports to help you build your skills and increase your independence and reduce the need for the same level of support in the future. Your progress and outcomes from these supports will be shared at each plan reassessment. Capacity building supports are stated so you won’t be able to use funding from one support category to pay for something in another support category.
• Capital supports
  These supports includes high cost assistive technology, equipment, vehicle modifications, home modifications and specialist disability accommodation. Capital supports are stated. You can only use this funding to buy approved individual supports in this support category.
• Recurring supports
  These supports are paid by us on a regular basis, so you don’t need to claim for these. Your funding for your recurring supports will be paid regularly to your nominated bank account. This funding is not included anywhere else in your budget and includes mainly transport supports.

Each budget is divided into a number of support categories. Support categories have more detail about what supports you can buy with your funding. We can describe the support categories in your plan as one of the following:

• Flexible: Under the law for the NDIS, this is when we describe a support generally. Most support categories are flexible so you have greater flexibility over what disability supports you can buy within the flexible support categories.  When we describe your support categories as flexible, you can usually choose what supports you buy within the descriptions for each support category.
• Stated: Under the law for the NDIS, this is when we describe the supports in the support category specifically. It means you must buy supports in the way we have described in your plan.  We’ll be clear when we describe a support category as stated in your plan.

We describe most support categories as flexible when we can. You have greater flexibility over the support you can buy in your flexible budgets. When support categories are described as stated, you have less flexibility. When we describe supports as stated, you must use the funding in your plan to buy the supports exactly how we describe them.

Some stated budgets are more specific than others. More specific budgets have less items you can spend your funding on.

For example, we could say in your plan ‘meal preparation should be limited to $200 per month’ or ‘this funding can be used for physiotherapy’.

If you’re not sure how we described the supports in your plan, ask your my NDIS Contact, support coordinator or recovery coach.

Most budgets are flexible, which means you can choose what supports you buy within the descriptions for each support category.

Your core supports budget is the most flexible. You can usually use your funding across all the support categoriesin the Core supports budget if:

• we described the supports as flexible
• you have the same plan management options for you core supports