Home Care Package Calculator

Understanding home care packages in Australia

What a Home Care Package is worth in 2026

A Home Care Package is the federal government's funding for help that lets an older Australian stay in their own home rather than move into residential care. If you were approved on or before 31 October 2025 you keep the familiar four-level structure under transitional arrangements, with annual government contributions in 2026 running from roughly $10,600 at Level 1 (basic care, a few hours of help a week) through about $18,600 at Level 2, around $40,500 at Level 3, and up to roughly $61,400 at Level 4 for high, near-daily personal and clinical care. Your level is not chosen, it is assigned: an Aged Care Assessment Team (ACAT) reviews how much daily help you genuinely need and matches you to a level, which is why two people of the same age can sit two levels apart.

The Support at Home transition you need to understand

From 1 November 2025 the Support at Home program replaced new Home Care Package approvals. Instead of four levels it uses eight ongoing classifications, with funding from about $10,731 (Classification 1) to $78,106 (Classification 8) a year, paid in quarterly budgets rather than as one annual pool. If you are entering home-based aged care for the first time in 2026 you are assessed against those eight classifications, so treat the level figures in this calculator as a guide to the equivalent transitioned band rather than a category you will literally be placed in. Existing package holders are protected: you move across on a 'no worse off' basis, keeping at least the funding and contribution arrangements you had, which is the single most important thing to confirm with your provider during the changeover.

The funding figure is a budget, not cash

The number this calculator shows is an annual budget your provider draws against on your behalf, not money that lands in your bank account. Fees come out first. Under Support at Home a flat 10 per cent of each budget is set aside for care management (the clinical oversight, care planning and coordination), and a separate package or service-management component covers administration. Under the older package rules providers set their own care-management and admin percentages, which is exactly why two providers quoting against the same Level 3 budget of around $40,500 can leave you very different amounts of usable funding for actual support hours. Always ask for the dollar figure remaining for services after every fee, and compare providers on that figure, not the headline.

The two fees that change what you pay

Two contributions shape your real cost. The basic daily fee is a set percentage of the single Age Pension, roughly 17.5 per cent or about $12-13 a day, and it is added on top of your government funding rather than subtracted, so it buys extra hours. Higher earners may also pay an income-tested care fee, which the government deducts from its own contribution; full pensioners pay none, while part-pensioners and self-funded retirees pay more, subject to annual caps and a lifetime cap of around $84,000 shared with residential care. Because that lifetime cap carries across if you later move into a nursing home, keeping an accurate income assessment with Services Australia protects you both now and later.

Waitlists, interim packages and making the budget last

Funding follows your assessed level, but assignment is not instant. Higher levels carry the most funding and the longest queues, and it is common to be offered an interim lower-level package while you wait for your approved level to free up, so accepting a Level 2 today does not forfeit your approved Level 4. Once a package is active, plan the spend across the year: under quarterly Support at Home budgets, a quiet quarter is not necessarily lost money because a capped amount rolls forward, but large surpluses signal under-used care that a review could redirect into more hours, allied health or equipment. It also pays to read your provider's price list line by line, because what one provider charges for a weekday hour of personal care, a nurse visit or travel can differ markedly from the next, and those rates, not the headline package figure, decide how many hours your budget actually buys. Switching providers is allowed and your unspent funding generally follows you, so a provider whose fees leave little for services is a reason to move, not to settle. None of this replaces formal advice, confirm your level, fees and transition status with My Aged Care, your provider, or a financial adviser who specialises in aged care.

A worked example of what a Level 3 budget actually buys

Numbers make the fee drag concrete. Take a Level 3 equivalent budget of about $40,500 a year. Under Support at Home the flat 10 per cent care-management deduction takes roughly $4,050, and a package-management or administration component of, say, another 8 per cent takes about $3,240, leaving close to $33,200 for actual services. If your provider charges around $85 an hour for weekday personal care, that is roughly 390 hours across the year, or about seven and a half hours a week. Add the basic daily fee at roughly $12.50 a day (about $4,560 a year, paid by you and added on top) and the same budget stretches to nearer 445 hours. Now change one variable: a provider whose combined deductions run 30 per cent rather than 18 per cent leaves about $28,350, which at the same hourly rate is roughly 333 hours, a loss of about 57 hours of care a year purely to admin. That single comparison is why the usable-dollars figure, not the headline level, is the number worth arguing over.