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What aged care costs: the fees explained

Residential aged care has four fees — a flat basic daily fee plus three means-tested charges — while clinical care is free. Here's each one, and what the acronyms mean.

Updated · General information, not financial advice

Aged care in Australia comes in two forms: Support at Home (help while you stay in your own home) and residential aged care (moving into a care home). The government fully funds the clinical care; you contribute to the rest, scaled by a means test. The figures below are a 2026 vintage and are indexed regularly.

Residential care: four fees

  • Basic daily fee — a flat everyday-living charge everyone pays, set at 85% of the single Age Pension (about $65.55/day, ~$23,900/yr). Not means-tested.
  • Hotelling contribution — a means-tested charge for 'hotel' services (meals, cleaning, laundry, heating), up to about $22.15/day (~$8,100/yr). No cap.
  • Non-Clinical Care Contribution (NCCC) — a means-tested charge toward non-clinical personal care (bathing, dressing, mobility), up to about $107.32/day (~$39,200/yr) — but capped: it stops at $137,917 over your lifetime, or after 4 years, whichever comes first.
  • Accommodation — what you pay for the room, as a RAD or a DAP (see Paying for aged care).
Clinical care — nursing, medical and allied health — is fully government-funded. You never pay for it.

The acronyms, decoded

  • RAD — Refundable Accommodation Deposit: a lump sum you pay for your room. It's refundable to you or your estate when you leave (less a small retained amount), and it's exempt from the Age Pension assets test.
  • DAP — Daily Accommodation Payment: paying for the room as a daily charge instead of a lump sum — effectively interest on the unpaid room price at the MPIR.
  • MPIR — Maximum Permissible Interest Rate: the government rate that converts a room price into a DAP (currently about 7.96%). A $570,000 room works out to roughly $45,000/yr as a DAP.
  • NCCC / hotelling: the two means-tested care and living charges above.

How the means test scales the fees

The hotelling and NCCC charges are means-tested — the more assessable income and assets you have, the more you pay, up to the maximums above. A full pensioner with modest savings pays little; a self-funded retiree pays the maximum. This is a separate test from the Age Pension means test, with its own rules — including how your former home is treated. The planner approximates it with a simple means score in this first version.

Home care (Support at Home)

If you're cared for at home instead, the newer Support at Home program works similarly: clinical care is free, while everyday-living and independence services attract means-tested contributions, under a combined lifetime cap (~$135k across home and residential care).

These figures are estimates and indexed regularly; your actual fees depend on a care assessment and the provider. This is general information, not financial or aged-care advice — for your situation, use the government's My Aged Care service or a specialist adviser.

Try it — worked examples

Aged care cost calculatorMove the sliders to estimate the four fees, the RAD/DAP room payment and the means test for your own situation.Margaret · keep the home + DAPThe four fees plus a ~$45k/yr DAP — ~$116k/yr, and the plan runs short at 87.Margaret · sell to fund a RADNo DAP, so ~$71k/yr; the RAD is refundable and assets-test exempt.

Related concepts

Aged care in Australia: costs, funding and the means testPaying for aged care: RAD, DAP and the family homeHow the Age Pension is calculated (income & assets tests)

See it in your own plan

Model your super, the Age Pension and how long your money lasts — free, in today's dollars.

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