How SDA funding works
Where the money actually comes from, the formula that caps it, and the chain of parties between the NDIA and your bank account.
Every number in this page comes from the official SDA Pricing Arrangements — the same dataset that powers the Feasibility and Yield calculators.
The money flow
NDIA → SDA provider (dwelling owner or their registered provider)
The SDA payment — an annual amount per SDA-eligible resident, claimed while an eligible participant lives in the enrolled dwelling.
Participant → SDA provider
The Maximum Reasonable Rent Contribution (MRRC) — set at 25% of the Disability Support Pension base rate plus the maximum Commonwealth Rent Assistance — and, separately, board/utilities by agreement.
NDIA → SIL / support provider (a different party)
Funding for the daily support delivered in the home (SIL etc.) — this is service funding, entirely separate from the SDA property payment. Do not count it as property revenue.
The property owner's revenue is the first two rows — the SDA payment plus the resident's rent contribution. Both stop (or shrink) when a place is vacant, which is why vacancy dominates the risk picture in this market.
The formula that caps your revenue
Base price
$87,235
HPS · 1-bed apartment · new build
Location factor
0.81 – 1.99
published per SA4 region
Annual limit / resident
your ceiling
not negotiable upward
The same dwelling, three regions
Remote factors are high because building costs more there — they are not a demand signal.
- Base price — published per design category (Improved Liveability, Fully Accessible, Robust, High Physical Support; Basic exists only for existing/legacy stock) and building type (11 official types, each with a fixed resident count — e.g. “House, 3 residents”). New builds command far higher bases than existing stock; variants exist for fire sprinklers, onsite overnight assistance (OOA), and GST treatment. Some combinations simply don't exist — there is no such thing as a Robust apartment.
- Location factor — a published multiplier for each of the 88 SA4 regions, per building type. Apartments vary little by region; land-heavy types swing from ~0.81 in regional Victoria to ~1.99 in Sydney's inner south. “Median capital city” = 1.00.
- Indexation — SDA prices are CPI-indexed each 1 July through 2027. The in-force edition is published on the NDIA's SDA pricing page; this platform labels every calculator with the edition it uses.
Worked example: a High Physical Support 1-bedroom apartment (new build, no sprinklers, GST credits claimed) has a base of $87,235 per resident per year under the 2025-26 v2.0 edition; in a region with factor 1.00 that is your annual ceiling for that resident — before vacancy, management, and outgoings.
What moves the base price
Design category ladder (1-bed apartment, new build)
HPS is the highest-priced category. Robust doesn't exist for apartments at all — a favourite fiction of bad brochures.
New build vs existing stock (HPS, 1-bed apartment)
The +32% new-build premium is why everyone wants to develop — and why new-build supply overshot. Higher ceiling, same tenant pool.
The conditions attached
- The dwelling must be enrolled with the NDIA in a specific design category and building type — new builds require certification against the SDA Design Standard by an accredited assessor.
- SDA payments are claimed by a registered SDA provider (NDIS Commission registration, practice standards, audits). Investors typically engage one under a management agreement rather than registering themselves.
- The resident must be an NDIS participant with SDA funding in their plan, in a matching design category — your tenant pool is not the general rental market, it is the subset of ~25,600 SDA-eligible participants who both want and are funded for your configuration in your region.
- Tenancy matching typically runs through SIL providers, support coordinators, and platforms — which is why provider relationships matter as much as the building.
Where to go next
Based on the NDIS Pricing Arrangements for SDA (2025-26 v2.0, in force as of July 2026). General information only — not financial, legal, or investment advice.