Support at Home Level 5: how many hours does it buy?

Quarterly budget: $10,182
Annual budget: $40,730
Everyday help hours a week: 4.5 to 7.5
Care management cap: 10%

A Level 5 Support at Home package is $10,182 a quarter (about $40,730 a year), indexed 1 July 2026. A Level 5 package buys roughly 4.5 to 7.5 hours a week of everyday help, or 3 to 5.5 of nursing and clinical care, or 2.5 to 4.5 of allied health. Or any mix, from one budget. At published full-service weekday rates, after the standard 10% care management fee. Not a quote.

Every figure on this page checked 26 July 2026, next check due 20 September 2026.

The range is not a rounding error. It comes from three very differently priced things a package can buy: everyday help, nursing and clinical care, and allied health. Who is charging matters just as much, because published rates for the same service sit a long way apart.

The toolBuild and price a week at Level 5 Set your own mix of everyday help, nursing and allied health against a Level 5 budget, at the rates real providers publish. It opens on this level.

What this looks like in a week

At a typical published rate, a Level 5 budget covers about 6 hours a week of everyday help. The published range is 4.5 to 7.5 hours a week. Providers charge genuinely different amounts for the same service, so the same budget buys different amounts of care depending on who you choose. You can see how far apart their rates sit.

With the full 10% allocation set aside, a Level 5 budget comes to about $704.93 a week to spend on services. That is the figure every week below is set against, and it is the cautious end of it: 10% is a cap, so a provider that allocates less leaves more.

Read all of that as a typical price, not a typical week. Nothing published ties a funding level to a set list of services, or to a number of visits. How the hours get arranged is worked out in the , not decided by the level.

These are weeks that families ask us to price. Nothing published says a level should contain any of them. Each one is costed at published provider rates and then set against what this budget covers, so you can see where the week you have in mind lands.

Three mornings of personal care, a fortnightly nurse and a weekly clean

Hours a week: 5.5
What it costs: $674 a week$552 to $779 across providers
Against a Level 5 budget: Just inside this budget, about $31 a week spare

An hour every weekday morning and a nurse every fortnight

Hours a week: 5.5
What it costs: $702 a week$563 to $788 across providers
Against a Level 5 budget: Just inside this budget, about $3 a week spare

A half hour morning and evening every day, plus a weekly clean

Hours a week: 8
What it costs: $963 a week$776 to $1,080 across providers
Against a Level 5 budget: About $258 a week more than this budget covers

Example weeks costed at published weekday rates and set against a Level 5 budget
A week like this	Hours a week	What it costs	Against a Level 5 budget
Three mornings of personal care, a fortnightly nurse and a weekly clean	5.5	$674 a week$552 to $779 across providers	Just inside this budget, about $31 a week spare
An hour every weekday morning and a nurse every fortnight	5.5	$702 a week$563 to $788 across providers	Just inside this budget, about $3 a week spare
A half hour morning and evening every day, plus a weekly clean	8	$963 a week$776 to $1,080 across providers	About $258 a week more than this budget covers

Costed at the weekday rates published by the providers on our provider comparison page: the middle figure is the median published rate, the range under it is the cheapest and the dearest. Budgets from the Department of Health. Arithmetic on published numbers, not a quote. Care management cap: Support at Home Program Manual v4.2, section 8.9 (care management account). Verified 24 July 2026.

Evenings and weekends cost more

These figures are weekday daytime. Providers load: Evening about +3-25% · Saturday +21-51% · Sunday +44-76% · Public holidays +86-150%.

Allied health is mostly weekday-only.

What would you pay out of pocket at Level 5?

A Support at Home is a percentage of what gets spent, and the percentage is set by income and by the kind of service, never by the level. So a bigger budget spent in full means more dollars at the same rate. At Level 5, on a budget spent 90% on everyday help and 10% on nursing and clinical care, a full pensioner would pay roughly $1,650 to $5,773 a year and a self funded retiree roughly $16,495 to $26,393.

This is money invoiced on top. It does not come out of the budget, and it does not reduce the hours the budget buys.

Full pensioner

Per quarter: $412 to $1,443
Per year: $1,650 to $5,773

Part pensioner or Commonwealth Seniors Health Card holder

Per quarter: $412 to $6,598
Per year: $1,650 to $26,393

Self-funded

Per quarter: $4,124 to $6,598
Per year: $16,495 to $26,393

Worked participant contributions at Level 5, by income band
Income band	Per quarter	Per year
Full pensioner	$412 to $1,443	$1,650 to $5,773
Part pensioner or Commonwealth Seniors Health Card holder	$412 to $6,598	$1,650 to $26,393
Self-funded	$4,124 to $6,598	$16,495 to $26,393

Contribution rates from the Support at Home program manual, version 4.2 (December 2025), section 9. Budget from the Department of Health. Verified 26 July 2026.

These figures assume the same mix at every level. Nine tenths of the budget goes to everyday help and one tenth to nursing and clinical care, after the care management allocation is set aside. The mix is an assumption, not an entitlement, and nothing published ties a level to a mix. It is held identical across all eight levels on purpose, so the only reason the numbers differ from level to level is the size of the budget.

Why the hourly rate is not in this

A contribution is a percentage of what gets spent, and the spend here is a share of the budget. So what a provider charges an hour cancels out of the arithmetic entirely. That is why these figures carry no "at published rates" hedge, unlike the week costs above.

Care management is free, at every level

Care management is left out of the working. It sits in the clinical supports category, where the contribution rate is nil in every income band, so putting it back would not change the figure.

Every row is a span rather than one number. Everyday help covers two categories charged at different rates, independence services and everyday living services, and which of the two an hour falls into depends on what was delivered. The part pension figure is a range because two separate things are unknown at once. Which category the spending fell into, and where an income sits on the sliding scale between the two rates. The bottom of the range is the rate a full pensioner pays. The top is the rate a self funded retiree pays. Nothing published says where inside that span a particular income lands.

One thing to check before you use any of these figures. If the first approval for a package was on or before 12 September 2024, the grandfathered rates apply instead, and they are much lower.

Contribution rates by income band, including the grandfathered ones →

What is different about a Level 5 budget

Every rule below applies at every level. What each one comes to in dollars does not, and these are the figures they produce at Level 5.

What an empty quarter costs at Level 5

Services can be paused for a hospital stay, transition care, residential respite or personal reasons, and the quarterly budget keeps being credited while they are. But only the carryover cap survives into the next quarter.

At Level 5 that means a quarter with nothing delivered costs about $9,164: $10,182 arrives, $1,018.24 carries, and the rest goes back.

Support at Home program manual, version 4.2, section 12.2.

A letter can show less than this

If a letter names a smaller figure than the published Level 5 budget, that is probably , which the department also calls the minimum service offer. It is 60% of the classification total, so about $6,109 a quarter instead of $10,182.

This is not something Level 5 does, and no level is exempt from it. It applies when demand for Support at Home is running ahead of what can be allocated in full.

Services start on it, and the remaining 40% is allocated when funding becomes available and confirmed by a second letter. Full funding goes out straight away to anyone in the urgent priority category, or approved for the restorative or end of life pathways.

Support at Home program manual, version 4.2, section 6.8.1.

About 34% more than Level 4

Level 4 is about $30,469 a year and Level 5 about $40,730. The scale is not evenly spaced, so the size of a step is worth checking before deciding a reassessment is worth asking for.

At a typical published rate that difference comes to about 1.5 hours a week more of everyday help. That figure is worked out from the budget and published provider rates, because no government figure exists.

Not getting the hours these numbers say you should?

Tell Vera what the package is and what it currently buys. You'll come away with a plan for getting more from the same budget, whether that's a conversation with the provider or a change.

Talk it through with Vera

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How your level was decided

Your level is not chosen from a description of what someone can or cannot do. It is worked out from three things the assessor scores, and the law sets the exact combination that produces each level.

The three are a , a , and a yes or no on . Here they are in the law's words and then in plain ones.

Home support functional independence score

How much the person being assessed can manage on their own day to day, scored by the assessor.

Home support needs met score

How much of what they need is already being covered, including by family and by help they already receive.

Significant compounding factors

A yes or no on whether other things are making the situation harder, such as living alone or a carer who is struggling.

Why this level and not another

There are two ways to arrive at Level 5. So two people on the same level can look quite different.

With other things making it harder. The person being assessed is scored as managing more on their own, and less of what they need is covered.
Without them. They are scored as managing less on their own, and more of what they need is covered.

So the two routes differ on all three of the things above.

What changed from Level 4

Level 5 is the second and last crossing point in the table. Its compounding factors route is the final row in the 25 to 29 functional independence band. Its other route drops into the 0 to 24 band, which is the widest band on the scale. Every route above Level 5 sits in that one band, so from here up the functional independence score stops separating the levels and the needs met score does the work.

Worth checking

One missing note is worth a whole level

Take the same two scores. With other things making it harder, they give Level 5. Without, they give Level 4. That holds at every step of the scale, with no exceptions.

So the written record matters as much as the need. If nobody wrote down what makes the situation harder, the level lands one step lower. That is not a judgement call. It is what the law's table does.

Things like living alone, or a carer who is struggling, count here. If that is true in your situation and it was never written down, that is a concrete reason to ask for a new assessment.

The assessment counts the help you already give

Here is the part families are almost never told. What is already being done for the person being assessed goes into the score, and that includes what the family does.

Take two people who manage day to day about equally well. The one with more of their needs already covered is classified lower. The law's table works that way at every level.

This is not a reason to do less. It is a reason to make sure the assessor hears all of it. What is not covered. What only happens because someone in the family does it. And what goes wrong on the bad days.

This is why a level is not something to argue about with a provider. A provider can't change it, because a provider didn't set it. The came out of those three scores, so the way to move it is a new . How long the change then takes depends on the priority category the assessor records.

How priority categories decide the wait →

There is one thing we still can't tell you, and nor can anyone else. The exact wording of the criteria is below. It says which scores produce which level. It does not say what those scores mean in daily life, and nobody publishes that link. No government document says what a Level 5 package is meant to buy, or how many hours it should come to. So a page that gives you one figure for the hours a level buys, and calls it a fact, is guessing. The hours on this page are worked out from the budget and published provider rates, and the calculator shows that working.

The exact wording in the Rules

This is what the law sets out for Level 5. The numbers are assessment scores. They are not hours, and not dollars.

One way in

Home support functional independence score: 25-29
Home support needs met score: 0-27
Significant compounding factors: Yes

The other way in

Home support functional independence score: 0-24
Home support needs met score: 29-36
Significant compounding factors: No

Set out in Aged Care Rules 2025, section 81-10 (Compilation No. 8), at s 81-10(1) item 6, p 133. Volume 1, Chapter 2, Part 3, Division 3, Subdivision B, s 81-10, table at pp 132-134. Compilation date 1 July 2026, registered 21 July 2026. Verified 2026-07-25.

Level 5 against the other levels

Level	Annual budget	Hours a week, self-managed	Hours a week, published full-service
1	$11,010	~2.9	~1.4-2.0
2	$16,451	~4.3	~2.1-2.9
3	$22,537	~5.9	~2.9-4.0
4	$30,469	~8.0	~3.9-5.4
5	$40,730	~10.7	~5.2-7.3
6	$49,365	~13.0	~6.3-8.8
7	$59,660	~15.7	~7.6-10.6
8	$80,137	~21.1	~10.3-14.3

Self-managed is weekday personal care at platform rates. Published full-service is the range across the providers compared on this page. Both are after 10% care management, over 52 weeks. A baseline for comparison, not a quote.

See all eight levels side by side →

Common questions

How much of an unspent quarter carries over at Level 5?

$1,018.24, and Level 5 is the first level where that figure is not a flat $1,000. The cap is the higher of $1,000 or 10% of the quarterly budget, and at Level 5 the 10% comes to $1,018.24 for the first time. From here up the cap grows with the budget. Below Level 5 it does not move at all.

From Level 5 up, what actually separates the levels?

Not the functional independence score. Level 5 has one route in the lowest band on that scale, and every level above it sits entirely in that band. So above Level 5 the separating is done by the needs met score, which is how much of what someone needs is already being covered, and by whether compounding factors were recorded. If the family is doing a lot and nobody wrote it down, that is where it costs you.

We used to get the dementia supplement. Where did it go?

There is no dementia supplement under Support at Home. The department says the higher funded levels of care exist for people with complex needs, and that the assessment considers cognitive ability when it sets the classification. So the supplement was folded into the scale rather than paid separately. Anyone receiving the Dementia and Cognition Supplement on 31 October 2025 kept it when they transitioned.

Our provider says the services will not fit in the budget. Who decides?

You decide together, in the care plan and the individualised budget, and the provider carries the risk. A cannot go into a negative balance, and Services Australia cannot pay a claim once the budget is exhausted. The manual is direct about where the duty sits. It is the provider who is responsible for making sure overspends do not happen. So this is a planning conversation, not a bill you can be handed later.

Will Level 5 cover help every day?

That depends entirely on who you buy it from, and the honest answer is arithmetic rather than yes or no. At Level 5 the budget after care management is about $705 a week, which is roughly 6 hours of everyday help at a typical published rate. Whether a daily pattern fits inside that is a sum you can do, and the examples above do it three different ways. Nothing published says a level should cover any particular pattern.

Where to go next

Not getting the hours these numbers say you should?

Tell Vera what the package is and what it currently buys. You'll come away with a plan for getting more from the same budget, whether that's a conversation with the provider or a change.

Talk it through with Vera

Free. Private. No account needed.