Do NDIS support workers charge GST?

Under $75,000: registering is usually optional

You must register for GST once your GST turnover reaches $75,000. That's your total business income, not your profit, for the current month and the previous 11 months. It also counts what's coming: if your turnover for the current month and the next 11 months is likely to reach $75,000 (the ATO calls this projected GST turnover), you must register too. You then have 21 days to register. The one exception: if your turnover has reached $75,000 but the ATO is satisfied your projected turnover will be under it, you don't have to. The ATO suggests checking your turnover each month.

Below the threshold, registering is usually optional, and if you choose to register you generally have to stay registered for at least 12 months. The ATO's list of when you must register also includes earning income 'through the sharing economy or digital platforms', so if you find work through a platform, check the ATO's sharing economy guidance.

If you're not registered, you don't charge GST, and your invoice isn't a tax invoice: the ATO says businesses that aren't registered must issue standard invoices. But if you should have registered and didn't, the ATO says you may have to pay GST on your sales from the date you were required to register, even though you didn't include it in your prices, plus penalties and interest.

NDIS income counts toward the $75,000

This part is easy to miss. GST turnover is your total business income less a short list of exclusions, such as input-taxed sales. GST-free sales aren't on that list, so NDIS income counts toward the threshold even when the supports would be GST-free. It takes fewer hours than you might think: at $65 an hour over 48 weeks, 25 hours a week passes it. And because the threshold also counts what you expect to earn, you may need to register as soon as you expect hours like these, not once the invoices add up.

If you're registered: when an NDIS support is GST-free

A GST-registered worker doesn't add GST to an NDIS support that meets every requirement the GST law sets out for NDIS supplies. If any one is missing, it isn't a GST-free NDIS supply. Whether GST then applies depends on the rest of the GST law, so check with a registered tax or BAS agent.

Two more things to know. Where GST does apply to a support for a plan-managed or NDIA-managed participant, it comes out of the NDIS price limit, not on top: the 2026–27 NDIS Pricing Schedule says its maximum amounts already include any GST. And the determination behind the fourth requirement covers supplies made before 1 July 2027, so check the ATO's NDIS page for what applies after that.

Plan managers, agencies and other providers

Sending your invoices to a participant's plan manager doesn't make the plan manager your customer. The ATO says supplies of NDIS supports are normally made to the participant, not the plan manager, and in its example a worker whose invoices go to the plan manager each month makes a GST-free supply to the participant.

Subcontracting is different. The GST-free rule covers supplies made to the participant. If you're registered for GST and you subcontract (the provider or agency is your customer: you invoice them, and they invoice the participant), the ATO's published example is worth knowing: contractors supplying a provider that isn't the participant don't have their supply made GST-free by that rule. If that's your set-up, take the question to a registered tax or BAS agent with your contracts in hand.