From 1 December 2026, people using the NDIS will have 90 days to claim supports listed in their plan, down from the current two-year window. The change was introduced under the NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Act 2026 and passed Parliament in April 2026 after being introduced the previous year.

This 90-day deadline is not flexible. Providers and plan managers who currently use the two-year window to reconcile invoices or sort out billing disputes will need to change how they work well before December comes around. For participants — especially those with complex support arrangements or who have difficulty communicating — meeting a quarterly deadline creates a real practical burden, and the policy assumes a level of administrative skill that not every participant or their nominee possesses.

Health and Disability Minister Mark Butler framed the bill's rationale around two other structural measures: stricter rules for when plans can be reviewed and reassessed, and direct steps to slow the growth of plan costs. Together, these changes show the government is focused on controlling how much money flows out of the scheme — specifically, by limiting how often plans can be reviewed (which can push costs up) and by reducing claims made long after a plan period ends.

The NDIS claims and payments system itself is also being rebuilt. An upgrade to the claims and payments infrastructure is scheduled to start in July 2026, with full completion by 2030. That timing means the new 90-day rule will operate for roughly three and a half years using the existing computer systems before the new infrastructure is ready — a situation that will test whether the NDIS Agency can enforce the tighter window without the new systems it was designed to work with.

The bigger picture is that NDIS costs per person have been climbing steadily, and that's become a standard concern in budget discussions. The structural changes — shorter claims windows, tighter reassessment rules — are the government's legislative response to that trajectory. The real question is whether they reduce costs or simply shift the administrative work onto participants and providers. The 90-day rule itself doesn't change what supports a person gets; it changes the window in which those supports can be billed. If legitimate supports go unclaimed because the deadline passes, the government saves money, but the scheme's purpose — funding reasonable and necessary supports — has to shoulder the burden of meeting that fiscal goal.

For staff tracking implementation: the December date is locked in, the system overhaul won't be finished until 2030, and the gap between those two dates is where pressure on compliance and advocacy will build in the near term.