NDIS Registration Group 0138: What It Is, Who Needs It, and What Registration Actually Involves

July 27, 2026
9:24 pm

If you are considering delivering Supported Independent Living supports, or you currently do and have not yet worked out how 1 July 2026 affects your registration, this is the post to read. Registration group 0138 is a brand new class of support that took effect this financial year, and it changes what it means to be a SIL provider in Australia.

What Is NDIS Registration Group 0138?

Registration group 0138 is officially called Assistance with Supported Independent Living. It is one of two new registration groups added to the NDIS framework from 1 July 2026, bringing the total number of registration groups to 38.

0138 covers the management and delivery of home and living support packages for participants who require support at all times of the day, or for most of the day. It is the registration category for providers running SIL arrangements: group homes, shared living settings, and intensive in-home support packages where the provider is managing the full care picture.

Before 1 July 2026, there was no dedicated registration group for SIL. Providers delivering SIL typically held registration group 0115, Assistance with Daily Life Tasks in a Group or Shared Living Arrangement, or in some cases delivered SIL without any registration at all. That second option no longer exists.

Who Exactly Needs to Be Registered Under 0138

The NDIS Commission has published a formal definition of SIL under the amended Provider Registration Rules. Under that definition, you are delivering SIL if:

The participant requires support at all times of the day or for most of the day
The support assists the participant to live in their home as autonomously as possible and access the community, by assisting with or supervising daily life tasks
You as the provider are managing and delivering the SIL supports, including making sure the participant receives their home and living support in accordance with their package

It is specifically not SIL, under the Commission’s definition, if the participant only receives a few hours of support per day or week, or if the participant is choosing and managing their own support workers, including directing, planning, and rostering those workers themselves.

The practical line is this: if you are running a group home or managing a full-time living support arrangement for participants with high support needs, you are delivering SIL and registration under 0138 is not optional.

Why Was 0138 Introduced?

The backstory matters for understanding why the Commission takes this registration group so seriously.

Multiple independent reviews, including the Disability Royal Commission, the NDIS Review, and the NDIS Provider and Worker Registration Taskforce, identified significant quality and safety concerns in SIL settings. The Commission’s own Motion Inquiry into supported accommodation found that 85% of all reportable incidents in the NDIS occurred in group home settings.

That figure drove the case for mandatory registration. The Commission’s position is that providers managing high-intensity, 24-hour care arrangements need to be registered, audited, and held accountable to a specific standard. 0138 is the mechanism for that accountability.

What Registration Under 0138 Actually Involves

This is where 0138 differs significantly from lower-risk registration groups. SIL is classified as a higher-risk support category, and registration requires a Certification audit, not a Verification audit.

A Verification audit is a desktop document review. A Certification audit involves:

A full document review stage
A physical site visit to your service locations
Interviews with key personnel, support workers, and participants
Assessment against the Core Module of the NDIS Practice Standards, which covers more than 20 individual standards
Assessment against the new SIL Supplementary Module, which is specific to supported independent living and was introduced alongside 0138

The SIL Supplementary Module sets out additional requirements specific to running a SIL arrangement. Providers registered under 0138 are assessed against both the Core Module and this supplementary module at audit, and will continue to be assessed against both at every subsequent audit.

Practically speaking, Certification audits are more involved and more expensive than Verification audits. The cost varies depending on the size and scope of the organisation, but providers should expect to budget meaningfully for the audit itself, alongside the preparation work required to get documentation to the standard auditors expect.

What Happened to Registration Group 0115?

Providers who held 0115 before 1 July 2026 have had 0138 automatically added to their registration certificate by the Commission. They are not starting from scratch, but they do need to comply with the new SIL Supplementary Module standards from 1 July 2026, and they will be assessed against those standards at their next audit.

For providers who were delivering SIL without any registration at all, the window to operate outside the system has now closed. Delivering SIL without holding 0138 is a compliance breach.

What This Means If You Want to Become a SIL Provider

If you are planning to enter the SIL space as a new provider, here is what you need to understand before you apply.

First, SIL registration is not a light-touch process. The Certification audit pathway, the SIL Supplementary Module requirements, and the documentation standard the Commission expects are substantial. This is not a registration you build from nothing over a weekend. The governance structures, policies, procedures, incident management systems, and staff frameworks need to be genuinely in place and operating, not just written on paper.

Second, the opportunity is real. Demand for quality SIL providers in Australia remains high. The same reviews that drove mandatory registration also identified a shortage of providers willing and able to meet the compliance bar for high-intensity support. Providers who can meet the standard are entering a space with genuine unmet demand.

Third, the process has a clear pathway if you approach it correctly. The Commission has published detailed transition and application pathways for new providers. The audit requirements, the practice standards, and the documentation checklist are all publicly available. The challenge is not knowing what is required. The challenge is building everything to the standard required and getting it assessed by an approved quality auditor.

How Health Provider Assist Can Help

Registration under 0138 is one of the more complex NDIS registration processes available, and it is one we manage for new SIL providers end to end.

We build the governance and documentation frameworks your organisation needs to meet the Core Module and the SIL Supplementary Module standards. We prepare you for the audit process, including the site visit and the interviews, and we work through the application with the NDIS Commission on your behalf.

If you are serious about entering the SIL space and want a clear picture of what registration involves for your specific situation, the first step is a conversation.

Book a free consultation and let us walk you through what 0138 registration looks like for your business.