What the NDIA is deciding
When you make an access request, the NDIA has to decide whether you meet the access criteria in section 21 of the NDIS Act. You meet them if you satisfy all of these:
- The age requirement: you were under 65 when you made the request
- The residence requirement: you live in Australia and are an Australian citizen, a permanent visa holder or a protected special category visa holder
- Either the disability requirements or the early intervention requirements
How long an access decision takes
The NDIS Act sets an outer limit of 90 days, but the Participant Service Guarantee sets a shorter one. The NDIA must make an access decision, or ask you for more information, within 21 days of receiving your access request.
If it asks for more information or a report, you have 90 days to provide it, or longer if the request says so. Once the last piece arrives, the NDIA has 14 days to decide or ask for something further. If you do not respond in time, your request can be treated as withdrawn unless the NDIA accepts you had a good reason.
If the NDIA does not decide in time
If the NDIA misses these timeframes, the Act says it is taken to have decided that you do not meet the access criteria. This is often called a deemed refusal. It sounds harsh, but it protects you: a deemed refusal is automatically sent for internal review, so your request does not sit in limbo.
What your decision letter tells you
The NDIA sends you a letter with its decision. It explains whether you are eligible, the reasons for the decision, the date it was made and your next steps.
The NDIA must consider the disability requirements and the early intervention requirements separately, and your letter says which you met. It can be both. If you are eligible, the NDIA also gives you a notice of impairments listing the categories of impairment it accepted. This matters later, because your NDIS supports need to relate to those impairments.
If the answer is yes
You become an NDIS participant on the day the decision is made. The NDIA says it will start making your first plan within 21 days. It will talk with you about your goals, your support needs and the informal, community and mainstream supports you already have.
Since 1 October 2026, a new first plan has the funding reset for social, economic and community participation and improved daily living skills supports applied when it is created. Your plan shows the total funding and the amount available after the change.
If the answer is no
Read the reasons carefully. Many refusals come down to evidence: the NDIA was not satisfied the impairment is permanent, or that it substantially reduces your functional capacity. You then have two options:
- Ask for an internal review within 3 months of receiving the decision in writing. Someone who was not involved in the first decision looks at it again, and you can add new evidence. The NDIA aims to finish internal reviews within 60 days
- Make a new access request with stronger evidence. You can do this at any time, unless a review of the earlier decision is still under way
- If you still disagree after the internal review, you can apply to the Administrative Review Tribunal. Free help is available through the NDIS Appeals program
Access decisions from 2028
Nothing changes about how access is decided until 1 January 2028. From then, access is based on a standardised assessment of how your disability affects day to day living, permanence includes whether appropriate treatment has been tried, and current participants are reassessed against the new criteria over 3 years. Children 8 and under with developmental delay or autism and low to moderate support needs who apply from then are supported by Thriving Kids instead.