Key Takeaways
- The NDIS Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025 passed Parliament on 31 March 2026. Most provisions commence 28 days after Royal Assent, placing the effective date in late April 2026.
- Providing high-risk NDIS supports, including SIL, without being registered is now a criminal offence carrying a maximum penalty of 5 years imprisonment for an individual.
- All SIL providers and platform-based providers that are not currently registered must complete registration by 1 July 2026. Registration requires a certification-level audit, which typically takes three to six months.
- The NDIS Commission's banning order powers now extend to auditors, consultants, and business advisors involved in NDIS service delivery, and violating a banning order is itself a criminal offence.
- The Commission can issue anti-promotion orders to restrict providers from using misleading marketing or making false claims about NDIS fundable supports.
The NDIS Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025 passed Parliament on 31 March 2026, and the sector is now working through what it means for providers on the ground. This is not a compliance update at the margins. The Bill introduces criminal penalties, significantly expanded regulatory powers for the NDIS Commission, and a hard deadline requiring thousands of currently unregistered SIL and platform-based providers to complete a full certification audit by 1 July 2026. For many providers, that deadline is under three months away. Getting this wrong carries consequences that are fundamentally different from anything the scheme has seen before.
Criminal Penalties for Unregistered High-Risk Supports
The most significant shift in the Bill is the introduction of criminal penalties for providing high-risk NDIS supports without registration. Prior to this legislation, non-registration in high-risk support categories was a civil matter. Under the amended Act, an individual who provides Supported Independent Living or other designated high-risk supports without being a registered provider faces a maximum of 5 years imprisonment.
This is a deliberate signal from the Government about how seriously it views non-compliance at the serious end of the scheme. The Commission's enforcement over the past 18 months produced record civil penalties: $1.9 million against Valmar Support Services in January 2025 following a participant death, and $1.1 million against Oak Tasmania in 2025 for 474 failures to report incidents within required timeframes. For more on the Commission's current enforcement priorities and the fraud crackdown driving these changes, see our NDIS fraud crackdown and compliance guide. The legislative intent behind the criminal penalty threshold is to address situations where civil penalties have not been a sufficient deterrent, particularly for operators who have continued to provide unregistered services across repeated compliance actions.
The criminal penalty applies to individuals, not just corporate entities. A sole trader operating an unregistered SIL service after 1 July 2026 is personally exposed to criminal prosecution, not just a civil fine. This is a material change in the risk profile of operating outside the registration framework.
SIL and Platform Provider Mandatory Registration: The July 2026 Deadline
From 1 July 2026, all providers of Supported Independent Living and all platform-based providers delivering NDIS supports must be registered with the Commission. There is no grace period beyond the deadline and no transitional pathway that permits continued unregistered operation.
SIL registration requires a certification-level audit, the more intensive of the two audit types in the NDIS registration framework. Certification audits assess your organisation against the NDIS Practice Standards across all relevant support categories, require a desktop review followed by an on-site visit, and typically take three to six months from initial engagement with an approved quality auditor to receiving an outcome. Our NDIS audit preparation checklist covers what auditors look for, common non-conformities, and how to prepare your documentation before the auditor arrives. The Commission then processes the audit outcome and issues registration. If you are a currently unregistered SIL provider and have not yet engaged an auditor, you are already working with a compressed timeline.
Platform-based providers, meaning organisations that connect participants with workers through a digital matching or marketplace model, are also captured regardless of whether they hold direct service agreements with participants or employ support workers. The Commission's position is that the platform model does not reduce the risk to participants and does not justify a lower regulatory standard than direct service provision.
For providers that need to register: the practical steps are to first confirm whether your supports fall within the mandatory registration categories (our NDIS provider registration guide explains registration types, support categories, and the verification versus certification audit distinction in full), then contact an NDIS Commission-approved quality auditor to understand current availability and timelines for certification audits, then prepare your policies and documentation against the NDIS Practice Standards, and then lodge a registration application with the Commission to begin the formal process. Waiting for further Commission guidance before starting is a risky approach given the timeline.
Expanded Banning Order Powers
Previously, the Commission could issue banning orders to registered providers and key personnel within those organisations. The amended Act extends this power to cover auditors, consultants, and business advisors who are involved in NDIS service delivery or support. This directly addresses a documented pattern of individuals who have received banning orders continuing to operate by working as advisors, consultants, or directors of new entities.
A banning order under the amended Act can follow an individual into their consulting and advisory roles, not just their direct service provision. Violating a banning order is now a criminal offence carrying up to 5 years imprisonment, matching the penalty for unregistered high-risk service delivery. The expanded scope of banning orders closes a pathway that some exited or excluded operators had been using to remain connected to the scheme.
For registered providers, this change matters because it affects who you can engage as a consultant, business advisor, or auditor. Before entering into advisory arrangements with individuals who have previously operated in the NDIS space, checking the Commission's public register of compliance actions is now a basic due diligence step.
Anti-Promotion Orders
The anti-promotion order is a new power with no direct predecessor in the previous Act. It allows the Commission to order a provider to stop using specific marketing materials, making specific claims about NDIS funding or fundable supports, or engaging in promotional activity that the Commission considers misleading, predatory, or likely to result in inappropriate use of participant funds.
This power targets operators who have exploited the scheme through high-pressure sales tactics, misleading participants about what is fundable, or marketing supports in ways that extract maximum plan funding without delivering genuine value. Anti-promotion orders can be issued alongside, not instead of, existing civil and criminal penalties. A provider could face both a civil penalty for a contravention and an anti-promotion order restricting their marketing activity going forward.
For providers who market actively through social media, digital advertising, or community outreach, reviewing your promotional materials against the NDIS Practice Standards and the Commission's guidance on appropriate marketing is a reasonable precaution now that this power exists.
Increased Civil Penalties
Civil penalties for serious contraventions have been substantially increased. The previous maximum of $412,500 has been replaced with penalties exceeding $15 million for contraventions that result in injury to or death of a participant. This aligns the NDIS penalty regime more closely with frameworks like the Australian Consumer Law and reflects the Commission's stated intent to ensure that financial consequences are genuinely significant relative to the revenue of larger providers.
The combination of higher civil penalties, criminal exposure for individuals in serious cases, expanded banning order scope, and the new anti-promotion power means the Commission now has a significantly more complete enforcement toolkit. For providers operating at scale, the financial risk of non-compliance has increased by an order of magnitude.
What Already-Registered Providers Need to Know
If your organisation is already registered with the NDIS Commission, the 1 July 2026 mandatory registration deadline does not create a new action item for your registration status. However, the expanded banning order powers, anti-promotion order powers, and increased civil penalty maximums apply to your operations from commencement of the relevant provisions in late April 2026.
The practical effect for registered providers is that the risk profile of non-compliance has increased substantially across the board. The Commission has both stronger incentives and stronger tools to pursue non-compliance across the full registered provider base, not just unregistered operators or egregious cases.
How ClinicComply Helps
ClinicComply includes the NDIS Practice Standards as a built-in compliance framework, allowing your organisation to track progress against each Standard, upload evidence documents, assign tasks to team members, and maintain audit-ready documentation. For providers preparing for a certification-level audit under the mandatory SIL registration requirement, having your compliance evidence organised and accessible significantly reduces the time and cost of the audit process.
NDIS compliance is not a one-time exercise, and the new legislative regime makes that clearer than ever. Start your free 30-day trial at cliniccomply.com.au and get your NDIS compliance documentation organised before the July deadline.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the NDIS Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025?
The NDIS Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025 is legislation that passed the Australian Parliament on 31 March 2026. It introduces criminal penalties for providing high-risk NDIS supports without registration, expands NDIS Commission banning order powers to cover auditors and consultants, creates anti-promotion orders to restrict misleading NDIS marketing, increases maximum civil penalties to over $15 million for serious contraventions, and makes registration mandatory for SIL and platform-based providers from 1 July 2026.
When do the NDIS Amendment Bill 2025 changes take effect?
Most provisions commence 28 days after Royal Assent, placing the effective date in late April 2026. The mandatory registration requirement for SIL and platform-based providers takes effect on 1 July 2026.
What happens to unregistered SIL providers after 1 July 2026?
Providing Supported Independent Living without being registered with the NDIS Commission after 1 July 2026 is a criminal offence under the amended Act, carrying a maximum penalty of 5 years imprisonment for an individual. Civil penalties for unregistered delivery of high-risk supports also apply separately.
Do I need to register if I am a platform-based NDIS provider?
Yes. Platform-based providers that connect participants with NDIS supports must register with the Commission by 1 July 2026. The Commission's position is that the platform model does not reduce the risk to participants and does not justify exemption from the registration requirements that apply to direct service providers.
What are anti-promotion orders under the NDIS Amendment Bill?
Anti-promotion orders are a new power introduced by the Bill that allows the NDIS Commission to order a provider to stop using specific marketing materials or making specific claims about NDIS funding or fundable supports. They target misleading, predatory, or exploitative marketing and can be issued alongside, not instead of, existing civil and criminal penalties.
How have banning orders changed under the NDIS Amendment Bill 2025?
Under the amended Act, the Commission can issue banning orders not just to registered providers and key personnel but also to auditors, consultants, and business advisors involved in NDIS service delivery or support. Violating a banning order is now a criminal offence carrying a maximum of 5 years imprisonment.
What do unregistered SIL providers need to do before 1 July 2026?
Unregistered SIL providers should immediately confirm whether their supports fall within the mandatory registration categories, engage an approved quality auditor to begin a certification-level audit, prepare documentation against the NDIS Practice Standards, and lodge a registration application with the Commission. Certification audits typically take three to six months to complete, so time is now very short.
What are the new civil penalty amounts under the NDIS Amendment Bill?
The maximum civil penalty for serious contraventions, particularly those resulting in injury to or death of a participant, has increased from $412,500 to over $15 million. This substantially increases the financial risk of serious non-compliance, especially for larger providers.
How does the NDIS Amendment Bill affect registered providers?
Registered providers are not affected by the 1 July 2026 mandatory registration deadline, as they are already registered. However, the expanded banning order powers, anti-promotion orders, and increased civil penalties apply to all providers from late April 2026. The risk profile of non-compliance across all aspects of scheme operation has increased substantially.