Assistance with Daily Life: NDIS budget areas explained.

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Key points.

Assistance with Daily Life (ADL) is a Core supports budget that funds practical help with daily personal activities connected to your disability
Assistance with Daily Life funding is assessed on a case-by-case basis and must meet the NDIS ‘reasonable and necessary’ criteria
It is different from Improved Daily Living, which is a Capacity Building budget.

Assistance with Daily Life is an NDIS Core support that helps fund disability-related help with everyday tasks at home. It can cover things like personal care, household tasks and other daily activities, depending on your needs.

If your NDIS Plan includes Assistance with Daily Life funding, it helps to know what it covers and how it’s different from Improved Daily Living funding. Here’s what you need to know.

What is NDIS Assistance with Daily Life?

Assistance with Daily Life is one of the most commonly used NDIS budgets. It funds support workers to help you with day-to-day tasks that you can’t do safely on your own because of your disability.

This might include support at home or in a shared living arrangement.

Assistance with Daily Life examples.

Specific examples of NDIS supports you might be able to use Assistance with Daily Life funding for include:

Help with getting ready for your day, such as showering and dressing
Assistance with eating and drinking
Maintaining personal hygiene, including bathing, hair washing and nail care
Help with household chores such as cleaning or laundry
Getting help around the yard such as lawn mowing or basic gardening
Support with food preparation and meals, or the costs associated with meal delivery
Short term respite or accommodation.

For more detail on some of these individual supports, read our guides on meal preparation and delivery, yard maintenance, house cleaning and personal care supports.

NDIS Assistance with Daily Life support item codes.

The Assistance with Daily Life budget sits under support category 01 of the NDIS Price Guide. Within this category, supports are grouped by type, and each group has its own item code. Your provider uses these codes on invoices, so it’s worth knowing which one applies to you.

What is covered by Assistance with Daily Life funding?

Daily personal activities, such as help with personal hygiene, eating and moving safely (item code 0107)
Household tasks, such as cleaning, yard work and meal preparation or delivery (item code 0120)
High intensity daily personal activities, for people with complex support needs such as tube feeding or wound care (item code 0104)
Community nursing care delivered in your home (item code 0114).

If you’re ever unsure which code applies to a support, ask your provider or check with the Leap in! Crew before the invoice comes through.

What’s not covered by Assistance with Daily Life funding?

The NDIS does not fund general living costs that everyone pays for, or supports unrelated to your disability. Assistance with Daily Life will not cover:

The cost of food, groceries or ready-made meals (the NDIS funds preparation and delivery costs only)
Household appliances, cleaning products, toiletries and other household consumables
Personal items such as cosmetics or cosmetic treatments
Professional services like pool maintenance, home repairs, gutter cleaning, fencing, landscaping, tree-clearing and exit/bond cleaning
Rent or mortgage payments.

How is Assistance with Daily Life different from Improved Daily Living?

These two budgets sound similar, but they work differently.

Assistance with Daily Life is a Core supports budget. It funds ongoing, practical help with everyday tasks you can’t do because of your disability – like a support worker helping you shower each morning. Some therapy and nursing services can also be claimed from this budget, but only where they’re Disability-Related Health Supports written into your plan.

Improved Daily Living is a Capacity Building supports budget. It funds therapy, training and assessments to help you build skills and independence over time – like an occupational therapist working with you on skills to manage daily tasks with less support.

Both can be part of your NDIS Plan, and they come from separate budgets. For more on Improved Daily Living, read our guide on support budgets explained: NDIS Improved Daily Living.

Will Assistance with Daily Life funding be included in my plan?

Assistance with Daily Life funding isn’t automatic – it’s assessed against your individual needs and goals. You’re more likely to have it included if you can show:

You need help with personal care, such as showering, eating or moving safely, because of your disability
You need help with daily chores such as cooking, cleaning or grocery shopping that you can’t safely manage yourself
You need home care from a nurse or specialised support worker for a disability-related health need.

To support your case, it helps to include evidence such as functional assessments, medical reports or existing support worker records that show why the support is ‘reasonable and necessary’ and connected to your goals. The more clearly your evidence links the support to your everyday needs, the easier it is for your planner to include it.

How to get the most from your Assistance with Daily Life funding.

You can see your Assistance with Daily Life funding any time in the My Budgets section of the Leap in! app or the myplace portal. Once it’s in your plan, a few things can help it go further.

Use it flexibly across your Core supports. Assistance with Daily Life is part of your Core supports budget, which is usually the most flexible part of your plan. In most cases you can move funding across your Core supports as your needs change, in line with your plan. So if you need more help with personal care one month and less around the house the next, you have room to adjust. Just keep in mind it’s one shared budget, so the more you use in one area, the less there is for another.
Check whether a support needs to be ‘stated’. A few supports, like meal delivery or a linen service, can only be claimed when they’re named in your plan. If you’re thinking about one of these, check your plan first or ask us, so there are no surprises at invoice time.
Pace your supports across your funding periods. If your plan releases funding in set periods, work out how much you have for each one and space your supports so they last across the whole period. Funds from one period don’t always carry over, so a steady pace helps your support stay consistent.