Key Takeaways
- Co-contribution rates are tied to the same income and assets test that sets your age pension, there's no second test for SAH.
- Full pensioners typically pay 0% on Independence services and 5-15% on Everyday Living.
- Part-pensioners typically pay 15-30% on Independence and 25-50% on Everyday Living.
- Self-funded retirees can pay up to 50% on Independence and 80% on Everyday Living, but always hit the lifetime cap eventually.
- Clinical services are 100% government-funded for everyone, pension status is irrelevant for clinical care.
The single most-asked question after "what's my Classification?" is "what's my co-contribution?", and the honest short answer is that it follows your pension status almost perfectly. Centrelink has already done the means-testing arithmetic for the age pension; SAH reuses the same calculation, with one or two tweaks.
This post breaks the three pension brackets down side by side, with realistic numbers for each.
The principle behind co-contribution
Support at Home splits services into three buckets and applies a different cost share to each:
- Clinical services (nursing, physio, OT, podiatry, dietetics, speech), 100% government-funded, regardless of your means. Pension status is irrelevant here.
- Independence services (personal care, transport, social support, respite), government and client share, with the client share scaled by means.
- Everyday Living services (cleaning, laundry, gardening, meals), same model, but with a higher upper bound on the client share.
The intuition is that government picks up the medical care that keeps you well; clients contribute towards the lifestyle services they'd be paying for anyway.
Full age pensioner
If you're on the maximum age pension, couple-rate or single-rate, Services Australia treats your means as low. You'll see:
- Independence: 0% client contribution (or close to it).
- Everyday Living: 5-15% client contribution.
- Basic daily fee: yes, around $12.75/day.
In practice, a full pensioner on a Classification 4 package using around $30,000 of services a year would see:
| Service category | Spend | Contribution rate | Out-of-pocket |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clinical | $5,000 | 0% | $0 |
| Independence | $15,000 | 0% | $0 |
| Everyday Living | $10,000 | 10% | $1,000 |
Plus the basic daily fee at ~$4,650/year, totalling around $5,650 a year out-of-pocket. A bit over $100 a week.
Part-pensioner
The middle bracket is where the maths gets the most variable, because Centrelink scales contributions linearly with the amount of pension you've lost to the income or asset taper. A "newly part-pensioned" client (almost full pension) is closer to the full pensioner band; a part-pensioner near the upper threshold is closer to self-funded.
Typical band:
- Independence: 15-30% client contribution.
- Everyday Living: 25-50% client contribution.
- Basic daily fee: yes.
Same Classification 4 example, mid-band part-pensioner:
| Service category | Spend | Contribution rate | Out-of-pocket |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clinical | $5,000 | 0% | $0 |
| Independence | $15,000 | 22% | $3,300 |
| Everyday Living | $10,000 | 35% | $3,500 |
Plus basic daily fee ($4,650), totalling around $11,450 a year. That's around $220 a week all-in.
Self-funded retiree
If you don't draw any age pension at all, because your income or assets exceed the upper threshold, Services Australia treats you as self-funded. Contributions:
- Independence: up to 50% client contribution.
- Everyday Living: up to 80% client contribution.
- Basic daily fee: yes.
Same Classification 4 example, self-funded retiree:
| Service category | Spend | Contribution rate | Out-of-pocket |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clinical | $5,000 | 0% | $0 |
| Independence | $15,000 | 50% | $7,500 |
| Everyday Living | $10,000 | 80% | $8,000 |
Plus basic daily fee ($4,650), totalling around $20,150 a year, around $390 a week all-in.
Why the gap looks so big
Three reasons it lands harder for self-funded retirees than the figures suggest:
- The pension is means-tested at the same time as your contribution rate. You don't get age pension AND a low contribution rate; the trade-off is built in.
- The upper bounds are bounds, not defaults. Many self-funded retirees with modest assets land somewhere between part-pensioner and the full upper bound; only those with significant assets pay the full 50/80 split.
- The lifetime cap is real. Once you've contributed $130,000 across your SAH life, you stop. Self-funded retirees hit that cap fastest, typically within 5-7 years of high-need care.
What changes if you're in a couple
For couples, Services Australia uses combined income and assets but assesses each member individually for SAH. This produces some occasionally surprising results:
- A couple where one partner has all the income (e.g. an SMSF in their name) can both end up rated as self-funded for SAH, even though one of them has no personal income.
- The pension shading rules apply to the couple as a unit; SAH uses the same shading.
- If one partner moves into residential care, the means test changes, get advice before assuming your contribution rate carries over.
Anomalies and edge cases
A few real-world situations that don't fit the table cleanly:
- DVA Gold Card holders, typically pay nothing on clinical-equivalent services through DVA, with SAH layering on top for non-clinical needs. See our SAH for Veterans guide.
- Grandfathered HCP clients, your old contribution arrangements may apply rather than SAH's; see Grandfathered SAH Clients.
- Recent inheritance, a windfall can move you from part-pensioner to self-funded mid-care. The new rate kicks in at the next means re-assessment, not retroactively.
How to know your real number
Centrelink will issue you a means assessment letter on request. It states your contribution rate explicitly, in writing. Until you have that letter, every number, including the ones in this post, is an estimate.
The shortcut: ring Centrelink and ask for an Aged Care Means Assessment. It takes about 10 minutes on the phone and the letter arrives in 2-4 weeks.
Compare what providers actually charge
Once you know your contribution rate, the next variable is provider hourly rates. The same 30% contribution on a $90/hr personal-care service hurts a lot more than the same 30% on a $70/hr equivalent.
Use the price comparison tool to filter providers in your area by hourly rate. Combined with your contribution band, that's enough to estimate annual out-of-pocket within a few hundred dollars.