https://sdaatlas.com.au/methodology/ · Figures as at 30 June 2026
Contains data © National Disability Insurance Scheme Agency 2013, licensed under CC BY 4.0. SDA Atlas is independent of, and not endorsed by, the Agency.
Sources and method
This site publishes nothing that cannot be traced to a named NDIA table. Where a figure is derived rather than published, it is flagged as an estimate everywhere it appears, and its derivation is set out here.
Sources
Each file is downloaded fresh, content-hashed, and recorded with the hash of the exact bytes the published figures were computed from. The NDIA changes the numeric media ID on every release, so the pipeline resolves IDs by matching link text on the NDIA index pages and fails loudly rather than falling back to a stale file.
| Dataset | Format | Size | Retrieved | SHA-256 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SDA Enrolled dwellings and NDIS demand data media/4248 | xlsx | 1.1 MB | 2026-10-11 | e15d4957b896… |
| SDA participants data media/4250 | csv | 67 KB | 2026-10-11 | 2ceb31a9f63d… |
| Participants by SA4 data media/4243 | csv | 109 KB | 2026-10-11 | 9a0f4538fd30… |
| Participants by SA3 data media/4241 | csv | 361 KB | 2026-10-11 | dfe9c4ddad01… |
| Participants by LGA data media/4237 | csv | 472 KB | 2026-10-11 | 24001fdea0f3… |
| Participant numbers and plan budgets data media/4573 | csv | 6.8 MB | 2026-10-11 | 460eb3e7d73a… |
| SIL participants data media/4269 | csv | 73 KB | 2026-10-11 | 3a5acbc49514… |
| Service District to LGA 2021 data media/3218 | csv | 23 KB | 2026-10-11 | 30a2b43c5e73… |
| Projected participant by service district data media/4273 | csv | 9 KB | 2026-10-11 | b3265dc1317a… |
| Specialist Disability Accommodation Report 2026 media/4599 | 1.6 MB | 2026-10-11 | a385d182aa38… | |
| NDIS Pricing Arrangements for Specialist Disability Accommodation | 1.2 MB | 2026-10-11 | b53d8df0f282… |
Derived metrics
Anything the NDIA does not publish directly is computed here. Each of these renders on the site with an est marker and its caveat attached.
Enrolled resident places
Supplement P Table P.6
Σ (dwellings in each maximum-residents band × that band's capacity)
The top band is “6+ residents” and is counted as exactly 6, so any dwelling enrolled for more than six residents is undercounted. A dwelling's maximum residents is what it is enrolled for, which may exceed how many people live there.
Implied occupancy
Supplement P Tables P.9 and P.6
participants living in SDA ÷ enrolled resident places
The most contestable number on this site. It divides a participant count by a capacity count taken from a different table. The NDIA states that enrolled capacity “may not accurately reflect current SDA participant occupancy”. It is not a vacancy rate, and it is not an NDIA figure.
Implied unoccupied places
Supplement P Tables P.9 and P.6
enrolled resident places − participants living in SDA
Carries every caveat that implied occupancy carries.
Utilisation
Supplement P Table P.9
participants living in SDA ÷ all participants with an SDA need
Both terms come from the same table, so this is the least contestable of the derived figures.
Share of mix (demand vs supply)
Supplement P Tables P.5 and P.10
each design category ÷ the total across the four categories reported on both sides
Supply is counted in dwellings and demand in participants, so the two are compared only as shares, never as counts. Basic and Multi-Design Category exist only on the supply side, and “not recorded” only on the demand side, so all three are excluded and the excluded share is stated on the chart. The NDIA explains the asymmetry: a Basic design decision “reflected where a participant was living rather than indicating eligibility for a specific type of SDA”, and those decisions are now folded into “Missing”.
Pipeline
Supplement P Table P.8
unfinished (unenrolled) new build dwellings registered with the NDIA
Not a construction status — the NDIA does not publish one. The Agency gives no guarantee that dwellings listed will be enrolled as SDA.
SDA price limit
NDIS Pricing Arrangements for SDA
base price × location factor
Reproduces the published arithmetic. Legacy stock is excluded because its price table is indexed by resident count and has no location-factor column.
Suppressed values
The NDIA suppresses small counts to protect participant privacy,
publishing them as <11 and occasionally <20 or <30.
- Suppressed cells are carried through the pipeline as a distinct sentinel — never converted to zero, never to blank.
- They render exactly as the NDIA published them.
- They are excluded from sums. Any total that includes one is marked ≥ and described as a lower bound.
- This is why some series here sit slightly below the NDIA’s own national headline. As at 30 June 2026, summing published district figures gives a national SDA in-use count below the 16,644 the Agency reports, because the suppressed districts are missing from the sum. Headline tiles use the NDIA’s unmasked national figure; series summed from districts are labelled as floors.
Geography
The NDIA publishes regional data against 2016 ASGS statistical area codes. The boundary files drawn on the map are the ABS 2021 release, which is the current published edition. Joining one vintage to the other without checking would be a real error, so it was checked.
Every one of the 88 SA4 regions and all 333 matched SA3 regions the NDIA reports carry an identical code in both vintages, so the join is exact for every region shown. The SA3s that do not match are Christmas Island, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Jervis Bay, Norfolk Island and Urriarra–Namadgi — none of which have enrolled SDA. Two SA3s appear in the supply workbook but not the participant file (Blue Mountains – South and Illawarra Catchment Reserve), both effectively unpopulated catchment reserves.
Service districts are the NDIA’s own administrative geography and do not nest into ABS areas. They are reconciled to a canonical key so that the SDA participants dataset (“TAS North”) and Supplement P (“TAS – North”) resolve to the same district, and anything that fails to reconcile is reported by the build rather than dropped.
Refresh and changelog
NDIA releases land roughly six to ten weeks after the end of a quarter, on no fixed day. The pipeline polls weekly, hashes every file, and does nothing when nothing has changed. When something has changed it rebuilds and opens a pull request rather than deploying, so a schema change is seen by a person before it reaches the site.
Published periods
- 30 June 2026 14,235 dwellings · 16,644 living in SDA · 6,544 in pipeline
The NDIA replaces its supply tables at the same URL each quarter and publishes no back series for them, so SDA Atlas archives each release as it appears. This list grows by one entry per quarter from the first run.
What the build checks
The publish step fails, and the site keeps last quarter’s numbers, if any of these break:
- Headline figures match values verified independently against the NDIA Quarterly Report.
- Every table’s component columns reconcile to its published total.
- Every reporting date parses, and the newest is not older than what is already published.
- National participant totals move less than 5% quarter on quarter.
- Row counts stay within 20% of the previous release.
- At least 95% of workbook regions join to the participant geography.
- No suppressed value has been turned into a number.
- The pinned pricing document is still the edition expected.
What the NDIA says about its own data
The Agency writes caveats beneath its tables explaining how a status is derived, why a category is missing, and what a figure does and does not mean. They are reproduced here in full and unedited. Several are more candid than anything this site would assert on its own behalf, including the admission that the NDIA cannot yet fully explain why eligible participants are not using SDA.
Table P.1 Active participants with SDA and SIL funding in current NDIS plan
Service districts are defined by the current address the participant resides in. 'Other' includes participants where the service district information is missing.
Table P.2 Annualised committed supports in current NDIS plans
Annualised supports committed to SDA in current plans refer to annualised supports committed for active participants who have SDA in their plans at 30 June 2025.
Table P.3 Active providers of SDA supports by State/Territory
Active providers of SDA supports in this table refer to any provider that has received a payment for providing SDA supports to NDIA-managed participants residing in the given jurisdiction.
Providers can be registered in more than one jurisdiction. Therefore, the National Totals of active providers is not equal to the respective sums across all states and territories.
Table P.8 Number of Unfinished (Unenrolled) New Build SDA Dwellings by Design Category and SA4 Region
SDA pipeline data is based on information collected by the NDIA from SDA providers who are building properties they intend to enrol as SDA at a later date. This data is intended for the purpose of SDA market oversight only. There is no guarantee from the NDIA that all the dwellings listed will be enrolled as SDA or that it will be enrolled as the same building type and design category as what is in the SDA pipeline data. The NDIA decides whether to enrol a dwelling when an SDA provider submits a completed application to enrol, after the dwelling is built. The NDIA won't enrol a dwelling if the provider and the dwelling don't meet all of the requirements for enrolment under the SDA Rules at the time of the decision. This is regardless of any previous assessment, feedback or certification provided by the NDIA or any other party. There may also be under-construction properties which are intended to be enrolled as SDA which are not represented in the data. The NDIA works to maintain clean and robust data on pipeline dwellings by continually improving the quality of SDA pipeline data. This includes removing dwellings from pipeline data that are already enrolled and, from 30 March 2026, removing dwellings that have not progressed to enrolment within 36 months. There may be delays in excluding enrolled SDA dwellings from SDA pipeline data. This may result in SDA pipeline numbers being overstated in a given reporting period. Work is underway to improve accuracy of SDA dwellings reporting.
Table P.9 Number of Participants with identified SDA needs by status and SA4 Region
The number of participants with SDA in use are participants that have SDA funding in their latest plan and evidence of using SDA. Participants who are SDA eligible (SDA funding not yet in use) are either participants that have SDA in their latest plan and don't have evidence of using it, or participants who have been found eligible for SDA through the home and living application process who don't yet have SDA funding in their plan. Evidence of SDA funding in use is estimated based on SDA payments, SDA service bookings and address matching to an enrolled SDA dwelling. Future enhancements to the PACE system will allow for better tracking and an ability to better understand why participants may not be using SDA funding. There are a number of participants who were found eligible through the legacy CRM process that require further investigation.
Table P.10 Number of Participants with an SDA need by eligible SDA Decision Design Category and SA4 Region
SDA need is defined as participants with SDA in use or participants eligible for SDA (SDA not yet in use).
The design category data is taken from the latest eligible SDA application. Historical trends in SDA eligibility and useage may not be indicative of future demand.
Where the eligible SDA decision design category is "Missing", structured data on the SDA eligible decision design category is unable to be extracted from the H&L application in PACE or the legacy CRM system.
The small number of participants with SDA decisions with a design category of "Basic" are now included in "Missing". "Basic" design category decisions reflected where a participant was living rather than indicating eligibility for a specific type of SDA.
Table P.16 Number of Unfinished (Unenrolled) New Build SDA Dwellings by Design Category, Build Type and SA4 Region
SDA pipeline data is based on information collected by the NDIA from SDA providers who are building properties they intend to enrol as SDA at a later date. This data is intended for the purpose of SDA market oversight only. There is no guarantee from the NDIA that all the dwellings listed will be enrolled as SDA or that it will be enrolled as the same building type and design category as what is in the SDA pipeline data. The NDIA decides whether to enrol a dwelling when an SDA provider submits a completed application to enrol, after the dwelling is built. The NDIA won't enrol a dwelling if the provider and the dwelling don't meet all of the requirements for enrolment under the SDA Rules at the time of the decision. This is regardless of any previous assessment, feedback or certification provided by the NDIA or any other party. There may also be under-construction properties which are intended to be enrolled as SDA which are not represented in the data. The NDIA works to maintain clean and robust data on pipeline dwellings by continually improving the quality of SDA pipeline data. This includes removing dwellings from pipeline data that are already enrolled and, from 30 March 2026, removing dwellings that have not progressed to enrolment within 36 months. There may be delays in excluding enrolled SDA dwellings from SDA pipeline data. This may result in SDA pipeline numbers being overstated in a given reporting period. Work is underway to improve accuracy of SDA dwellings reporting.
Table P.17 Number of Participants with identified SDA needs by status and SA3 Region
The number of participants with SDA in use are participants that have SDA funding in their latest plan and evidence of using SDA. Participants who are SDA eligible (SDA funding not yet in use) are either participants that have SDA in their latest plan and don't have evidence of using it, or participants who have been found eligible for SDA through the home and living application process who don't yet have SDA funding in their plan. Evidence of SDA funding in use is estimated based on SDA payments, SDA service bookings and address matching to an enrolled SDA dwelling. Future enhancements to the PACE system will allow for better tracking and an ability to better understand why participants may not be using SDA funding. There are a number of participants who were found eligible through the legacy CRM process that require further investigation.
Table P.18 Number of Participants with an SDA need by eligible SDA Decision Design Category and SA3 Region
SDA need is defined as participants with SDA in use or participants eligible for SDA (SDA not yet in use).
The design category data is taken from the latest eligible SDA application. Historical trends in SDA eligibility and useage may not be indicative of future demand.
Where the eligible SDA decision design category is "Missing", structured data on the SDA eligible decision design category is unable to be extracted from the H&L application in PACE or the legacy CRM system.
The small number of participants with SDA decisions with a design category of "Basic" are now included in "Missing". In previous reports, these were noted as a separate category. "Basic" design category decisions reflected where a participant was living rather than indicating eligibility for a specific type of SDA.
Licence, attribution, disclaimer
All NDIA material used here is published under Creative Commons CC BY 4.0, which permits reuse including commercial use, with attribution.
Contains data © National Disability Insurance Scheme Agency 2013, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
NDIA data disclaimer. This data is provided for the purpose of public insight into the operation of the NDIS. It should not be treated as a forecast. The National Disability Insurance Agency accepts no liability for the representation of this data.
SDA Atlas is independent. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the National Disability Insurance Agency. Errors here are ours, not theirs — every figure can be checked against the linked source above.