The Government has confirmed the AN-ACC price that applies from 1 October 2026. The headline increase is 2.55%. Almost no home will actually receive it. Here's an analysis from Ty Fisher
Aged Care Minister Sam Rae has confirmed that the AN-ACC price will rise from $295.64 to $303.19 from 1 October 2026, lifting average funding from an estimated $317 per resident per day to around $325. The sector will report the 2.55%. But the headline figure is a sector average, and your funding is the price multiplied by your total NWAU. Your resident mix decides how much of that 2.55% you actually see, and for a growing number of homes, care minute delivery decides whether you see it at all.
The new price, in brief
$303.19 per NWAU from 1 October 2026, up 2.55% from $295.64. Average funding rises to around $325 per resident per day. The price follows IHACPA's 2026–27 pricing advice, leaving providers less than a month to work through what it means for their own homes.
Why your uplift is not 2.55%
Four things stand between the headline and your bottom line.
First, your NWAU blend. Few homes sit at the sector average, so few homes will experience the average increase.
Second, delivery. From April 2026, funding for standard metropolitan homes became linked to how closely they meet their care minute targets. A portion of your subsidy now depends on performance rather than entitlement, and a home that misses its targets will feel considerably less than 2.55%, whatever the headline says.
Third, timing. The new price applies from 1 October, which is 273 days of a 365-day financial year. Spread across FY27, the effective uplift is closer to 1.9%, while the 4.75% award increase you are funding started on 1 July and runs the full year. A forecast built on the announced rate rather than the October start date is carrying phantom revenue, roughly $69,000 per 100 beds.
Fourth, where the money is already committed. Most of the uplift exists to fund wages: the 4.75% Annual Wage Review decision, the scheduled superannuation guarantee increase and IHACPA's indexation of historical cost data. That composition tells you where the money is expected to go before it reaches your margin.
A real-terms squeeze
The Consumer Price Index rose 3.5% in the twelve months to July 2026, which puts this 2.55% rise below inflation, and the effective FY27 uplift of 1.9% further below it. For the parts of your cost base that wages do not cover, such as food, utilities and maintenance, this update is a squeeze, not relief.
What has stayed the same, and what that signals
The hotelling supplement holds at $22.15 per resident per day, with IHACPA still reviewing it and a later adjustment possible. The Government has also maintained current care minute requirements and the AN-ACC fixed and variable funding categories, welcome stability for providers who braced for a reweighting this year.
But read the detail and the signal is clear: IHACPA's advice still included recommended price weights for every AN-ACC class, respite class and base care tariff category. The realignment conversation has not disappeared. It has been deferred.
The update rewards delivery, quietly penalises everything else
Put these pieces together and this is a modest, below-inflation uplift that rewards providers who understand their funding, deliver their care minutes and forecast on the dates rather than the announcement, and quietly penalises those who do not. That raises the value of knowing exactly where each home stands, class by class and target by target.
With the new rate only weeks away, the providers who fare best will model its effect now: understand your blended NWAU, test your care minute performance against your targets, rebuild your FY27 forecast on the October start date, and identify the homes where this increase will bite hardest.
If you would like to see what the $303.19 price means for your homes, and where care minute delivery is putting funding at risk, we would be glad to walk through it with you. This is the work Mirus Metrics is built for, connecting funding, care minutes and roster data so you can see what the new price means for your portfolio rather than waiting for the payment statement to tell you. Paired with the Care Minute Manager, it turns this update into an operational plan that protects both care and margin.
