SIL vs SDA: the difference, and which one your plan funds

SIL and SDA are the two NDIS home and living supports people mix up most often, partly because they often turn up in the same house. They fund completely different things. One pays wages, the other pays for bricks and mortar, and the NDIA assesses them separately with different tests. This guide covers what each one pays for, who qualifies, how they show up in a plan, and the main alternative.

SIL pays for people, SDA pays for the building

The NDIS describes Supported Independent Living as "funding for a support worker to help or supervise you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week". The money pays for staff: help with showering, meals, medication, household tasks, getting to appointments, and building skills so you need less help over time. It never pays for rent, groceries, utilities or the house itself.

Specialist Disability Accommodation is the opposite. The NDIS calls it "the only NDIS funding that provides the housing itself". An SDA payment goes to the owner of an enrolled dwelling to cover the cost of building and maintaining a home with features such as ceiling hoists, reinforced walls, wide doorways, backup power or layouts that let staff see you easily. SDA funding never pays for support workers.

SIL does not require SDA. A SIL home can be an ordinary rented house, a community housing property or a home your family owns. The NDIA's own guideline puts it plainly: most participants do not need to live in SDA, and other home and living supports are more suitable for them.

Who is eligible for each

SIL is for adults with higher support needs. The September 2026 SIL guideline says SIL may be suitable if you need active disability support for more than 8 hours a day to do daily activities, plus some level of support for the rest of the 24 hours, every day of the week, including overnight. It is generally only funded for people aged 18 or older. If you need only a few hours of help a day, the NDIA will look at personal care supports from your Assistance with Daily Life budget instead.

SDA has a much narrower gate. The NDIA asks whether you have an extreme functional impairment or very high support needs, whether you have an SDA needs requirement, and whether SDA meets the NDIS funding criteria for you. Extreme functional impairment means needing a lot of help from another person with mobility, personal care or self-management even after assistive technology and home modifications. Very high support needs means needing person-to-person support for a significant part of the day, where informal supports cannot provide it or SDA will reduce a safety risk.

Both decisions rest on evidence: allied health reports, functional assessments and, where relevant, a current behaviour support plan. Neither is automatic, and neither is decided by a provider.

• SIL: 18 or over, more than 8 hours of active support a day, some support across all 24 hours, 7 days a week.
• SDA: extreme functional impairment or very high support needs, plus a need for the built features of SDA.
• Both: must meet the NDIS funding criteria, including value for money compared with other home and living supports.

How each one appears in your plan

SIL funding sits in your Core supports budget. The NDIA books it under Core, Assistance with Daily Life, with a second booking for irregular supports. Although Core funding is normally flexible, the SIL guideline says you can only use your SIL funding for SIL. Your plan will show the approved SIL amount, and the NDIA will explain the hours and ratio of support it is based on.

SDA funding sits in your Capital supports budget, in the support category called Home modifications and specialist disability accommodation. Capital funding is stated, not flexible. Your plan will name the SDA design category (improved liveability, fully accessible, robust or high physical support), the building type (for example a house or apartment) and the location the NDIA has agreed to fund.

If you have both, the two payments flow to different providers. The NDIS summary is: "SDA funding pays the SDA provider, SIL funding pays for your carers and you pay the rent and bills." The SDA guideline adds that you will generally choose a different SDA provider from your SIL provider, and the SDA provider must let you change your other providers at any time.

The ILO alternative

Individualised Living Options (ILO) is the third home and living support worth knowing about, because the NDIA often raises it when SIL is not the right fit. The ILO page says it may suit you if you are 18 or over (or 17 and planning ahead), need formal or informal support at home for at least 6 hours a day, and are willing to put time into designing your own arrangement.

ILO is funded in two stages. Stage 1 pays a provider to explore and design your arrangement, usually 30 to 100 hours of work, ending in a service proposal. Stage 2 funds the arrangement itself: a host you live with, housemates who provide support, paid supplementary support such as a worker staying over, and regular monitoring. Like SIL, ILO does not pay rent or the building.

In short, SIL assumes you need someone on hand around the clock, usually shared with housemates. ILO suits people who need substantial but not continuous help and want to live with a host, a friend or alone, with a mix of paid and unpaid support.

Two worked examples

Daniel is 26 and has an intellectual disability and epilepsy. He needs prompting and hands-on help with cooking, medication, money and personal care through the day, and someone in the house overnight in case of a seizure. His OT report documents more than 8 hours of active support daily. His plan funds SIL at a shared ratio with two housemates in an ordinary four-bedroom rental in Adelaide's north. He pays his share of rent and bills from his pension. He has no SDA funding and does not need any, because the house needs no special features.

Priya is 34 and has quadriplegia following a spinal injury. She uses a powered wheelchair and a ceiling hoist for transfers, and needs two staff for some personal care. Her allied health evidence shows extreme functional impairment. Her plan includes SDA in the high physical support design category, in an apartment, in metropolitan Adelaide. It also funds SIL, because the hoist and wide doorways do not help her shower or eat; staff do. She pays a reasonable rent contribution to the SDA provider, and her SIL provider is paid separately for staff hours.

Both people live in "supported accommodation" in everyday language, yet their plans look nothing alike. When a listing calls a house a "SIL home" or an "SDA home", the first question is always which of these two funding streams the person actually has.

Finding SIL and SDA in South Australia

The first point of contact for most adults in SA is a Local Area Coordination partner. As at the NDIS South Australia page (current to 14 August 2026), Feros Care covers Barossa and Northern Adelaide, Baptcare covers Western and Eastern Adelaide, and Mission Australia covers Adelaide Hills, Southern Adelaide, the Fleurieu Peninsula, Limestone Coast, Murray and Mallee, Whyalla, Port Augusta and the Flinders Ranges. If your area has no partner, the NDIA works with you directly on 1800 800 110.

SDA vacancies are listed in the NDIS SDA Finder, which only becomes useful once SDA is in your plan. SIL vacancies are advertised by providers themselves. Outside Adelaide, people in the Yorke Peninsula, Riverland, Upper Spencer Gulf and South East often have to weigh a SIL home in an ordinary house near family against an SDA property in the city.

ResicareSA is registered for both SIL and SDA and runs homes across Adelaide, the Yorke Peninsula, Whyalla, Port Augusta, the Riverland and near Mount Gambier. Whether any given vacancy suits you still comes down to which funding your plan contains.

What to do next

Start with your plan, not with a house. Read the funded supports section and look for SIL in Core and SDA in Capital. If neither is there, you will be asking the NDIA for a home and living decision (see our guide on getting SIL funding). If you already have SIL, you can live in any home where a registered SIL provider can deliver it. If you also have SDA, check the design category, building type and location in your plan before you inspect anything, because SDA payments only flow to enrolled dwellings that match.

• Check your plan for SIL (Core budget) and SDA (Capital budget) and note the hours, ratio, design category and location stated.
• Talk to your support coordinator or my NDIS contact about whether SIL, SDA, ILO or personal care supports fit your evidence.
• If you need SDA and do not have it, ask your treating OT for a report that addresses functional impairment and the built features you need.
• When you look at vacancies, ask whether the home is an enrolled SDA dwelling or an ordinary house, and who holds the lease.

Questions people ask