Sleepover support

What is sleepover support in the NDIS?

Sleepover support is overnight support where a worker sleeps at the participant's home for a continuous 8-hour period and is woken only if the participant needs help. NDIS pricing allows for up to 2 hours of active support within the sleepover. If a person regularly needs more awake support than that, the right overnight model is usually active overnight support instead.

The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission describes a sleepover shift as one where a worker is required to sleep overnight at a participant's home, with a span of 8 continuous hours (NDIS Commission: sleepover shifts). The worker is there for safety and reassurance: helping someone to the toilet, settling them after a bad dream, or responding to an alarm.

"Sleepover" is used in two different rule books, and most confusion comes from mixing them up:

• NDIS funding: how a sleepover appears in a participant's plan and how the provider claims it (a flat amount per night).
• Award pay: how the worker is paid under the SCHADS Award (a flat allowance per night, plus overtime for any time woken to work).

This page covers both, because providers have to get both right on the same night.

How sleepover support is funded by the NDIS

Sleepovers are most common in Supported Independent Living (SIL), but they are also funded as part of in-home personal care and short-term accommodation (STA). In each case the support is priced per night, not per hour. The 2026-27 NDIS pricing schedule lists separate night-time sleepover items for each context, and remote and very remote areas have higher price limits. Look up the current items and limits in the free NDIS price guide rather than relying on an old figure.

Item numbers and names come from the NDIA's pricing arrangements; check the current schedule before you quote, because items and limits change each year. See support item numbers for how the codes work.

The 2-hour rule

The NDIA's SIL operational guideline funds a sleepover where the person needs up to 2 hours of awake support a night, and active overnight support where they need more. The NDIA's roster of care guide describes a sleepover as a shift where the worker can sleep for 8 hours and may be required to give up to two hours of support when needed, for example help to the bathroom.

For occasional nights that run over, the SIL guideline lets the provider claim extra support hours once agreed with the participant: at the weekend or public holiday daytime rate on those nights, and at the Saturday rate on weeknights. If sleepover staff are regularly awake for more than 2 hours, the guideline says to talk to the NDIA about changing the SIL in the plan. Outside SIL, check the current pricing arrangements for how extra time is treated.

How sleepover shifts are paid under the SCHADS Award

Most disability support workers are covered by the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award 2010 (MA000100). The sleepover rules are in clause 25.7 of the award, and the Fair Work Ombudsman explains them on its SCHADS hours of work page.

• The 8 hours: the worker is paid a flat sleepover allowance of 4.9% of the standard rate for each night, not an hourly rate. The allowance is the same for every classification level.
• Facilities: the worker must have a separate room with a bed and clean linen, use of appropriate facilities, and free board and lodging for each night.
• Time woken to work: paid at the overtime rate with a minimum of one hour. If the work runs past an hour, overtime is paid for the full time worked.
• Work either side: work immediately before and after the sleepover counts as one shift, and at least one of those periods must be rostered or paid for at least 4 hours. The allowance is paid on top.

Overtime under clause 28.1 for disability services work is time and a half for the first 2 hours and double time after that from Monday to Saturday, double time on Sunday, and double time and a half on a public holiday. The allowance is a percentage of an award rate, so it changes whenever award wages change; check the current amount in the Fair Work pay guide or the SCHADS pay rates table.

The 1 June 2026 award changes

Award variations that took effect from the first full pay period starting on or after 1 June 2026 changed how work around a sleepover is treated (Fair Work: changes to sleepovers):

1. By agreement, ordinary hours can run up to 12 hours a shift where part of the shift is before and part after the sleepover, with no more than 8 ordinary hours on either side.
2. Where that agreement exists, overtime for part-time and casual staff starts after 12 hours a shift, not 10.
3. Work before and after the sleepover is assessed separately for afternoon, night and public holiday shift loadings.
4. By agreement, the break before a shift that leads into a sleepover, or after one that follows it, can be as short as 8 hours instead of 10.

You can model a full night, including disturbances and the work either side, in the free SCHADS pay calculator.

Sleepover vs active overnight support

The NDIS Commission is explicit that sleepover shifts are different from active overnight supports, where workers are awake during normal sleeping hours to provide support because of the participant's disability. The difference shapes both the plan and the payroll.

In shared homes, one sleepover worker often covers the whole house, and the cost is shared between residents according to the support ratio. If one resident needs active overnight support, show that resident's arrangement separately in the roster of care.

What providers need to do

A sleepover is a low-cost model only while it genuinely fits. These steps keep funding, pay and safety aligned:

• Record every disturbance in shift notes: start time, finish time and what support was given. These records are your evidence for both pay and plan changes.
• Review the pattern monthly. If awake time regularly exceeds 2 hours, support the participant to seek a plan reassessment rather than absorbing the cost or underpaying staff.
• Put the overnight model in the service agreement, including how occasional extra hours will be agreed and claimed. Since 1 July 2026 regular SIL is claimed either weekly or hourly, not both (How to claim SIL supports).
• Roster the 4-hour minimum on one side of each sleepover, and keep written agreements for any 12-hour wrap-around arrangement.
• Keep workers safe. The Commission notes that providers, and participants who engage their own workers, have a duty to ensure a safe working environment during a sleepover shift, as far as reasonably practicable.

Common mistakes with sleepovers

• Paying the 8 sleepover hours as ordinary time instead of the allowance, or paying both for the same hours.
• Recording disturbances as one nightly total, which loses the one-hour minimum for each.
• Paying disturbances at ordinary rates instead of overtime.
• Treating the evening and morning work as two separate shifts with a rest break in between.
• Rostering short periods either side (such as 2 hours and 1 hour) without meeting the 4-hour rule.
• Calling a night a "sleepover" when staff are awake most of it. That is active overnight work and needs different funding and pay.
• Claiming a sleepover hourly. NDIS sleepover items are claimed per night.