NDIS provider travel calculator.

Provider travel has two parts. Labour costs are the worker's time on the road, claimed as hours. Non-labour costs are the running costs of getting there — kilometres, tolls, parking and fares — claimed as dollars. Each part has its own limit, and both are only claimable when the travel itself is.

The return trip counts too. After the last participant of the run, you can claim the time back to the worker's usual place of work — within the same 30 or 60-minute cap — but only when you actually have to pay the worker for that return travel. Use the calculator above to run your own numbers; the sections below explain why it gives the answer it does.

From 24 September 2026 the NDIS moved to a new pricing regime. The Minister for the NDIS made the first pricing determination under section 45C of the NDIS Act, and the NDIS pricing schedule 2026–27 now sets the legal maximum prices for NDIA-managed and plan-managed supports. The schedule lists item numbers and national, remote and very remote maximums — it does not contain the claiming rules that used to sit in the Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits (PAPL).

Every one of the PAPL conditions has to be true for a travel claim. Most rejected or clawed-back travel claims fail one of the first three, so run through them in order.

Two more conditions sit behind these: the travel must be part of delivering that participant's specific support (not general admin like rostering), and you must explain the costs to the participant and why they're good value. Writing the travel terms into the service agreement satisfies both. The service agreement generator includes a travel clause you can edit.

The cap depends on the Modified Monash Model (MMM) category of the place where the participant is when the support is delivered — not where the worker starts. MMM is the Department of Health's seven-step scale of remoteness, from MM 1 (major cities) to MM 7 (very remote).

How to look up a participant's MMM category

Search the address in the Department of Health's Health Workforce Locator. Two traps catch people out:

• Version. The 2025–26 PAPL says the NDIS uses the 2019 MMM. The locator also shows the 2023 classification, which the health system now uses, and the two can differ for some towns. Read the 2019 layer for NDIS purposes until the NDIA says otherwise.
• Isolated towns. The NDIA reclassifies some towns that are surrounded by remote areas — Broken Hill (MM 3) is treated as remote, for example. The 2026–27 schedule lists 26 of these locations — they're listed below.

How the cap applies

The cap is per worker, per participant. If two workers travel to a 2:1 support, each can have up to the cap. Travel that runs past the cap is simply not claimable — you still have to pay the worker for it, so factor long trips into your pricing or rostering rather than the invoice. The cap applies separately to the trip to the participant and the return trip, so in an MMM 1–3 area the most travel time you can attach to a single visit is an hour: 30 minutes there and 30 minutes back.

Support workers (core supports and capacity building delivered by disability support workers) claim travel time at the same hourly rate agreed for the support, or a lower rate if that's what you agreed. A weekday daytime self-care shift at the $73.58 national limit means travel is also claimed at up to $73.58 an hour.

Therapists, including early childhood professionals, can claim travel time at up to 50% of the direct-service price limit. In the 2026–27 schedule that rule is built into a separate item for each therapy type, ending in _PT. Claim therapy travel against the _PT item at its price — don't claim the direct service item at half price.

Not sure which item a therapy session sits under? Every _PT item has its own page in the NDIS price guide — for example 15_622_0128_1_3_PT for speech pathology.

On top of the worker's time, you can negotiate a reasonable contribution towards the cost of getting there. The PAPL sets what the NDIA considers reasonable:

• up to $0.99 a kilometre for a vehicle owned by the provider or the worker; and
• road tolls, parking and public transport fares up to the full amount.

Non-labour costs are only claimable when travel time is claimable for that trip. A leg that runs past the time cap still has claimable time, and the PAPL doesn't cut kilometres back in proportion to the cap — its own worked examples claim every kilometre of the run. If a leg has no claimable time at all (an unpaid trip home, say), leave its kilometres off too.

Which item number to use

Kilometres don't go on the support item. They go on the “Provider travel – non-labour costs” item for the registration group of the support — for example 01_799_0107_1_1 (daily personal activities), 04_799_0125_6_1 (community participation) or 15_799_0128_1_3 (therapeutic supports). These items have no price limit and a notional unit price of $1.00, so a $29.70 km charge is claimed as a quantity of 29.70 at $1.00.

Don't confuse this with activity based transport, which is the cost of transporting the participant during a community participation support. That has its own items and its own per-km guide amounts.

Each example uses the national price limit as the agreed rate and $0.99/km. Your agreed rate may be lower — the maths is the same. Travel time is shown in hours and minutes (h:mm), which the NDIA accepts for hour-based claims, so the amounts match the exact minutes.

When a worker sees several participants in the same area, the PAPL says it's reasonable to apportion all the travel time — including the return journey — between the participants who received support, and to do the same for non-labour costs. Apportionment must be agreed with each participant in advance, in their service agreement.

Equal shares are simplest to explain, but you can agree another method — for example by the distance each participant adds to the run. Whatever you choose, use it consistently and keep the trip log: date, worker, start and finish times for each leg, odometer readings or a mapping record, and receipts for tolls and parking. That log is your evidence if a plan manager or the NDIA queries a claim.

Never claim the full trip from each participant. Billing two participants for the same 30 minutes is double claiming, even if each claim is under the cap on its own.

In MMM 6 and 7 there is no fixed time cap. Providers delivering core and capacity-building supports can make specific arrangements with the participant to cover travel, up to the hourly rate for the support item — or up to 50% of the hourly price limit for therapy. The PAPL asks providers to help participants keep these costs down, for example by grouping appointments in the same community so travel can be shared, or using telehealth where it suits.

The higher remote and very remote limits apply to the support itself as well as to travel time claimed at the support rate. A 90-minute drive each way to a very remote community, agreed in writing, could be claimed at up to $110.37 an hour — $331.11 for the three hours — which is exactly why the PAPL expects travel to be shared and planned.

The service agreement is what makes travel claimable. Spell it out in plain language so the participant knows what they're agreeing to:

Generate a full agreement — including cancellation and travel clauses — with the NDIS service agreement generator, then bill the visit with the NDIS invoice generator, keeping the support, travel time and non-labour costs on separate lines.

• Claiming therapy travel at the full rate. Therapy travel is half the direct-service limit. In 2026–27 use the _PT item; claiming the direct service item for travel time will be over the travel limit.
• Putting kilometres on the support line. Km, tolls and parking go on the non-labour item, not as extra hours on the support.
• Using the worker's starting point for the MMM category. It's the participant's location that counts.
• Claiming the return trip when the worker isn't paid for it — for example when the worker goes straight home and your award arrangement doesn't pay that leg.
• Charging travel without it in the agreement. The participant has to agree in advance. Adding travel after the fact is a common reason plan managers push back.
• Double claiming shared runs. Apportion; don't bill each participant the whole trip.
• Mixing up worker pay and NDIS claims. What you claim from the plan doesn't set what you pay the worker. Check your award obligations separately — the SCHADS pay calculator covers pay rates.

Provider travel

The time and costs of a worker travelling to and from a participant to deliver a face-to-face support.

Labour costs

The worker's travel time, claimed in hours at the support rate (or the _PT rate for therapy).

Non-labour costs

Vehicle running costs, tolls, parking and fares, claimed in dollars on a separate item.

MMM

Modified Monash Model — the Department of Health's remoteness scale from MM 1 (major city) to MM 7 (very remote).

_PT item

A 2026–27 provider travel item number for a therapy support, priced at 50% of the direct-service limit.

Usual place of work

Where the worker normally starts and finishes — the base for the return-trip claim.

Apportion

Split shared travel time and costs between the participants seen on the same run, as agreed in advance.