Is it a reportable incident — and by when?

A reportable incident is a serious incident, or an allegation of one, that happens in connection with NDIS supports or services delivered by a registered provider. The list comes from section 73Z of the NDIS Act and section 16 of the Incident Management and Reportable Incidents Rules. There are six types, and an allegation of any of them is reportable in the same way as a confirmed incident.

Death

The death of a person with disability. The Commission's guidance is that deaths are reportable whatever the cause, including natural or expected deaths, when they occur in connection with your supports.

Serious injury

Not defined in the Rules. The Commission's guidance gives examples such as fractures, burns, deep cuts, extensive soft-tissue or internal injuries, and any injury needing emergency medical treatment or a hospital stay.

Abuse or neglect

Physical, sexual, psychological, emotional or financial abuse, and failing to provide the care, supervision or supports the person needs.

Unlawful sexual or physical contact, or assault

Contact that would be a criminal offence, by anyone — a worker, another participant, a family member or a stranger. Unlawful physical contact is excluded only where the contact with, and impact on, the person is negligible (Rules s 16(2)).

Sexual misconduct

Sexual misconduct committed against, or in the presence of, a person with disability, including grooming the person for sexual activity.

Unauthorised restrictive practice

Use of a restrictive practice without state or territory authorisation, or not in line with the person's behaviour support plan. Use that is authorised but outside the plan is still reportable (Rules s 16(3)). See the restrictive practice timeline checker.

Everything else — a minor fall, a medication error with no harm, a property damage incident — is still an incident that your incident management system must record, assess and resolve. It just isn't notified to the Commission through the reportable incident scheme.

An incident is only reportable if it happened, or is alleged to have happened, in connection with the supports or services you provide. The Commission's guidance reads this broadly. It covers incidents that:

• happen while a support or service is being delivered, wherever that is — the person's home, a vehicle, the community or your premises;
• arise out of how supports were delivered, changed or withdrawn, even if no worker was present at the time; and
• are disclosed to, or witnessed by, a worker in the course of delivering supports.

It does not depend on who was at fault. A participant hurt by a stranger during a community access shift is connected with your supports. A participant hurt at a weekend family event with no involvement from you is generally not — but if a worker learns of abuse at home during a shift, consider your other duties, such as contacting police or child protection, and record it.

Every deadline runs from when the provider became aware of the incident or allegation — in practice, when one of your key personnel or your nominated incident reporter knew. Not when it happened. That is why the Rules also require every worker to tell key personnel, a supervisor or the nominated person as soon as possible (s 19).

The Rules let you hold back certain details — a description of the incident, the impact, the time and place, or the people involved — where getting them would prejudice a criminal investigation or expose a person with disability to a risk of harm (s 22). That is a narrow exception: you still notify on time.

This is the logic the checker uses. Work down the questions in order.

Write the notification in plain, factual language: what was seen or disclosed, by whom, when, and what was done. Avoid opinions and diagnoses. Our progress note writer helps workers keep shift records objective, which makes incident reports easier to build.

A business day is a day that is not a Saturday, a Sunday or a public holiday in the place concerned. The 24-hour deadline ignores all of that and runs in clock hours. Suppose key personnel became aware of a serious injury at 4:00pm on Friday 2 October 2026.

The checker lets you add local public holidays so the 5-day date matches your state. Never assume a weekend pauses the 24-hour deadline: rosters for on-call managers should cover this.

These scenarios are fictional and de-identified.

1. A fall during a community outing

A participant trips on a kerb during a community access shift and is taken to hospital with a suspected broken wrist. The team leader is told at 11:20am. This is a serious injury connected with supports: notify by 11:20am the next day and lodge the 5 Day Form within 5 business days. Fault doesn't matter.

2. A disclosure about another worker

During a shift, a participant tells a support worker that a different worker yelled at them and took money from their wallet last week. Nobody knows whether it happened. This is an alleged abuse incident (psychological and financial): notify within 24 hours of key personnel hearing about it, stand the accused worker down from contact with the person while you investigate, and consider police for the alleged theft.

3. A locked door that isn't in the plan

A new house manager locks the kitchen overnight to stop late-night eating. It isn't in the resident's behaviour support plan and hasn't been authorised. That is an unauthorised environmental restraint. No one was harmed, so the 5 Day Form within 5 business days is the only notification — but stop the practice now and talk to the behaviour support practitioner.

4. Two housemates

In a shared home, one resident pushes another, who falls and bruises their arm. The push is an assault of a person with disability connected with supports, and the impact is more than negligible: notify within 24 hours. Record the incident for both residents and review both people's plans and the house's risk management.

• Starting the clock at the wrong time. It runs from when key personnel became aware, so a worker who waits until the end of a shift to mention an incident eats into the deadline.
• Waiting to investigate before reporting. Report the allegation first, then investigate. The Rules expect you to notify with what you know.
• Treating weekends as a pause on the 24 hours. Only the 5-day deadline skips weekends and public holidays.
• Skipping deaths that seem natural or expected. The Commission's guidance is that cause and expectation don't matter.
• Forgetting the update duty. If an injury turns out to involve neglect, that is a change in the kind of incident and needs a written update.
• Only recording the reportable ones. Every incident must be recorded and assessed in your incident management system, reportable or not.
• Missing restrictive practices. Locked doors, removed items and as-needed sedation are easy to overlook. Train workers to recognise them.

Part 2 of the Rules requires every registered provider to keep a documented incident management system that suits its size and the supports it delivers, give copies to participants, workers and families, and help them understand it. Auditors test it against the NDIS Practice Standards — our Practice Standards self-assessment includes the incident management outcome.

Records must be kept for 7 years. The system must also afford procedural fairness to anyone involved, collect data so you can spot systemic issues, train workers in how to use it, and be reviewed periodically.

• The Rules themselves haven't changed. The Incident Management and Reportable Incidents Rules 2018 are in force with no amendments as at 4 October 2026. The six types and the 24-hour and 5-business-day timeframes are the same.
• The Commission's detailed guidance was republished in February 2026. It is the best reference for edge cases.
• Higher penalties. The Integrity and Safeguarding Act 2026 (in effect from 9 April 2026) raised the civil penalty for breaching a condition of registration — which includes failing to notify reportable incidents — to up to 250 penalty units, or up to 10,000 penalty units for a serious contravention.
• Mandatory registration for SIL. From 1 July 2026, providers of assistance with supported independent living must be registered. Existing unregistered SIL providers had until 1 October 2026 to apply and can keep delivering while their application is decided; once registered, the incident scheme applies to them. If you run SIL, our SIL roster of care tool helps with the costing side.

Check the Commission's reportable incidents page before relying on this guide for a live incident — guidance and portal forms can change without the Rules changing.