What Is the Continence Aids Payment Scheme, and Can You Use It With Your NDIS Plan?

Continence products are relentlessly expensive, and they are expensive forever. So when families hear there is a government payment specifically for them, the obvious next question is whether it stacks on top of an NDIS plan.

The honest answer is usually no, and that is less disappointing than it sounds. Here is what the Continence Aids Payment Scheme is, who it is genuinely for, and why being told you are not eligible is often a sign you are already better off.

What the scheme actually is

The Continence Aids Payment Scheme, usually shortened to CAPS, is an annual cash payment to help with the cost of continence products. It is run by Services Australia, with policy sitting under the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing.

The important word there is cash. CAPS does not send you products, does not approve particular brands and does not require you to shop anywhere specific. The money lands in your bank account and you buy what works for you.

That makes it a fundamentally different animal from NDIS funding. NDIS money is tied to supports in a plan and subject to tests about whether a purchase relates to your disability. A CAPS payment is simply yours to spend on managing continence.

How much it is, and when it arrives

Services Australia publishes the rate each financial year. For 2026-27 the payment is up to $739.40 per person, according to the page on how much you can get.

The Continence Aids Payment Scheme at a glance

If you apply partway through the year, the first payment is prorated to bring you in line with the schedule you chose. Services Australia gives the example of applying in October and choosing the half-yearly option, where a portion is paid then and the next full payment comes in January.

Worth doing the arithmetic before you build a budget around it. Spread across a year, $739.40 works out at roughly fourteen dollars a week. For a child in overnight pull-ups plus bed protection, that is a genuine help rather than a solution.

For a child receiving CAPS, the payment can go to a custodial parent's account where the child is under fourteen, or under eighteen and not able to act on their own behalf. It can also be paid to a legal or authorised nominee, and Services Australia even allows an organisation that helps the person buy continence products to receive it.

Who can get it

The eligibility page sets out requirements you must meet in full, not pick from. You need to be five years or older. You need permanent and severe incontinence confirmed by a registered health professional. You need to be an Australian citizen, a permanent resident, or hold permanent residency rights for as long as you receive the payment. And you need an eligible neurological condition, or another condition listed by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing.

The confirmation can come from a range of practitioners, which is more flexible than people expect. Services Australia lists a general practitioner, a continence nurse, a registered nurse, a physiotherapist, an occupational therapist, an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health worker, and a medical specialist.

Two words in there deserve attention, because they do most of the filtering. Permanent and severe. Ordinary childhood bedwetting that a child is expected to grow out of will not meet that test, however exhausting the laundry is.

The extra hurdle for non-neurological conditions

This catches a lot of families by surprise. If the incontinence stems from a non-neurological condition, you must also hold a Pensioner Concession Card, either from Services Australia or the Department of Veterans' Affairs.

That additional requirement rules out a significant number of households who would otherwise qualify on the medical test alone. It is worth checking early rather than after you have gathered the paperwork.

One recent change is worth noting if aged care is part of your family's picture. Services Australia states that from 1 November 2025, Support at Home and Residential care customers can receive CAPS at the same time, provided they meet the CAPS eligibility criteria.

Can you have CAPS and NDIS continence funding together?

Generally not, and the NDIS says so itself rather than leaving you to find out.

Its continence supports guideline states that if you have continence supports funded in your NDIS plan, you will not generally be eligible for funding under the Continence Aids Payment Scheme.

Note the phrasing. Not generally eligible, rather than never. The two schemes are not designed to pay twice for the same products, which is the principle doing the work here. The NDIS was built to work alongside other government and community services rather than duplicate them.

What this means in practice is that the relevant question is not how to get both. It is which one you should be pursuing.

Which one you actually want

If you are an NDIS participant whose plan includes continence funding, you are almost certainly in the better position already, and it is worth saying so plainly.

NDIS continence funding is built from an assessment of what you actually need. Where a continence nurse recommends a particular quantity of product, the funding is sized to that rather than to a flat national figure. For a participant with significant daily needs, plan funding routinely exceeds a few hundred dollars a year by a wide margin.

The NDIS continence guideline also names bedding or chair protection among the continence products it funds, alongside pads, nappies, liners and shields, and it covers standard postage costs where products are funded in your plan. A continence assessment itself can be funded too.

So CAPS is most valuable to a specific group. People who are not NDIS participants at all, and NDIS participants whose plans do not include continence funding. If you fall into that second group and you do have ongoing continence needs, the more productive conversation is usually with your my NDIS contact about getting those supports assessed and included, rather than with Services Australia about $739.40.

The schemes people forget to check

CAPS and the NDIS are not the only help available, and several of these run regardless of whether you are an NDIS participant.

• Medicare funds services to test and diagnose incontinence, and continence supports while you are in hospital.

• The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme covers most medications used in continence management, including suppositories and enemas. The NDIS does not fund these, because the PBS does.

• The Stoma Appliance Scheme offers free stoma products and appliances to members of a stoma association, which is a separate pathway worth knowing about if a stoma is part of the picture.

• The National Continence Helpline is free and confidential, staffed by nurse continence specialists and funded by the Australian Department of Health. It is a sensible first call before you commit to any product spend.

How to apply

Applications go through Services Australia, and the confirmation of your condition from a registered health professional is the part that takes the longest, so start there. You can find the current forms and process on the Continence Aids Payment Scheme page.

You choose your payment frequency when you apply, and you can give Services Australia your bank details or update them later through your Medicare online account in myGov.

Choosing the products themselves

Whichever scheme is paying, the product decision is yours and it is the one that affects your nights most. For a school-aged child managing overnight incontinence, bed protection does more for the laundry pile than almost anything else.

Getting the fit right is the main thing people get wrong. Our guide to choosing the right size waterproof fitted sheet covers measuring properly, the waterproof sheet size guide has the dimensions, and if your child has moved into a bed recently, what to look for in toddler bed sheets is the place to start.

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The short version

• CAPS is an annual cash payment for continence products, up to $739.40 per person in 2026-27, paid in July or split across July and January.

• You must be five or older with permanent and severe incontinence confirmed by a registered health professional, and meet residency and condition requirements.

• A non-neurological cause also requires a Pensioner Concession Card.

• If your NDIS plan funds continence supports, you will not generally be eligible for CAPS.

• That is usually the better outcome, since plan funding is sized to your assessed needs rather than capped at a national figure.

• Medicare, the PBS, the Stoma Appliance Scheme and the National Continence Helpline sit alongside both.

If you take one thing from the above, make it this. Chasing CAPS on top of NDIS continence funding is effort spent in the wrong direction. Getting your continence needs properly assessed and funded in your plan is where the money actually is.

Everything above is general information drawn from published Services Australia and NDIS guidance, current at the time of writing. Payment rates change each financial year and eligibility depends on your circumstances, so confirm the current details with Services Australia and your my NDIS contact.