If you've seen the number "0138" appear in NDIS Commission communications over the last few weeks and weren't entirely sure what it meant for your business, you're not alone. It's a small code carrying a large amount of regulatory weight, and understanding it properly is the difference between a smooth registration transition and a scramble later in the year.

Here's a clear breakdown of what 0138 actually is, what's changed from the old 0115 group, and what the new SIL Practice Standards module is going to ask of you.

What 0138 Actually Is

0138 — Assistance with Supported Independent Living is a new NDIS registration group, created specifically for SIL and taking effect from 1 July 2026. Its definition sits in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (Provider Registration and Practice Standards) Rules 2018, and from today, it is the lawful authority required to deliver supported independent living supports.

Before this change, SIL sat inside a much broader registration group, 0115 — Assistance with Daily Life Tasks in a Group or Shared Living Arrangement. That group also covered things like short-term accommodation (STA), respite, and host arrangement supports. The problem with bundling SIL into that broader category was that it diluted the scrutiny applied to one of the highest-risk support types in the entire scheme. SIL involves people with significant support needs receiving assistance at all hours of the day, often in their own home, where independent oversight is naturally thinner than in a clinical or community setting.

The Commission's own inquiry into supported accommodation found that the overwhelming majority of reportable incidents in the NDIS occur in exactly these settings. 0138 exists to apply a level of scrutiny that actually matches that risk.

0138 vs 0115: What's the Real Difference

It's worth being precise here, because the two codes aren't simply old and new versions of the same thing.

0115 still exists. It continues to apply to STA, respite, and host arrangement supports. What's changed is that SIL-specific supports have been carved out of it entirely and now sit under 0138 on their own.

If you're already registered under 0115 for SIL, you don't need to lodge a fresh application. The Commission is automatically varying eligible providers' registration certificates to add 0138. You'll likely have received, or will soon receive, a Notice of Intention to Vary Registration, giving you the opportunity to confirm the change or flag if you no longer wish to be registered for SIL. It's worth reading that notice carefully rather than letting it sit in an inbox.

If you're not currently registered under 0115 and you deliver, or plan to deliver, SIL, the 0138 application sits in front of you as a fresh registration step, and the process and deadlines depend on your specific situation, which we cover below.

Practically, for claiming purposes, 0138 is also now the code attached to SIL supports delivered from 1 July 2026 onward. Plan managers are required to check registration status before processing claims under this code.

Certification, Not Verification

It's important to understand the level of scrutiny 0138 sits under. Registration for SIL is assessed through Certification, the most thorough audit pathway in the NDIS framework, not the lighter-touch Verification process some smaller registration groups use.

A Certification audit is a two-stage process. The first stage examines your documented systems: policies, procedures, registers, and the structures that are supposed to govern how you operate. The second stage examines whether those systems are actually being followed in practice, through file reviews, worker interviews, and in many cases, observation of service delivery itself. Auditors are explicitly trained to distinguish between a policy that exists on paper and a system that's genuinely lived in day to day.

The New SIL Practice Standards Module: Four Standards

Registering under 0138 doesn't just mean ticking a box for a different group code. It means your organisation is now certified against a brand-new supplementary module of the NDIS Practice Standards, sitting on top of the Core Module that already applies to every registered provider.

The Commission released the draft SIL module on 28 May 2026, with the final version confirmed and enforceable from 1 July 2026. It's built around four standards, each addressing a specific risk area the Commission has identified in shared and supported living settings.

Supported Decision-Making. This standard requires you to demonstrate that participants are genuinely supported to make their own decisions about their home, their daily life, their relationships, and their goals, with accessible information and real decision-making support rather than decisions made for them by default.

Safeguarding. This covers whether each participant lives in a home that's genuinely safe, supportive, and respectful, with active safeguards in place to minimise harm, both within the household and in the participant's interactions with the broader community.

Practice Governance. This standard looks at whether the people actually delivering support have the training, knowledge, and skill to do it properly, including demonstrated knowledge of evidence-based practice rather than informal, on-the-job learning alone.

Tenancy, Housing, and Support Agreements. This is consistently flagged as the most commonly missed area in audits to date. It requires participants to clearly understand their tenancy arrangements as separate from their service agreements, and to be actively supported to exercise choice, control, and their tenancy rights. Providers who also act as landlord and support provider for the same participant need to be especially careful that these two relationships are documented and managed separately, not blurred into a single agreement.

What This Means in Practice

Translated out of policy language, certification against these four standards generally means having a complete, customised policy suite addressing each standard directly, registers and forms that provide ongoing evidence those policies are actually being used (not just filed away), house-level incident registers that are genuinely active rather than symbolic, clearly separated tenancy and service agreements wherever you hold both roles, and documented worker training that goes beyond general NDIS induction into SIL-specific areas like de-escalation, trauma-informed practice, and positive behaviour support.

If you're currently registered under 0115 and transitioning automatically, you're not required to act immediately, but the new standards will apply at your next mid-term or recertification audit. That lead time is valuable. Use it to run an honest internal gap review now, while you still have months to close findings, rather than discovering them when an auditor does.

If you're applying fresh, the SIL module is assessed from day one of your certification audit, so your documentation needs to be built against it from the outset.

How Ashlie Care Solutions Helps You Get Certified Against the Right Standard

Understanding 0138 and the four new standards is one thing. Building a policy suite, evidence base, and operational practice that genuinely holds up under a Certification audit is another, and it's where we focus our compliance work.

We run gap reviews that map your current documentation directly against the Core Module and the new SIL supplementary module, standard by standard, so you know precisely where you stand before an auditor tells you. We help draft and refine the policies the four standards require, including the supported decision-making frameworks and tenancy separation documentation that auditors consistently flag as weak points. We support both transitioning 0115 providers preparing for their next audit cycle, and new entrants building a 0138 application from scratch.

We also conduct physical, onsite visits as part of our compliance work, because standards like safeguarding and practice governance are best assessed in the home, not just on paper. Combined with our remote plan management and compliance support, we build the evidence base your auditor will actually be looking for, well before they arrive.

If 0138 and the new SIL Practice Standards have raised more questions than answers for your organisation, that's exactly the conversation we're set up to have.

Get in touch with Ashlie Care Solutions for a compliance gap review against the new SIL Practice Standards.