When your NDIS plan arrives, the funding isn''t one big pool — it''s divided into separate budgets, each with its own purpose and its own rules about flexibility. Understanding the three main budget types is the key to actually using your plan well.
Your plan is split into budgets
The three main budget categories are Core supports, Capacity Building supports, and Capital supports. Money is allocated to each based on your goals and needs, and — importantly — how freely you can move funds around differs between them.
Core supports
Core is usually the most flexible budget and often the largest. It funds your everyday supports — assistance with daily living, help to participate in the community, consumables, and (for some) transport. Within Core, you can generally move funding fairly freely between its sub-categories to suit your needs.
Capacity Building supports
Capacity Building funds supports that help you build skills and independence over time — things like support coordination, improved daily living (therapies), improved health and wellbeing, and finding and keeping a job. This budget is less flexible: funding is allocated to specific categories and generally has to be spent within the category it was assigned to, not moved around like Core.
Capital supports
Capital funds higher-cost, one-off items — assistive technology, equipment, home or vehicle modifications, and specialist disability accommodation. It''s the least flexible: funding here is typically tied to the specific item it was approved for, and can''t be redirected to other supports.
What you can and can''t move between them
The golden rule: you generally cannot move money between the three main budget types. Core funding can''t be spent on a Capital item, and Capacity Building funding can''t be redirected to Core supports. Flexibility mostly exists within Core, and is limited elsewhere.
Why this matters
Knowing this stops two common problems: running out of a rigid budget while a flexible one sits unused, and assuming you can buy something the plan wasn''t structured to fund. It also helps you advocate at plan time for the right funding in the right category.
The bottom line
Your NDIS plan is three budgets, not one: Core (flexible, everyday), Capacity Building (skill-building, category-restricted) and Capital (one-off items, tied to the approved item). You generally can''t move money between them — so understanding what each is for, and getting the structure right at planning time, is what lets you use every dollar.
This is general information, not NDIS planning advice — check specifics with the NDIA, your planner or your support coordinator.