Providers of aged care

Overview

The Australian Government provides funding for approved aged care service providers. An aged care provider (or organisation) manages an aged care service. A provider may operate a number of different services, sometimes across different aged care programs.

A service can be a facility that provides aged care (such as home care or residential care). A service can also be an outlet that provides home support.

Residential and flexible care services are allocated a set number of government-funded places (or beds). At 30 June 2025, there were 224,493 operational places allocated to residential care services, with an occupancy rate of 89.9% through 2024–25 (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing 2025). Home support outlets and home care services are not allocated a set number of government-funded places.

For more information on managing supply and demand of aged care places, see Report on the Operation of the Aged Care Act and Stocktake of Australian Government Subsidised Aged Care Places.

At 30 June 2025 (or during the 2024–25 financial year for home support):

• 1,338 providers were providing home support through 3,638 outlets
• 923 providers were delivering home care through 2,363 services
• 707 providers were delivering residential care through 2,590 services.

 

Table 1: Number of aged care providers, services and places by care type, 30 June 2025

Care type	Providers	Services	Places
Home support	1,338	3,638*	n.a.
Home care	923	2,363	n.a.
Residential care	707	2,590	224,493
Transition care and short-term restorative care	70	193	6,770
Other flexible care	67	232	5,631

n.a. Not applicable.
*Number of home support outlets.
Notes:
1. The data for 'Home support' have been measured over 2024–25 financial year.
2. Estimates presented here have been calculated without reference to aged care services claims data.
3. 'Other flexible care' includes Multi-Purpose Service Program, Innovative Care Programme, and National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program. Providers operating more than one type of flexible care service (or operating both transition care and short-term restorative care services) are counted only once in each cell.
4. Number of providers for home support, home care and residential care are sourced from the Report on the Operation of the Aged Care Act. Due to differences in methods, counts on provider may differ slightly to those extracted from the stocktake data. This difference in provider counts has not affected service or place counts.

Source: National Aged Care Data Clearinghouse.

Location of aged care services

The map below shows the location of active aged care services in Australia during the reporting period:

• home support outlets during the 2024–25 financial year
• services for other care types as at 30 June 2025.

Each dot represents an aged care service, and the colour reflects the type of care it offers (see 'Types of aged care available in Australia').

Location is based on the physical location of the service, facility or outlet. For home support and home care, as a service can deliver care some distance away from its physical location, the location of the service marked on the map can be different to the location where care is received.

Overall:

• home support outlets and services providing home care, residential care, transition care and short-term restorative care were concentrated in more densely populated urban areas
• services providing other flexible care were more frequently located outside of densely populated urban areas.

 

Figure 1: Location of aged care services by care type, 30 June 2025

Aged care services by remoteness areas

The availability of aged care services varies by remoteness areas and care type, with most aged care services located in metropolitan areas.

Most older people live in metropolitan areas. At 30 June 2025, 66% of the older Australians (aged 65 and over) lived in Metropolitan areas (MM 1), 9.5% lived in Regional centres (MM 2), 23% lived in Rural towns (MM 3–5) and only 1.5% lived in Remote or Very remote communities (MM 6–7). For more information on people using aged care by remoteness area, see People using aged care.

In this section, remoteness areas are based on the physical location of the service, facility or outlet, so home support outlets and home care services can deliver care some distance away from their physical location.

At 30 June 2025 (or during the 2024–25 financial year for home support), where the data on remoteness areas are known:

• more than half (58%) of home support outlets were located in Metropolitan areas (MM 1), compared with 1 in 3 (33%) that were located in Rural towns, Remote or Very remote communities (MM 3–7)
• around 2 in 3 home care services (66%) and residential care services (64%), and more than 3 in 5 (62%) transition care and short-term restorative care services were located in Metropolitan areas (MM 1), compared with 25%, 28% and 24% that were located in Rural towns, Remote or Very remote communities (MM 3–7), respectively
• over 2 in 5 (44%) other flexible care services, which includes the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program, were located in Remote or Very remote communities (MM 6–7), compared with just 3.9% that were located in Metropolitan areas (MM 1).

 

Figure 2: Aged care services by care type and remoteness areas, 30 June 2025

Management of aged care services

The Australian Government provides most of the funding for aged care services but they may be operated by government (state and territory or local), not-for-profit (religious, charitable and community), or private organisations.

At 30 June 2025 (or during the 2024–25 financial year for home support), where the data on organisation type are known:

• not-for-profit organisations operated the majority of aged care services across Australia – 71% of home support outlets, 64% of home care services and 59% of residential care services
• private organisations operated the second highest number of home care (30%) and residential care (33%) services, but only 12% of home support outlets
• government organisations operated the fewest number of home care (6.0%) and residential care (7.6%) services, but almost one-fifth of home support outlets (17%)
• across states and territories, Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory (89% each) had the highest proportion of not-for-profit residential care services. Western Australia had the highest proportion of private residential care services (38%) and Victoria had the highest proportion of government residential care services (19%).

 

Figure 3: Aged care services by care type, organisation type and states and territories, 30 June 2025

Providers, services and places over time

A number of aged care reforms and changes were implemented between 2015 and 2017. This includes introduction of the Short-Term Restorative Care Programme, rollout and expansion of the Commonwealth Home Support Program, and changes to the Home Care Packages Program.

To improve comparability, we only report trend data between 30 June 2017 and 2025 (or between 2016–17 and 2024–25 for home support), accordingly all aged care data could be compared for a same period.

The number of aged care providers and services can change over time due to demand, funding and other market forces. The number of aged care places, however, are decided by the Australian Government. Residential and flexible care services are allocated a set number of government-funded places. The Australian Government manages the supply of aged care places by specifying a national target provision ratio of subsidised aged care places based on the population aged 70 and over. This approach aims to grow the supply of aged care places in proportion to the growth in the older population. Home support outlets and home care services are not allocated a set number of government-funded places.

Between 30 June 2017 and 2025 (or between 2016–17 and 2024–25 for home support):

• the number of providers for home care, transition care and short-term restorative care, and other flexible care increased by 31%, 75% and 12%, respectively; while the number of providers for home support and residential care decreased by 12% and 22%, respectively
• the number of home support outlets, transition care and short-term restorative care services, and other flexible care services increased by 7.3%, 47% and 5.5%, respectively, meanwhile the number of home care services and residential care services remained relatively stable
• the total number of places for residential care, transition care and short-term restorative care and other flexible care places all increased. The biggest increase in places was for transition care and short-term restorative care (53%), followed by other flexible care (25%) and residential care (12%).

 

Figure 4: Aged care providers, services and places by care type, 2017–2025

Management and provision of aged care over time

The number of residential and flexible care places in aged care services operated by not-for-profit, government and private organisations have changed over time, and varied across states and territories. The Australian Government manages the supply of aged care places by specifying a national target provision ratio of subsidised aged care places based on the population aged 70 and over. States and territories with more older people have more aged care places available.

Between 30 June 2017 and 2025:

• for government residential care services, both the number of places and the number of places per capita decreased – from 8,800 to 7,600 places (a 14% decline) and from 3.4 to 2.2 places per 1,000 people aged 70 and over, respectively
• the number of places in private and not-for-profit residential care services increased by 7.0% (79,800 to 85,300) and 17% (112,000 to 132,000), respectively. However, the number of places per capita, based on the population aged 70 and over, declined over the same period – from 31 to 25 per 1,000 in private services and from 43 to 39 per 1,000 in not-for-profit services
• the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program (NATSIFACP) is a prominent part of aged care service provision in Northern Territory. The number of NATSIFACP places in Northern Territory more than doubled – from 350 to 805 places; meanwhile, the number of places per capita in Northern Territory increased for not-for-profit and government services – from 27 to 45 per 1,000 people aged 70 and over for not-for-profit services and from 7.8 to 9.6 per 1,000 for government services.

 

Figure 5: Aged care places by care type, organisation type and states and territories, 2017–2025

Size of residential care services over time

The size of residential care services has changed over time. There are fewer small services (with 60 or fewer operational places) and more large services (with 101 or more operational places). Private residential care services are more commonly large services, while government and not-for-profit services tend to be small.

At 30 June 2025:

• overall, 36% of residential care services were large services, 32% were medium-sized services (61-100 operational places) and 31% were small services
• almost 9 in 10 (88%) government residential care services and 32% of not-for-profit services were small services, compared with 17% of private services.

Between 30 June 2017 and 2025, as a share of all residential care services:

• the number of small services decreased by 32% overall – the biggest decline was for private services (35% decline), followed by not-for-profit services (34% decline) and the decline for government services was 21%
• the number of medium-sized services increased by 15% for not-for-profit services, but decreased for government and private services by 13% and 8.7%, respectively
• the number of large services increased by 37% – the biggest increase was for not-for-profit services (50% increase), followed by private services (24% increase), while the number of government services remained stable.

 

Figure 6: Size of residential care services by organisation type, 2017–2025

COVID-19 and aged care services

During 2024–25, there continued to be a real and ongoing impact of COVID-19 in residential aged care. Most residential aged care services experienced a COVID-19 outbreak during 2024–25 – 2,005 facilities experienced one or more outbreaks (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing 2025).

Throughout 2024–25, aged care providers put in place practices to manage COVID-19 outbreaks, resulting in reduced need for government support. However, the Australian Government continued a number of activities to support the aged care sector to respond to outbreaks. These included the continued workforce support for facilities experiencing staff shortages; addressing recommendations arising from the evaluation of the Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Lead Nurse role in facilities; and the continued surveillance and monitoring of COVID-19 impacts in residential aged care settings.

For further information on aged care services and the COVID-19 pandemic, see the Report on the Operation of the Aged Care Act and the COVID-19 outbreaks in Australian residential aged care facilities weekly report.

 

Reference

Department of Health, Disability and Ageing (2025) 2024–25 Report on the Operation of the Aged Care Act 1997, Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, Australian Government, accessed 11 February 2026.

 

Where can I find out more?

Related information can be found on other GEN topic pages:

• People using aged care
• Spending on care

For a list of residential care, home care and flexible care services, view the Aged care service list.

For a confidentialised unit record file (CURF) on this topic, view the GEN data: Providers of aged care CURF.

For more information about providers, services and places in aged care, view the Report on the Operation of the Aged Care Act.