If you’re registering as an NDIS provider, or taking on new staff, the NDIS Worker Screening Check is one of the first practical compliance requirements you’re going to run into. Here’s what it is, who needs one, and how the process works from a provider’s perspective.
This article is up to date as of April 2026! Check out the Commission’s resources here.
What is an NDIS Worker Screening Check?
An NDIS Worker Screening Check is a national assessment that determines whether a person poses an unacceptable risk to people with disability. It’s conducted by the worker screening unit in the relevant state or territory on behalf of the NDIS Commission, and the outcome is either a clearance or an exclusion.
It’s not the same as a police check, which returns a record of criminal history. The Worker Screening Check involves a broader risk assessment that considers criminal history alongside other relevant information. Both may be required depending on your circumstances, but one doesn’t substitute for the other.
NDIS clearances are valid for five years and are nationally recognised. This means that a worker who holds a clearance doesn’t need to reapply if they move to a different state or territory, or if their business structure changes.
Who needs a Check?
For registered NDIS providers, a Worker Screening Check is required for:
- Anyone in a risk-assessed role: this includes workers whose normal duties involve the direct delivery of supports or services to participants, or who are likely to have more than incidental contact with people with disability
- All key personnel: CEOs, directors, board members, and any others with executive decision-making authority or significant influence over the organisation’s activities.
Risk-assessed roles cover staff, volunteers, contractors, and students on placement. The definition of more than incidental contact is broad, it includes physical contact, face-to-face interaction, and oral, written or electronic communication that is a regular and ordinary part of the role.
Providers are responsible for identifying which roles in their organisation are risk-assessed and keeping written records of those assessments.
If a worker’s role involves building a relationship with a participant as part of how the work gets done, the role is probably risk-assessed. A back-office accountant who occasionally passes through a waiting room is probably not. A support worker, therapist, or anyone delivering NDIS supports directly is.
What providers need to do
Before your workers apply, you need to get your Employer ID from the NDIS Commission portal. Workers need this number to nominate you as their employer in their application.
When a worker applies, they submit their application to the worker screening unit in their state or territory and include your Employer ID. This triggers a verification request to your account in the NDIS Worker Screening Database.
You then verify the application through the Commission portal, confirming that you intend to engage the worker, and the application won’t progress until you complete this step. This is a step that catches some providers off guard, particularly when they’re onboarding several workers at once and don’t realise they need to actively verify each application rather than just waiting for results to come through.
Working while waiting for a clearance
Some states and territories allow workers to begin working in a risk-assessed role while their application is being processed — this is called working on application. Whether this is available depends on where you operate.
If working on application is permitted in your state or territory, you must:
- Develop and maintain a written risk management plan describing how you will protect participants during this period
- Ensure the worker is supervised at all times by someone who holds a current clearance
Check the requirements in your state or territory before allowing any worker to start in a risk-assessed role without a clearance.
Sole traders and self-employed providers
If you’re a sole trader registered as an NDIS provider, you are both the worker and the provider for screening purposes. You need to complete both the application and the verification steps yourself. The process involves getting your Employer ID from the portal, submitting your application to your state or territory worker screening unit using that ID, and then logging back into the portal to verify your own application.
Keeping records
Registered providers are required to maintain written records of all risk-assessed roles and the workers in those roles. Records of individual workers must be kept for seven years, including after that worker has left your organisation. The records need to include the worker’s screening check number, clearance expiry date, and details of any interim bar, suspension, or exclusion.
You also need to monitor ongoing clearance status. When a worker linked to your account has a check expiring within 90 days, the Commission’s portal will send you a notification. Workers whose checks expire must be removed from risk-assessed roles immediately until a new clearance is granted.
A note on contractors
Contractors in risk-assessed roles need clearances, just as employees do. As a registered provider, you need to identify the risk-assessed roles contractors will be performing, enter into an appropriate contract as outlined in the Worker Screening Rules, and take reasonable steps to confirm that the contractor holds a current clearance.
What happens if a worker is excluded?
An excluded worker cannot work in risk-assessed roles with registered NDIS providers. If you receive an exclusion outcome for a worker, they must be removed from any risk-assessed role immediately.
