DSP Eligibility in Australia: The Section 94 Test, Impairment Tables and Residence

To qualify for the Disability Support Pension (DSP) under section 94 of the Social Security Act 1991, a person generally needs an impairment rated 20 points or more on the Impairment Tables, a continuing inability to work 15 hours a week or more, and 10 years of qualifying Australian residence, unless the separate, simpler permanent blindness pathway applies instead.

This page covers the eligibility test in detail: the impairment rating, the continuing inability to work test, the permanent blindness pathway, residence, and the six manifest grant categories. For current fortnightly rates, see DSP payment rates. For how to lodge a claim and what medical evidence Services Australia expects, see how to apply for DSP. For what happens after a claim is refused, see DSP reviews and appeals. Start at the Disability Support Pension hub for an overview of the whole payment.

The core qualification test: section 94

Section 94(1) of the Social Security Act 1991 sets out the main conditions a person must meet. Read together, they require: an impairment rated 20 points or more under the Impairment Tables; either a continuing inability to work or participation in the Commonwealth's Supported Wage System; having turned 16; meeting the residence requirements described below; and being an Australian resident, or covered by one of two portability determinations, at the time of the decision. Section 94(6) adds a narrow anti-gaming carve-out: a person is not qualified on the basis of continuing inability to work if they brought the inability about with a view to obtaining DSP or a related exemption.

A person under 35, and a shrinking group of people who first claimed DSP between 2008 and 2011 and were later reviewed, may also need to meet participation requirements under a separate provision, section 94A, where the person is assessed as able to do at least 8 hours of work a week and, if they have a dependent child, that child has turned 6. This article does not describe what those participation requirements involve in detail; section 94A itself was not opened for this dossier, so a reader in that position should check the current DSS Guide directly rather than rely on a general description here.

Impairment rating: 20 points on the Impairment Tables

An impairment rating is assessed under the Social Security (Tables for the Assessment of Work-related Impairment for Disability Support Pension) Determination 2023, a legislative instrument registered on 2 March 2023. Services Australia's own guidance states the current Tables apply to claims and review requests made from 1 April 2023 onward; that specific application date comes from Services Australia's guidance rather than from independently reading the instrument's own commencement clause. The Tables cover 15 named areas of function:

1. Functions requiring Physical Exertion and Stamina
2. Upper Limb Function
3. Lower Limb Function
4. Spinal Function
5. Mental Health Function
6. Functioning related to Alcohol, Drug and Other Substance Use
7. Brain Function
8. Communication Function
9. Intellectual Function
10. Digestive and Reproductive Function
11. Hearing and Other Functions of the Ear
12. Visual Function
13. Continence Function
14. Functions of the Skin
15. Functions of Consciousness

A claimant needs a total rating of 20 points or more, which can be built up across more than one table. A separate concept, severe impairment, applies where at least 20 of the person's total points come from a single table. For example, a person with 30 points made up of 20 from one table and 10 from another has a severe impairment; a person with 40 points made up of 20 from each of two tables also has a severe impairment; but a person with 20 points made up of 10 from each of two different tables does not, even though they clear the 20-point qualification threshold on the whole. A severe impairment matters because it exempts the claimant from the usual requirement to have taken part in a program of support, covered below.

Continuing inability to work: the 15-hour test and program of support

Assuming the impairment threshold is met, most claimants also need to show a continuing inability to work. The Secretary must be satisfied that the impairment alone, independently of a program of support, prevents the person from working 15 hours a week or more at or above the relevant minimum wage within the next 2 years, and either prevents them from training toward that kind of work in the same period or makes such training unlikely to get them there. In deciding this, the Secretary cannot take into account whether training is actually available or whether that kind of work exists in the person's own local labour market; the test is about the person's own capacity, not local conditions.

Unless the impairment is a severe impairment, or a narrow set of legacy transitional categories applies, the claimant generally also needs to have actively taken part in a Commonwealth funded program of support, meaning a program designed to help a person prepare for, find or keep work. This 15-hour version of the test has applied to every new DSP claim since 1 July 2006. Before that date, claimants were assessed under an older 30-hour test, and the program of support requirement itself was only added from 3 September 2011; both points are relevant mainly to people who have been on DSP since before those changes, not to a new 2026 claim.

Permanent blindness: a separate, simpler pathway

Section 95 of the Social Security Act 1991 sets out a genuinely separate qualification pathway for permanent blindness. A person qualifies if they are permanently blind, have turned 16, and meet the same residence rules described below. Critically, section 95 does not require an Impairment Tables rating, a continuing inability to work test, or participation in a program of support; the only disqualifier mirrors section 94(6), ruling out blindness brought about with a view to obtaining DSP. Permanent blindness is also one of the six manifest grant categories described further down this page, which in practice means most blind claimants are fast-tracked without a full Job Capacity Assessment.

Residence requirements

Section 7(5) of the Social Security Act 1991 defines 10 years qualifying Australian residence as an either/or test, not a stacked requirement. It is satisfied if the person has been an Australian resident for a single continuous period of 10 years or more, or if their residence was spread across more than one period that together add up to more than 10 years, provided at least one of those periods was 5 years or more. A person with one unbroken 10-year stay in Australia meets the test with no further condition; the 5-year element only comes into play for someone whose residence is split across multiple periods.

A Qualifying Residence Exemption under section 7(6) is available for a person who resides in Australia and is a refugee or a former refugee, letting them qualify for DSP as a pension without meeting either version of the 10-year test. A person can also qualify through the terms of an Australian Social Security Agreement made under the Social Security (International Agreements) Act 1999, without independently meeting the standalone residence tests; which countries have such an agreement, and its exact terms, sit outside this article. A separate pathway covers a person born outside Australia who, when they first qualify, is a dependent child of an Australian resident and who later becomes an Australian resident while still a dependent child of an Australian resident.

Manifest grants: six categories

Services Australia can grant DSP without the standard Job Capacity Assessment process for six specific categories, sometimes called manifest grants. This appears to be Services Australia's own administrative practice for fast-tracking these particular claims rather than a term defined in the Act itself. The six categories are:

1. Terminal illness, defined as a chronic and debilitating condition with a terminal prognosis, an average life expectancy of 24 months or less, and a significant reduction in work capacity within that period.
2. Permanent blindness, meeting the section 95 test described above.
3. Intellectual disability, with medical evidence clearly indicating an IQ under 70.
4. An assessed need for nursing home level care, whether the person is currently in a nursing home or not, where they are unlikely to be discharged from that level of care in the foreseeable future.
5. Category 4 HIV/AIDS.
6. Receipt of the Department of Veterans' Affairs Disability Compensation Payment at the Special Rate, commonly known as the Totally and Permanently Incapacitated (TPI) rate.

Services Australia also maintains supplementary lists of named conditions that can support a manifest grant on diagnosis alone, or that need a documented follow-up on prognosis, stage or IQ before a manifest decision is made; those lists sit outside the scope of this article and are intended as an internal assessment aid rather than reader-facing guidance.

Age requirements

DSP is available to people aged 16 up to Age Pension age, whether they qualify under the general section 94 test or the section 95 blindness pathway; a person cannot lodge a DSP claim below 16 or above Age Pension age. Age Pension age itself is set by a separate schedule outside sections 94 and 95, and moving from DSP to Age Pension at that age is covered on the working while on DSP page along with the other rules that apply once a person is receiving the payment.