Published in: Aged Care

What Is the Aged Care Star Rating System and How Does It Work? (2026 Guide)

Author diannemaex

Published on: April 11, 2026

20 minutes read

When you start searching for a residential aged care home in Australia — whether for a parent, a partner, or yourself — one of the first things you will encounter on the My Aged Care website is a row of stars next to each provider’s name. One star. Three stars. Four and a half stars. It looks simple enough. But most families have no idea what those stars actually mean, what goes into calculating them, or how much weight to give them when comparing facilities.

That uncertainty matters. Choosing the wrong aged care home — or choosing a facility based on a number without understanding what it measures — can have real consequences for the people you love most. And yet, for most families, the aged care star rating system remains a mystery: a number that sounds reassuring or alarming without any real context.

This guide explains everything you need to know about the aged care star rating system in Australia in 2026 — what it is, why it was introduced, how each of the four sub-categories is calculated, what the ratings actually tell you (and what they do not), and how to use them effectively alongside other quality information when choosing care for a loved one. We have also included the significant changes to the star rating system that took effect in late 2025, which many families have not yet heard about.

Why Was the Aged Care Star Rating System Introduced?

Australia’s aged care star rating system did not emerge from nowhere. It was a direct response to the findings of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, which handed down its final report in March 2021 after two years of hearings that exposed systemic failures across the sector — including inadequate care, poor transparency, and a system that made it almost impossible for families to compare providers and identify underperforming homes.

One of the Royal Commission’s clear recommendations was that older Australians and their families needed a simple, publicly accessible, comparable quality indicator for residential aged care — something equivalent to the star rating systems used in hospitality, health care, and other consumer sectors. The Government accepted this recommendation, and the aged care star rating system launched in December 2022, initially covering all government-funded residential aged care homes across Australia.

Before the star rating system existed, families researching aged care had to navigate a fragmented collection of audit reports, compliance notices, and anecdotal information that was difficult to interpret and even harder to compare across providers. The star rating system changed this by creating a single, nationally consistent quality benchmark — visible in one place, updated regularly, and expressed in a format that families can actually use.

The system has continued to evolve since launch. Significant changes to both the Staffing rating (from 1 October 2025) and the Compliance rating (from 1 November 2025) have made the system substantially more rigorous — and more meaningful for families — in 2026 than it was at its introduction. We cover those changes in detail below.

What Do the Stars Mean? The 1 to 5 Rating Scale Explained

Every government-funded residential aged care home in Australia receives an overall star rating between 1 and 5. Here is what each rating level means in plain English:

It is worth noting upfront that the majority of residential aged care homes in Australia receive ratings between 3 and 4 stars — meaning that a 3-star rating is not cause for alarm on its own, and a 4-star rating is genuinely good performance. A 1 or 2-star overall rating, however, warrants careful investigation before considering that facility. And a 5-star rating, while rare, reflects consistently excellent performance across all four measured areas.

The Four Sub-Categories: What Each One Measures

The overall star rating is not a single score — it is a weighted combination of four distinct sub-category ratings, each measuring a different dimension of care quality. Understanding what each sub-category measures is essential to interpreting the overall rating meaningfully. A home could score beautifully on residents’ experience while performing poorly on staffing minutes — and the overall rating may not immediately reveal that gap unless you look at the sub-categories individually.

1. Residents’ Experience — 33% Weighting (The Highest)

The Residents’ Experience rating carries the greatest weight in the overall star rating — 33% — because it most directly captures what actually matters: how residents themselves feel about the care they receive every day.

This rating is based on the annual Residents’ Experience Survey, conducted face-to-face by an independent, qualified survey team. At least 20% of residents at each aged care home must be interviewed — a requirement designed to ensure the sample is large enough to be statistically meaningful. The survey asks 12 structured questions about residents’ daily experiences, covering areas such as:

• Whether they feel safe and comfortable at the facility
• Whether staff treat them with respect and dignity
• Whether their privacy is respected
• Whether they enjoy their meals and have adequate food choices
• Whether they can choose how they spend their time and maintain meaningful activities
• Whether they feel listened to when they raise concerns

Residents respond on a scale of 1 (never) to 4 (always). Points are allocated based on responses, multiplied by the percentage of residents giving each response, and totalled across all 12 questions to generate the Residents’ Experience rating. The survey is conducted annually, and the Residents’ Experience sub-rating is updated quarterly for homes that have recently completed their annual survey.

The Residents’ Experience sub-rating is arguably the most human and the most telling of the four — because it comes directly from the people living in these homes, assessed by people with no connection to the facility. A high Residents’ Experience score means that actual residents, speaking candidly to independent assessors, consistently reported positive experiences. That is difficult to manufacture.

2. Compliance — 30% Weighting

The Compliance rating represents 30% of the overall star rating and reflects how well an aged care home is meeting its legal and regulatory obligations — specifically, the strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards that took full effect on 1 November 2025.

From 1 November 2025, the compliance rating underwent a significant redesign as part of the broader aged care reforms. It is now calculated based on two things: graded assessment against the strengthened Quality Standards, conducted by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission during a home’s registration renewal audit; and regulatory decisions made by the Commission and the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing in relation to the provider’s obligations and requirements.

The redesigned compliance rating allows for graduated assessment outcomes — not just “compliant” or “non-compliant” as under the previous system, but a graded scale that can distinguish between homes that are genuinely excelling against the strengthened standards and those that are merely meeting the minimum bar. A home can receive an “exceeding” grade if it demonstrates conformance with all seven strengthened Quality Standards and meets additional criteria including active partnerships for better outcomes, a proven track record of innovation, and exceptional leadership in the quality space.

One important nuance for families in 2026: because audits against the strengthened Quality Standards are conducted at the time of each provider’s registration renewal — which is a three-year cycle — it will take up to three years for all aged care homes in Australia to transition to the redesigned compliance rating. Until a home has been audited against the strengthened standards, its compliance rating continues to be determined by regulatory decisions and the previous compliance methodology. This means you may see some facilities still displaying compliance data from audits conducted under the old Quality Standards. When reviewing a facility’s compliance rating, it is worth asking which standards their most recent audit was conducted against.

3. Staffing — 22% Weighting

The Staffing rating makes up 22% of the overall score and measures whether an aged care home is delivering adequate amounts of direct care time to residents, from registered nurses, enrolled nurses, personal care workers, and assistants in nursing.

From 1 October 2025, the staffing rating underwent its most significant redesign since the star rating system launched. Under the previous methodology, aged care homes could achieve a 3-star or even 4-star staffing rating while failing to meet one of their two mandatory care minute targets — because a tolerance was built into the system to accommodate known workforce shortages across the sector. That tolerance has now been removed.

Under the redesigned staffing rating, an aged care home must now meet both of the following mandatory targets to achieve a rating of 3 stars or higher:

• Total care minutes: The sector-wide minimum average is 215 minutes per resident per day — encompassing time from registered nurses, enrolled nurses, personal care workers, and assistants in nursing. (Note: individual homes’ targets are personalised based on their residents’ assessed care needs under the AN-ACC funding model, so some homes will have higher targets than the sector average.)
• Registered nurse care minutes: A minimum average of 44 minutes per resident per day must be delivered by a registered nurse — though up to 10% of this target can be met by enrolled nurses.

A home that meets both targets at 110% or above can achieve a 5-star staffing rating. A home that falls below 90% on either measure may receive just 1 star for staffing. This change makes the staffing sub-rating a much more accurate and demanding measure of care time than it previously was — and one that families should look at carefully when comparing facilities.

Why does staffing matter so much? Because every minute of direct care time a resident receives from a registered nurse is a minute of clinical oversight, medication management, early detection of health changes, and professional judgement that has a direct bearing on that person’s safety and wellbeing. Higher staffing levels — and specifically higher registered nurse time — are consistently associated with better clinical outcomes across the international aged care literature.

4. Quality Measures — 15% Weighting

The Quality Measures rating carries 15% of the overall score and measures how a facility performs across five specific clinical safety indicators — areas of care that are directly correlated with resident health and wellbeing outcomes:

• Falls and major injury — the rate of falls resulting in significant harm to residents
• Unplanned weight loss — the proportion of residents experiencing significant unplanned weight loss (a key indicator of nutritional care quality and overall health monitoring)
• Pressure injuries — the rate of pressure injuries (bed sores) developing in residents, a direct indicator of mobility management, skin care, and repositioning practices
• Medication management — specifically, the use of antipsychotic medications without a diagnosis of psychosis (a known and concerning practice in dementia care)
• Restrictive practices — the rate of physical restraint and other restrictive practices used with residents

The Quality Measures rating compares each home’s performance in these five areas against the national average, rather than measuring against a fixed threshold. This means a home’s Quality Measures rating can change even if its own performance stays the same — because it reflects relative performance across the sector. The rating is updated quarterly as new data is submitted by providers.

These five areas are not arbitrary — they were selected because they are the most consistently reliable clinical indicators of care quality, measurable across all residential aged care homes, and directly linked to resident outcomes. High rates of falls, pressure injuries, or unplanned weight loss in a facility are serious warning signs. Low use of restrictive practices and antipsychotics, by contrast, is a positive indicator of person-centred, dignity-respecting care.

How the Overall Star Rating Is Calculated

The overall star rating is a weighted combination of the four sub-category scores, calculated automatically when all four sub-category ratings are available. The weightings — Residents’ Experience 33%, Compliance 30%, Staffing 22%, Quality Measures 15% — were determined through consultation with older Australians and aged care providers during the system’s design phase, and are intended to reflect what matters most to people actually living in aged care.

There is one important exception to the weighted calculation: if a home receives a 1 or 2-star Compliance rating for any reason, the overall star rating is updated immediately — regardless of when the quarterly update is due. This emergency override exists because a very low compliance rating indicates a serious safety concern that families need to know about without delay. A compliance rating cannot be masked or averaged away by strong performance in other sub-categories.

For new aged care homes, homes with new owners, or recently reopened homes, it can take up to 12 months before enough data exists to calculate an overall star rating. These homes are exempt from the star rating system during that initial period and will display “No rating” rather than a star score.

How to Find an Aged Care Home’s Star Rating

Finding the star rating for any government-funded residential aged care home in Australia is straightforward — and free. Here is exactly how to do it:

1. Go to myagedcare.gov.au and navigate to the Find a provider tool (listed under “Set up your services”).
2. Enter the suburb, postcode, or facility name you are searching for.
3. Scroll through the results — each listing shows the overall star rating prominently.
4. Click on a facility’s name to open its full profile and view the four individual sub-category ratings — not just the overall score.
5. Click on each sub-category rating to see the underlying data and any explanatory information.

You can also filter search results by star rating — for example, showing only facilities with 4 or 5 stars — or combine star rating filters with other criteria such as specialised care types, availability, and location. If you want to speak with someone about interpreting a facility’s star rating, call the My Aged Care Contact Centre on 1800 200 422 (Monday to Friday, 8am–8pm; Saturday, 10am–2pm).

The 2025–2026 Changes to the Star Rating System: What Families Need to Know

The aged care star rating system has undergone its most significant updates since launch in the period from October 2025 to early 2026. If you last checked a provider’s ratings before these changes came into effect, the numbers you are looking at today may tell a meaningfully different story. Here is a plain-English summary of what changed and why it matters.

Staffing Rating Redesign (From 1 October 2025)

Under the previous staffing rating methodology, homes could receive 3 or even 4 stars for staffing while falling short on one of their two mandatory care minute targets. A built-in tolerance had been included at launch to account for the well-documented workforce shortages across the sector at the time. That tolerance has been removed.

From 1 October 2025, aged care homes must meet both their total care minute target and their registered nurse care minute target to achieve a staffing rating of 3 stars or higher. The new rating uses a rules-based matrix where performance is measured as a percentage of each target. Homes falling below 90% on either measure risk receiving just 1 star for staffing — regardless of how well they perform on the other target.

The updated staffing ratings will be reflected in star rating data on My Aged Care from the second quarterly update of 2026, covering the October to December 2025 quarter. This means that by mid-2026, the staffing ratings visible on My Aged Care will for the first time accurately reflect the new, tougher standard — and some facilities that previously showed 3 or 4 stars for staffing may see that rating change.

Compliance Rating Redesign (From 1 November 2025)

The compliance rating has also been substantially redesigned, now incorporating graded assessment against Australia’s seven strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards — the new standards that replaced the previous eight standards on 1 November 2025. This change directly implements a recommendation of the Royal Commission, which called for compliance ratings to be linked to meaningful assessment against care quality expectations, not just the presence or absence of regulatory sanctions.

The graded assessment allows for a more nuanced compliance picture — providers who are genuinely excelling against the strengthened standards can now receive a compliance rating that reflects that excellence, rather than simply being rated “compliant” alongside providers who are merely meeting the minimum bar. Equally, providers falling short in specific standard areas will see that reflected more precisely in their compliance rating.

The transition to the new compliance rating is gradual — because audits against the strengthened standards occur at the time of each provider’s three-year registration renewal, it will take up to three years for all aged care homes across Australia to have been audited under the new system. Until then, a mix of old and new compliance methodology will be visible in the data. Families should note whether a facility’s compliance rating reflects the strengthened standards audit or the previous approach — and ask the provider directly if this is unclear.

What Star Ratings Tell You — and What They Don’t

The aged care star rating system is a genuinely valuable tool — but like any rating system, it has limitations that families need to understand before relying on it as their primary basis for choosing a facility. Using star ratings wisely means understanding both their strengths and their blind spots.

What Star Ratings Tell You Well

Star ratings give you a reliable, nationally consistent, regularly updated snapshot of measurable quality dimensions — staffing levels, clinical incident rates, regulatory compliance, and resident satisfaction. They allow like-for-like comparisons between facilities across Australia, and they are based on real data — not marketing material. A facility with a consistently strong star rating across all four sub-categories is almost certainly performing well in the areas the system measures. A facility with 1 or 2 stars in compliance or Residents’ Experience warrants serious investigation before committing to care there.

What Star Ratings Do Not Capture

Star ratings do not — and cannot — measure everything that matters in aged care. They do not capture the warmth and culture of a facility; the quality of the food and the dining experience; how staff speak to residents in the corridors on a quiet Tuesday afternoon; whether the physical environment feels like a home or an institution; how quickly management responds to family concerns; or whether the care team knows each resident as an individual rather than a clinical file. These things are profoundly important — and they are invisible in a number.

There is also a data lag in the system. Star ratings reflect performance over recent quarters — they do not capture changes in management, staffing, or care culture that may have occurred since the last data collection period. A facility that recently changed ownership, lost key clinical leaders, or experienced significant staff turnover may still display a strong historical rating that does not reflect current reality.

Finally, the Residents’ Experience survey — the most heavily weighted sub-category — covers at minimum 20% of residents but not all of them. Residents with severe cognitive impairment who cannot meaningfully participate in the survey are excluded. This means the survey may systematically underrepresent the experiences of residents with advanced dementia — often the most vulnerable people in any facility.

How to Use Star Ratings Effectively When Choosing an Aged Care Home

Used well, star ratings can significantly sharpen your shortlist and help you ask better questions on facility tours. Here is how to get the most out of them:

Look at Sub-Category Ratings Individually, Not Just the Overall Score

The overall star rating is a useful headline, but the real insight is in the sub-categories. A facility with a 3.5 overall rating might have a 4.5 in Residents’ Experience (excellent) but a 2 in Staffing (concerning). Those two numbers tell very different stories, and the staffing shortfall matters clinically — even if residents are generally happy with their experience. Always click through to the individual sub-category scores and look at each one on its own terms.

Track Ratings Over Time, Not Just at a Single Point

A facility’s star rating trend over time is more informative than any single rating. A home that has consistently maintained 4 stars across multiple quarters is demonstrating sustained performance — a much stronger signal than a home that recently jumped from 2 to 4 stars and may not sustain it. My Aged Care shows historical star rating data for each facility. Use it.

Ask Facilities to Explain Their Own Ratings

When you tour a facility, ask management directly about their star ratings — both the strong ones and the weaker ones. A provider with genuine quality focus will welcome this conversation, explain what their ratings mean in context, and describe what they are doing to improve in areas where their ratings are lower. A provider that is defensive, dismissive, or unclear about their own star rating data is sending a signal worth paying attention to.

Pay Particular Attention to the Compliance Rating

Of all four sub-categories, the compliance rating is the one where a low score carries the most immediate weight. A 1 or 2-star compliance rating means the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission has identified serious problems with how the facility is meeting its legal obligations — and this is not something that an otherwise warm environment or good food can offset. If a facility you are considering has a low compliance rating, investigate what specific findings prompted it, what the provider’s response has been, and whether those issues have been resolved to the Commission’s satisfaction.

Check the Compliance Rating Methodology

During the transition period to the new strengthened Quality Standards audit methodology (which will take until late 2027 or early 2028 for all facilities), check whether the compliance rating you are viewing reflects the new graded assessment or the previous approach. Ask the facility: “When was your most recent audit, and was it conducted against the strengthened Quality Standards from November 2025?” The answer tells you how current and rigorous the compliance data actually is.

Frequently Asked Questions: Aged Care Star Ratings Australia

When were aged care star ratings introduced in Australia?

The aged care star rating system was introduced in December 2022, following a recommendation of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. It has been updated significantly since then, with major changes to the Staffing rating from October 2025 and the Compliance rating from November 2025 making the system considerably more rigorous in 2026 than at its original launch.

How often are aged care star ratings updated?

Star ratings are updated at least quarterly. Staffing and Quality Measures data are updated quarterly. Residents’ Experience ratings are updated quarterly for homes that have recently completed their annual survey. Compliance ratings are updated as audits and regulatory decisions are made — and in the case of a 1 or 2-star compliance outcome, the overall star rating is updated immediately, regardless of the quarterly schedule.

Is a 3-star aged care rating bad?

Not necessarily. Three stars means “acceptable” — the home is meeting the minimum required standards of care. The majority of aged care homes in Australia fall in the 3 to 4-star range. A 3-star rating is not a red flag on its own, though it should prompt you to look closely at which sub-categories are bringing the rating down and whether they reflect areas that are clinically important. A 3-star rating for Residents’ Experience alongside a 3-star compliance rating is a very different situation from a 3-star overall rating driven by 1-star compliance and 5-star residents’ experience.

Can an aged care home refuse to participate in the star rating system?

No — the star rating system applies to all government-funded residential aged care homes in Australia. However, homes can receive a “No rating” or partial rating display if they have not yet provided all required data, have recently changed ownership, are newly opened, or have received a temporary exemption for genuinely extenuating circumstances such as a significant natural disaster. A “No rating” display is worth investigating — it may simply reflect a new home, or it may reflect late or missing data submissions.

Do star ratings apply to home care providers?

No. The aged care star rating system currently applies only to residential aged care homes. It does not apply to Support at Home (formerly Home Care Package) providers, Commonwealth Home Support Programme providers, or other community-based aged care services. For home care quality information, families need to rely on other sources — including provider profiles on My Aged Care, OPAN advocacy resources, and direct conversations with providers.

What if I think a facility’s star rating does not reflect the care it actually provides?

If you have direct experience of an aged care home that you believe is performing significantly better or worse than its star rating suggests, you can provide feedback through My Aged Care or contact the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission on 1800 951 822. Resident feedback submitted through the annual survey directly influences the Residents’ Experience sub-rating — ensuring families and residents are active contributors to the system’s accuracy over time.

Conclusion: Star Ratings Are the Starting Point, Not the Finish Line

The aged care star rating system is one of the most meaningful improvements to aged care transparency that has emerged from Australia’s aged care reform era — and the 2025–2026 changes have made it more rigorous and more reliable than at any point since its launch. For families navigating the overwhelming task of choosing residential aged care, it is an invaluable tool for narrowing the field, identifying red flags, and asking better questions.

But stars are a number, and a number cannot tell you whether the staff at a facility will remember your father’s preferred breakfast, or know how to reach him during a difficult moment with dementia, or call you immediately when something changes in his health. It cannot tell you whether the corridors feel warm or cold, whether residents look engaged or vacant, or whether the facility’s management will be honest with you when things are not going well. Those things — the ones that determine whether an aged care home truly feels like home — require a visit, a conversation, and the willingness to trust your instincts alongside the data.

Use the aged care star rating system for what it does brilliantly — creating a nationally consistent, regularly updated, publicly accessible quality benchmark that lets you compare providers and ask smarter questions. And then do the work that no rating system can replace: visit the facility, meet the team, talk to current residents and their families, and make a decision that reflects the full picture.

We are Superior Care Group — one of Queensland’s most respected aged care providers, with renowned residences in Redland City and on the Gold Coast. We are family-owned and operated, and we have delivered personalised, tailored residential aged care since 1979. Our founding residence, Wellington Park Private Care in Redland City, opened over four decades ago. Our Gold Coast residence, Merrimac Park Private Care, opened in 2011 — set amongst privately owned acreage and designed from the ground up to feel genuinely like home.

We welcome families to look at our star ratings on My Aged Care — not because we ask you to rely on them alone, but because we are proud of what they reflect and confident that what you will find when you visit goes far beyond what any rating captures. We believe that genuinely outstanding aged care shows up in the data and in the corridors, in the meal times and in the care plans, in the conversations between our staff and residents, and in the peace of mind we give to families who have trusted us with the people they love most.

When you visit Superior Care Group — whether at Wellington Park Private Care in Redland City or Merrimac Park Private Care on the Gold Coast — you will find a team that knows every resident by name, a care model that is built around the individual rather than the system, and a leadership team that is accessible, transparent, and genuinely invested in every resident’s wellbeing. We invite you to come and see for yourself. Visit us at www.superiorcare.com.au or contact our team to arrange a tour. We are ready to answer every question — about our star ratings, our care model, our fees, and anything else that matters to your family.