Star ratings for aged care homes: what the four ratings measure
Every residential aged care home gets four sub-category Star Ratings plus an overall one. Here is what each of the four measures, what data it is drawn from, and how often it changes.
Each of the four Star Ratings measures a different thing about an aged care home: Residents' Experience measures what residents say about living there, Compliance measures regulatory decisions and graded assessment, Staffing measures care minutes against the home's own targets, and Quality Measures covers five quality indicators. Each of the four is rated from 1 to 5 stars.
In short
- The four Star Ratings sub-categories are Residents' Experience, Compliance, Staffing and Quality Measures. Each is rated 1 to 5 stars.
- Residents' Experience comes from a face to face survey of at least 20% of residents at the home.
- Compliance comes from regulatory decisions and graded assessment. Staffing comes from care minutes reporting. Quality Measures comes from five quality indicators.
- The weights towards the overall star rating, as at October 2026, are Residents' Experience 33%, Compliance 30%, Staffing 22% and Quality Measures 15%.
- Compliance is updated daily. The other three are updated quarterly. A 1 or 2 star Compliance rating caps the overall rating.
Residents' Experience: what residents said in the survey
The Residents' Experience rating is drawn from the annual Residents' Experience Survey, a face to face survey in which at least 20% of residents at each home are interviewed. It is the largest single input to the Overall Star Rating, at 33%.
Residents are asked about four things:
- their experiences of safety
- how staff treat them
- the food
- their feelings of independence and belonging.
Two points matter for providers reading this rating. First, it is the residents' own answers, not a self-assessment and not an auditor's view. Second, a home that chooses not to take part in the survey does not get a neutral score. It shows "No rating" for this sub-category, and without all four sub-categories there is no Overall Star Rating either.
Compliance: regulatory decisions and graded assessment
The Compliance rating is drawn from two sources: regulatory decisions made by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission and by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing as System Governor, and the home's graded assessment against the strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards. The home receives the lower of the two results.
The graded assessment side works like this, as at October 2026:
| Graded assessment finding | Compliance rating |
|---|---|
| Major non-conformance with one or more strengthened Quality Standards | 1 star |
| Minor non-conformance with one or more strengthened Quality Standards | 2 stars |
| Major or minor non-conformance resolved after the audit | 3 stars |
| Conformance with all applicable strengthened Quality Standards | 4 stars |
| Conformance plus the Commission's separate exceeding grade | 5 stars |
Regulatory decisions sit in the other column. Serious ones, such as revocation or suspension of registration, a compliance notice for significant failure, civil penalties or an injunction, pull the rating to 1 star. Lesser ones, such as an accepted enforceable undertaking or Commission initiated conditions on registration, pull it to 2 stars.
Both halves began feeding the rating on 1 November 2025, as at October 2026. Three things about Compliance are worth knowing before you read a rating. A Compliance rating of 1 or 2 stars caps the Overall Star Rating at that same number. The graded assessment half is being phased in, and it may take up to three years for every home to transition, because a home is assessed against the strengthened Quality Standards at its provider's registration renewal. And a regulatory decision against a provider can affect one home, several homes or every home that provider owns, depending on whether the evidence of non-compliance points at specific homes.
The Find a provider tool shows, for each home, how its Compliance rating was worked out.
Staffing: care minutes against this home's own targets
The Staffing rating measures the average amount of care time residents at the home receive, compared with that home's minimum average care minutes targets. Care time counts work by registered nurses, enrolled nurses, personal care workers and assistants in nursing.
The targets are not the same for every home. They depend on the care needs of the residents actually living there, assessed independently under the Australian National Aged Care Classification (AN-ACC) funding model. So two homes with identical rosters can land on different Staffing ratings.
A home is measured against two targets at once:
- total care minutes, covering registered nurses, enrolled nurses, personal care workers and assistants in nursing
- registered nurse care minutes, where enrolled nurse time may count towards up to 10% of the registered nurse target.
Star Ratings moved to a redesigned Staffing rating on 1 October 2025, and that change showed in the ratings published from the May 2026 quarterly update, as at October 2026. Under the redesign, a home must meet both its registered nurse target and its total target to reach 3 stars or more. Performance against each target is banded: well below target is under 90%, below target is 90% to under 100%, meets target is 100% to under 105%, above target is 105% to under 110%, and well above target is 110% or more. The two bands are read together in a matrix to set the star value, so a home well above its total target but below its registered nurse target still sits at 2 stars.
If you are working out which staffing numbers to watch between quarters, our post on care minutes and staffing walks through how the two targets are calculated and reported.
Quality Measures: five quality indicators, three of them risk adjusted
The Quality Measures rating describes the quality of care at the home across five quality indicators collected under the National Aged Care Quality Indicator Program: pressure injuries, restrictive practices, unplanned weight loss, falls and major injury, and medication management.
Three of the five are risk adjusted before the rating is calculated, so that homes with very different resident groups can be compared fairly:
- pressure injuries, adjusted using residents' Braden Scale scores and their mobility from their AN-ACC assessment
- unplanned weight loss, adjusted using residents' AN-ACC classification and their frailty status
- falls and major injury, adjusted using residents' mobility data.
Restrictive practices and medication management are not risk adjusted. That is worth remembering when a home's Quality Measures rating moves and the clinical picture has not: a change in the resident mix can move the three adjusted indicators, while the other two are read as reported. Our post on aged care quality indicators covers what each of the five indicators counts and how the reporting works.
How the four make the Overall Star Rating
The Overall Star Rating is a weighted combination of the four sub-category ratings. The weights were set through consultation with older people and providers, based on how important each sub-category was judged to be and how mature its data was at the time. The weights below are as at October 2026.
| Sub-category | Weight towards the Overall Star Rating, as at October 2026 |
|---|---|
| Residents' Experience | 33% |
| Compliance | 30% |
| Staffing | 22% |
| Quality Measures | 15% |
Two rules sit on top of the weighting. The Overall Star Rating only appears once all four sub-categories have a rating. And a Compliance rating of 1 or 2 stars caps the overall result at that number, which is the one place where a single sub-category overrides the arithmetic.
For a wider view of aged care reporting, see our aged care page.
Common questions
How often are Star Ratings updated?
Star Ratings are published quarterly on the Find a provider tool, but the sub-categories move at different speeds. Compliance is updated daily, once the department receives information about a regulatory decision or a graded assessment outcome. Residents' Experience is updated quarterly for homes that have recently finalised their annual survey, Staffing and Quality Measures are updated quarterly, and the Overall Star Rating is recalculated when new data becomes available.
Where can a family check a home's Star Rating?
A family checks a home's Star Rating through the Find a provider tool on the My Aged Care website, under the "Set up your services" tab. Searching by suburb, postcode or provider name brings up the Overall Star Rating on the home's summary page. Scrolling down that page shows the four sub-category ratings, each of which can be opened for more detail.
What are Quality Measures in the Star Ratings?
Quality Measures is the sub-category drawn from five quality indicators reported under the National Aged Care Quality Indicator Program: pressure injuries, restrictive practices, unplanned weight loss, falls and major injury, and medication management. It carries a 15% weight towards the Overall Star Rating, as at October 2026.
How is the Staffing rating worked out?
The Staffing rating compares the average care minutes residents receive with the home's own two care minutes targets, one for total care time and one for registered nurse care time. Each is banded from well below target to well above target, and the two bands are read together to give a star value. Since 1 October 2025 a home must meet both targets to reach 3 stars or more.
Why does an aged care home show "No rating"?
A home may show "No rating" when it is new, under new ownership or recently reopened after major works. It may also show "No rating" for data or IT problems, a temporary exemption, care minutes or quality indicator data not reported before the quarterly update, or a decision not to join the Residents' Experience Survey. For new, newly owned or reopened homes, an Overall Star Rating can take up to 12 months.
Sources
- Star Ratings for residential aged care, Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, as at October 2026
- How Star Ratings works, Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, as at October 2026