Most providers are about to find out which one they're running.
An NDIS Worker Screening Check clearance is valid for five years from the date it's issued. The national scheme started issuing clearances from 1 February 2021 in every state and territory except the Northern Territory, which started 1 July 2021. Run the maths and the first-ever five-year clearances started reaching their expiry from February 2026, and that wave doesn't land on one day. It runs through 2026 and into 2027, as more of your workforce reaches its own five-year mark.
This page is about holding that list, not applying for one check.
Why this is a wave, not a date
Every worker on your roster who holds a screening clearance has their own issue date, set whenever they were actually screened, whether that was the week they started or, in some states, whenever an existing state-based check was carried over into the new national scheme in the months after February 2021. That means their expiry dates are scattered across your roster, not lined up on a calendar.
The risk was never forgetting one date. It's that nobody's five-year clock rings a bell on its own, and a provider with forty workers is quietly running forty of them at once.
What the clearance actually requires
Valid for five years from the date of issue, unless it's cancelled or revoked before then.
Portable nationally. Once issued, a clearance is recognised in every state and territory, so a worker who moves keeps their existing clearance until its own expiry date, they don't start again.
Administered by state and territory Worker Screening Units, with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission holding the national database that makes the clearance portable and monitors it while it's current.
Renewal opens 90 days before expiry. The application is the same as the first time, same fee, same documents, same risk assessment, and a completed renewal is valid for another five years.
A lapsed clearance is a stop. If the renewal isn't assessed before the current clearance expires, the worker can't continue in an NDIS risk-assessed role until it is. That's the cost of a missed date, and it's the worker's ability to keep working, not just a line on a register.
The requirement, in the Commission's words
Records of worker pre-employment checks, qualifications and experience are maintained, and the NDIS Worker Screening Check clearance is the artefact named against it, whichever audit you're facing. See the full NDIS audit evidence checklist for how this sits alongside everything else.
CORA holds it in Credentials: the clearance category, the issuing state, the issue date and the expiry date, against the worker's own file. You upload it, CORA holds it, and every download is logged.
The register that actually holds the wave
A screening clearance letter prints its own expiry date. CORA reads what's printed rather than calculating one, so the date on the register is the date on the document, not a guess applied to a scan. Not every credential prints an expiry, a CPR ticket often doesn't, and CORA is just as careful there: it says so rather than inventing one.
Filter the register to expiring this month, or expired, or one team, and send a reminder to everyone in that filter in one action. Twenty-eight overdue clearances stops being twenty-eight individual follow-ups and becomes one.
Already got four years of screening dates in a spreadsheet? Bring it in. Bulk import treats a screening clearance the same as any other credential, so your existing history feeds what's due, the register and the exports from day one, instead of starting the register empty the month you switch.
Chasing it before it lapses
CORA runs the follow-up automatically. A worker behind on a renewal gets one email listing it, not a fresh one every time a job runs. A weekly digest lands on the day you pick, against warning windows you choose, 7, 14, 30, 60 or 90 days, so you see the wave coming at 60 days out, not the week it breaks.
The guardrail that makes this worth turning on: a worker won't get more than roughly one administrative nudge from CORA in a week, whichever button was pressed and whichever job ran that night. That's the difference between a reminder system providers keep and one they switch off for nagging.
Every claim on this page about what CORA does is written the same way: about a named artefact, checkable in a demo. See the standard we hold every claim on the site to.
What to check this week
Three things, if you haven't looked recently.
Pull every worker's screening issue date and work out who's actually inside the wave, not just who joined five years ago. Some of your longest-serving workers had their state-based check carried over at a different point again, so issue date and start date often aren't the same thing.
Check whether your reminder window gives you 90 days of runway, not 30. The renewal window legally opens 90 days out, not a courtesy buffer, and the process takes real time to complete on the applicant's end too.
Work out where that list currently lives. A spreadsheet somebody updates when they remember is the thing this whole page exists to replace.
If you're also moving into SIL
Supported independent living became its own NDIS registration category from 1 July 2026, with worker screening currency named specifically inside its own supplementary module. If that applies to you, see what changed and what it asks of your workforce, because you're likely managing both the screening wave and a new registration category in the same year.
Common questions
How long does an NDIS Worker Screening Check clearance last?
Five years from the date it's issued, unless it's cancelled or revoked.
When should a worker apply to renew?
Up to 90 days before their current clearance expires. The process is the same as their first application.
Does a worker need a new check if they move interstate?
No. Once issued, a clearance is recognised in every state and territory, so it stays valid until its own expiry date wherever the worker goes.
What happens if a clearance lapses before the renewal comes through?
The worker can't continue in an NDIS risk-assessed role until the renewal is assessed and issued. Applying with time to spare before the 90-day window closes is what avoids that gap.
See your own wave
Book a demo and see your workforce's screening dates held in one register, or start with the full NDIS audit evidence checklist.