How to apply for a PBS Safety Net card in 2026

If you or your family spend a lot on prescription medicines across a year, the Safety Net is the point where those medicines start costing less. It is part of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the federal program that subsidises most prescriptions in Australia, and it is often shortened to the PBS. Once your PBS spending passes the Safety Net threshold for the calendar year, you can get a PBS Safety Net card, which lowers the price you pay for the rest of that year.

Our guide to the PBS Safety Net and concessions covers how the scheme fits together. This page answers one question in detail: how you reach the threshold and get the card.

Source: 2026 PBS Safety Net thresholds, Services Australia.

What the 2026 thresholds are

Services Australia sets a separate threshold for concession card holders and for general patients. On 1st January 2026 they were updated to $277.20 for concession card holders and $1,748.20 for general patients, counted across a calendar year, according to Services Australia.

Before you reach the threshold, each PBS medicine costs up to $7.70 for concession card holders or up to $25.00 for general patients. After you reach it and hold a Safety Net card, PBS medicines are free for concession card holders, or up to $7.70 for general patients, for the rest of that year, Services Australia says.

Before the threshold

What each script costs on the way to the Safety Net

Concession card holders pay up to $7.70 a script and general patients up to $25.00, until the year's spending reaches the threshold and the cheaper rate begins.

The table sets both thresholds beside what you pay before and after you cross them.

How the Safety Net year works

The Safety Net is counted over a calendar year and usually resets on 1st January, so your spending begins accruing again from your first PBS prescription of the new year, per Services Australia. The count runs to 31st December, and whenever in the year you reach the threshold, the cheaper Safety Net rate then applies until the next reset.

The year moves through four stages.

Source: 2026 PBS Safety Net thresholds, Services Australia.

Which medicines count towards the threshold

You reach the threshold by buying PBS and Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (RPBS) medicines. Services Australia counts medicines bought at community pharmacies, at private hospitals approved to supply PBS medicines, and at the outpatient pharmacies of public hospitals. If you collect a medicine early, before you are due for the next supply, that amount does not count towards your threshold.

Where two or more brands of the same medicine have different prices, choosing a more expensive brand can mean the extra amount does not count towards the threshold. Because the rules on brands and early supply are hard to track on your own, Services Australia advises asking your pharmacist which medicines, and how much of each price, will count.

How your spending is tracked

You keep your own running record of what you have spent, so you know when you are close to the threshold. The method Services Australia sets out is the PBS or RPBS Safety Net prescription record form: you complete page one, print both pages, and hand them to the pharmacist each time you collect a PBS medicine, and the pharmacist records what you have spent.

If you use more than one pharmacy, Services Australia advises asking each one for a printout of what you have spent there, so your record stays complete.

Keeping the tally

One pharmacy can hold your running total

If you always use the same pharmacy, you can ask them to keep a computer record and tell you when you are near the threshold.

How to get the card

There is no separate online form or phone line to lodge a Safety Net card application through. To apply, you complete the PBS or RPBS Safety Net prescription record form and application for a Safety Net card, hand both pages to your pharmacist each time you fill a prescription, and once your recorded spending reaches the threshold the pharmacist gives you the card, Services Australia explains.

The card is valid from the date it is issued, for the rest of the calendar year, Services Australia says. It is shown at each prescription, and the pharmacy applies the Safety Net rate at the counter.

If you reach the threshold before you have the card

If your spending passes the threshold before a card is issued, you may be able to claim a refund. Services Australia says you do this by completing the Patient claim for refund Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme form, rather than at the pharmacy counter. The same refund route applies if you paid full price because you did not show your Medicare card or concession card when you collected the medicine.

How families can reach the threshold sooner

A family can combine what everyone spends on PBS medicines and reach the threshold sooner. Services Australia defines a family as a couple, with or without dependent children, or a single person with dependent children. A dependent child is someone younger than 16, or a full-time student younger than 25.

To combine your family's spending, you use the same PBS or RPBS Safety Net prescription record form and hand it to the pharmacist each time any family member collects a PBS medicine, and the pharmacist records what the family spends together, per Services Australia. Our guide to concession card pharmacy savings explains how concession status changes the thresholds that apply to you.