Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said the territory had a relatively small stockpile of the tests, and would further consider ordering more in the coming days.

"At the moment, we do have some stockpile of rapid antigen tests but they're there for a reason and we're not intending at this point in time to be providing rapid antigen tests to people," Ms Stephen-Smith said.

"I think there's quite a limited supply but there is some supply available."

Ms Stephen-Smith said the ACT's emergency management committee of cabinet would meet on Thursday ahead of an urgent national cabinet meeting, and would consider rapid antigen test provision.

The Health Minister acknowledged it was presently difficult to find the tests for sale in Canberra, due to high demand.

"People will definitely need to shop around, or almost certainly will need to shop around to get hold of those rapid antigen tests," she said.

"Some people, however, will already have them at home. The reason we're out of stock is that many people actually have already gone out and bought those rapid antigen tests."

Ms Stephen-Smith gave a press conference at the same time as Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the federal government would subsidise rapid antigen COVID tests.

Mr Morrison said the Commonwealth would seek a 50/50 funding split with state governments to make rapid antigen testing free.

The move is designed to take away the reliance on PCR testing which has been under strain over the Christmas period.

Mr Morrison said subsidising the cost of rapid testing, which has been in Australia since August for COVID-19, would be on the national cabinet agenda on Thursday.

The federal government has set aside $375 million to procure more rapid tests for the national stockpile.

An ACT government spokesman said later on Wednesday ACT Health was currently assessing its position on rapid antigen tests, "including what government supply may be needed moving forward".

Victoria has secured 34 million rapid COVID tests and will hand them out to its citizens from the end of January.

Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said the state planned to make the tests widely and freely available.

Mr Foley said the tests would help maintain the "gold standard" of testing in Victoria, and took a swipe at the federal government for not stepping up to "fill the gap".

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The ACT reported 138 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, which brought the total number of active cases to 1028. There are four people in hospital in the ACT but no one is in intensive care.

Demand for rapid antigen tests is expected to increase as other states move to requiring a negative rapid test result before crossing the border.

ACT residents travelling into Queensland will only require a rapid antigen test to satisfy border requirements from January 1.

Testing clinics in the ACT have faced overwhelming demand amid growing case numbers and pressure from travellers trying to satisfy pre-arrival testing requirements in other states.

But health authorities have wound back exposure site risk assessments that will mean fewer Canberrans are required to come forward for testing.

Ms Stephen-Smith on Wednesday conceded the ACT would miss some COVID-19 cases in the community, but said the relatively high test-positivity rate was not an issue in the context of the ACT's strong vaccination rate.

"Previously we were on a very aggressive suppression strategy. Now we need to manage the fact we have community transmission in our community," she said.

"Obviously, we're not going put in place settings where we think they actually contribute to a rapid escalation of case numbers, because that doesn't make the job any easier; that makes it harder."

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