How Much Does Long-Term Care Cost Per Month?

Last updated: October 12, 2026

The monthly price, the odds you will need it, and what it costs the family member who does the caring.

What would you guess a month of care costs?

Would you guess high or low?

And if the care you pay for only covers part of the week, who covers the rest?

Maybe you are asking about yourself. Maybe you are asking about a parent. Or maybe you are asking because you don’t want your kids to be the ones asking about you someday.

Odds of Needing Long-Term Care by Age

Someone turning 65 today has almost a 70 percent chance of needing some type of long-term care in their remaining years.¹

About one-third of today’s 65-year-olds may never need long-term care. But 20 percent will need it for longer than five years. Women tend to need care longer than men, 3.7 years compared with 2.2 years, on average.¹

And the odds climb the longer you live.

The federal government’s own research says: “Those who survive to older ages are more likely to develop severe LTSS needs and receive paid LTSS over their lifetime than those who die at younger ages.” (LTSS is the government’s term for long-term services and supports, meaning long-term care.)²

Look at the ranges in that same report:

• Of people who die between 65 and 74, about 23 percent receive any paid care, and about 9 percent receive long-term nursing home care.²
• Of people who live to 85, about 54 percent receive some paid care, and about 34 percent receive long-term nursing home care.²

Aren’t you planning to live a long time?
If you’re not, perhaps you should take a peek at life expectancies.

Would it surprise you to find out living a long time is the very thing that raises your odds of needing care?

It also runs higher for women. About 75 percent of 65-year-old women develop severe care needs before they die, compared with about 64 percent of men.²

Only about 24 percent of older adults receive more than two years of paid care, and only about 15 percent spend more than two years in a nursing home.²

Many people will need some care. Fewer will need it for years. Is there any way to know in advance which group they will land in?

What Three Things Will Push You Into a Nursing Home?

Google asks it as three things. I couldn’t find research that names exactly three. What I did find is a large study that pulled together 77 reports across 12 data sources on who ends up in a nursing home. Among the strongest predictors it found were:³

• Needing help with three or more activities of daily living. (Activities of daily living are the basic things like bathing, dressing, eating, using the bathroom, continence, and getting in and out of a bed or chair.) That is a different number from the one long-term care policies use. Under federal tax law, a policy can start paying benefits when someone can’t do 2 of 6 activities of daily living for at least 90 days, or needs substantial supervision because of severe cognitive impairment.¹⁴
• Cognitive impairment, meaning memory and thinking problems like dementia.
• Having been in a nursing home before.

That study was published in 2007. A 2010 review of 36 studies found the same kinds of warning signs with strong evidence, including older age, trouble with daily activities, memory problems, and a past nursing home stay.¹⁵ And a 2024 review found that even the best tools for predicting who will move into a care home within a year were only acceptable at it.¹⁶

How Much Does Long-Term Care Cost Per Month?

These are national medians from the CareScout 2025 Cost of Care Survey, released by Genworth on March 2, 2026. The rates were collected from care providers between July and November 2025, more than 25,000 rates in all.⁴

• Assisted living: $6,200 a month, or $74,400 a year. Up 5 percent from the year before.⁴
• Nursing home, semi-private room: $315 a day, or $114,975 a year. Up 2 percent.⁴
• Nursing home, private room: $355 a day, or $129,575 a year. Up 1 percent.⁴
• Non-medical caregiver at home: $35 an hour. CareScout puts the yearly cost at $80,080, assuming 44 hours of care a week. Up 3 percent.⁴
• Adult day health care: $95 a day, or $24,700 a year based on five days a week. Down 5 percent.⁴

CareScout reports the nursing home figures by the day and the year. By the month, that math comes out to about $9,600 for a semi-private room and about $10,800 for a private room. In-home care at 44 hours a week comes out to about $6,700 a month.

Those are medians, and they are national. What you pay depends on where you live and how much care you need.

Nursing home costs in the states I serve: Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Florida.

Here is something to focus on… take a look at that in-home number again.

44 hours of care a week.

How many hours are in a week? 168.

That $80,080 a year pays for about a quarter of the week. What if someone needs care around the clock? Who covers the other 124 hours?
Most of us would prefer to have our care in our homes, which is certainly understandable.¹³ Make sure you fully understand the potential costs to achieve that wish.

Memory care gets its own page.

Is Home Care Cheaper Than a Nursing Home?

Part-time home care is. Round-the-clock care at home usually isn’t.

At the 2025 national median of $35 an hour for a home caregiver, home care costs about the same as a semi-private nursing home room, $9,581 a month, once it reaches about 63 hours a week. Against a private room, $10,798 a month, the line is about 71 hours a week.⁴ Our calculation.

What about a live-in nurse? Live-in help is often an aide rather than a nurse. Using federal median wages from May 2025, staffing all 168 hours a week costs about $12,500 a month for home health aides, about $22,500 for licensed practical nurses and about $34,100 for registered nurses.¹⁷¹⁸¹⁹ Those are wages alone, before any agency’s charges. A nursing home is likely to cost less once someone needs a nurse day and night.

What Is the Average Stay in a Nursing Home Before Death?

A study of 1,817 nursing home residents who died between 1992 and 2006 found a median stay of 5 months and an average stay of 13.7 months. Fifty-three percent died within 6 months of moving in.⁵

Why are those two numbers so far apart?

Because more than half the stays were short, and a smaller number of very long stays pull the average up. The median is the stay in the middle.

The same study found big differences between groups:

• Men had a median stay of 3 months. Women had a median stay of 8 months.⁵
• People in the top quarter by net worth had a median stay of 3 months. People in the bottom quarter had a median stay of 9 months.⁵

Keep the dates in mind. The data runs from 1992 to 2006, and it counts only nursing home residents who died.⁵ Treat it as a rough picture, not a current figure.

A short average stay doesn’t make it cheap. At about $9,600 a month for a semi-private room, even 5 months is a big number, and 13.7 months is a much bigger one.⁴

Does Medicare Pay for Nursing Homes?

For long-term care, no.

Medicare says so on its own website: “Medicare doesn’t pay for long-term care.”⁶

And it goes further: “Since most long-term care is non-medical, Medicare and most health insurance, including Medicare Supplement Insurance (Medigap), don’t pay for long-term care services, including care in a nursing home or in the community.”⁶

What Medicare does cover is short-term skilled care in a skilled nursing facility, after a hospital stay, and it comes with rules.⁷

• You generally need a medically necessary inpatient hospital stay of at least 3 days in a row first. The day you leave the hospital doesn’t count.⁷
• Time in the hospital under observation, or in the emergency room before you are admitted, doesn’t count toward those 3 days, even if you are there overnight.⁷
• Your doctor has to decide you need daily skilled care, like IV medications or physical therapy.⁷
• Part A limits that coverage to 100 days in each benefit period.⁷

What you pay in 2026:⁷

• Days 1 through 20: $0 a day, after the $1,736 deductible.
• Days 21 through 100: $217 a day.
• Day 101 and beyond: in Medicare’s own words, “You pay all costs.”

Medicare also notes that some Medicare Advantage plans may waive the 3-day hospital stay, and may charge copayments during the first 20 days.⁷

Think about what that means for someone with dementia who needs help every day but never has a qualifying hospital stay. Does Medicare’s 100 days ever start?

Those dollar amounts are 2026 figures and they change every January.⁷

What It Costs the Family Member Who Does the Caring

Remember those 124 hours?

When someone needs care around the clock, somebody has to cover them.

In 2025, 63 million American adults were providing ongoing care to someone with a medical condition or disability. That is almost one in four adults, and a 45 percent increase since 2015.⁸

On average, caregivers spend 27 hours a week providing care. About 24 percent put in more than 40 hours a week, the same as a full-time job.⁸ Rides are part of it too. When a parent can’t drive anymore, someone has to get them to the doctor and the store. Here is how seniors who can’t drive get around. If your parent is still driving and you’re worried, we cover the steps that often work before involving the state in What to Do If an Elderly Parent Won’t Stop Driving?

What does that do to their own retirement?

• About 31 percent of family caregivers have stopped saving.⁸
• 24 percent have used up their short-term savings.⁸
• 13 percent have used long-term savings, like retirement accounts, to pay for other things.⁸
• 9 percent put off when they planned to retire, or decided to never retire.⁸

And what does it do to their job? Among caregivers who work and are not self-employed:⁸

• 18 percent went from full time to part time or cut their hours.
• 16 percent took a leave of absence.
• 9 percent gave up working entirely.
• 7 percent retired early.

The average family caregiver is 51 years old, and 61 percent are women.⁸

Now put a dollar figure on it.

A 2025 study priced out dementia care state by state, including the unpaid care families provide, valued at what it would cost to hire a home health aide to do it instead. In Missouri, the total cost per dementia case came to $50,410 a year. Of that, $41,442 was the value of unpaid care.⁹

That math comes out to about 82 cents of every dollar.

Those are 2019 figures in 2019 dollars.⁹

Should the plan for your care be your kids’ retirement?

Or ask it the other way. Would you want to spend yours caring for your parents?

What Happens If You Don’t Have Money for Long-Term Care?

Medicaid can pay for nursing home care.¹¹ Medicaid is not the same as Medicare, and it comes with strings.

The first string is the five-year look-back.

When someone applies for Medicaid, the program looks back 60 months, which is five years, at money and assets they gave away or transferred.¹⁰ Gave the grandkids a big check three years ago? That can count against you.

And the penalty doesn’t start the day the money moved. It starts on the date of the transfer or the date the person enters a nursing home and would otherwise qualify, whichever is later.¹⁰ That means the penalty can hit right when the care is needed.

The second string is your income.

Once someone is in a nursing home and on Medicaid, their income generally goes toward the cost of their own care. What they keep is a personal needs allowance of at least $30 a month, plus certain other protected amounts.¹²

If there is a spouse still living at home, Medicaid has rules to protect part of the couple’s savings and part of the income for that spouse.¹²

The third string comes after death.

For people 55 or older, states are required to seek recovery from the person’s estate for nursing facility services, home and community-based services, and related hospital and prescription drug costs. States can’t recover while a spouse, a child under 21, or a blind or disabled child is still living.¹¹

That is why “Medicaid will cover it” isn’t really a plan. It is what happens after the plan is gone or when there is no plan.

None of this is a reason to live small in your healthy years out of fear. Should the chance of a care bill stop you from the adventures and experiences you waited 30 or 40 years for, and the memories with the people you love?

It is a reason to know how long your money actually lasts, and what a care event would do to it, before you are in the middle of one.

And it is a reason to ask two questions. Does your retirement income floor cover the essentials, the adventures, the experiences, and the memories with the people you love? And have you planned for what a care event could do to the rest of your savings?

One advantage of structuring your income floor with the adventures, experiences and memories is later in life when you’re needing care and those adventures and experiences aren’t really in your budget any longer, the income you were using to fund them in your 60s and 70s is still coming in your 80s and 90s and can help to pay for care. Researchers call it the retirement spending smile.

A continuing care retirement community has its own version of this question, because you paid a large entrance fee to get in. Related: What Happens If You Run Out of Money in a Continuing Care Retirement Community?

Frequently Asked Questions

About Kurt H. Jackson

Experience: Since founding KJ Financial in 2010, Kurt H. Jackson has worked with retirees and pre-retirees across Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, and Florida who discovered that the retirement plan they had built around a fixed withdrawal rule was far more fragile than they realized. He has worked directly with clients coming out of the 2008 crash, and with clients who retired into the 2020 COVID drop and the inflation spike of 2021 to 2023, and he has seen firsthand what sequence of returns risk does to a withdrawal-only strategy versus a Lifestyle-First plan with a guaranteed income floor. Before founding KJ Financial, he spent 20 years as a Certified Mortgage Planner working with more than 1,000 clients on major financial commitments, giving him deep insight into how financial decisions compound over time.

Expertise: Kurt is a Retirement Lifestyle Architect and the creator of the Lifestyle-First Retirement Income Planning framework. He builds guaranteed lifetime income, which he calls Protected Lifetime Income (PLI), under both his clients’ essentials and their non-negotiables, the adventures, the experiences and the memories with those they care about. With that income floor in place, the rest of their money no longer has to pay the bills, which means it doesn’t have to be sold in a down market. He is Life and Health Insurance Licensed in MO, NE, KS, IA, and FL. His practice focuses exclusively on insurance-based, tax-optimized retirement income strategies. He does not manage investments or sell securities.

Authoritativeness: Kurt founded KJ Financial and operates MaxMyRetirementIncome.com as a dedicated educational resource for retirees. His work is grounded in peer-reviewed and independently published research, cited directly on each page. He applies that research to the practical income planning decisions retirees face every day in the states he serves.

Trustworthiness: KJ Financial is a compliance-first firm. All figures and research citations on this page are sourced from publicly available, independently published studies and are linked directly in the content. Kurt is paid by commission from the insurance company that issues the policy. Kurt H. Jackson is not a securities broker, registered investment advisor, or CPA. Guarantees rely on the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company.

Contact KJ Financial:
1014 E. 5th St., Maryville, MO 64468
Direct: 816.582.5532
Email: kurt@kjfinancialonline.com
Website: www.MaxMyRetirementIncome.com

Sources

1. Administration for Community Living, “How Much Care Will You Need?” Says someone turning 65 today has almost a 70 percent chance of needing some type of long-term care, that women need care longer (3.7 years) than men (2.2 years), and that 20 percent will need it for longer than five years.
2. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, ASPE, “What Is the Lifetime Risk of Needing and Receiving Long-Term Services and Supports?” (Richard W. Johnson, April 2017). Finds 54 percent of people who live to 85 receive some paid care and 34 percent receive long-term nursing home care, against 23 percent and 9 percent for those who die between 65 and 74, and that only 15 percent spend more than two years in a nursing home.
3. Gaugler and others, “Predicting Nursing Home Admission in the U.S.: A Meta-Analysis,” BMC Geriatrics, 2007. Pools 77 reports across 12 data sources and names 3 or more activities of daily living dependencies, cognitive impairment, and prior nursing home use among the strongest predictors of nursing home admission.
4. Genworth, “CareScout Releases 2025 Cost of Care Survey Results,” March 2, 2026. Gives national medians of $315 a day for a semi-private nursing home room, $355 for a private room, $6,200 a month for assisted living, $35 an hour for in-home care ($80,080 a year at 44 hours a week), and $95 a day for adult day health care.
5. Kelly and others, “Lengths of Stay for Older Adults Residing in Nursing Homes at the End of Life,” Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2010. Finds a median stay of 5 months and a mean of 13.7 months among 1,817 residents who died between 1992 and 2006, with 53 percent dying within 6 months of placement.
6. Medicare.gov, “Long-term care”. States that Medicare doesn’t pay for long-term care, including care in a nursing home or in the community.
7. Medicare.gov, “Skilled nursing facility care”. Lists the 3-day qualifying inpatient stay, the 100 days per benefit period, and 2026 costs of $0 for days 1 to 20 after the $1,736 deductible, $217 a day for days 21 to 100, and all costs after day 100.
8. AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving, “Caregiving in the US 2025”. Reports 63 million family caregivers, an average of 27 hours of care a week, 31 percent who stopped saving, 13 percent who used long-term savings, 9 percent who gave up working entirely, and 7 percent who retired early.
9. Lastuka and others, “The Costs of Dementia Care by US State,” Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, 2025. Puts the 2019 cost per dementia case in Missouri at $50,410, of which $41,442 is the replacement cost of unpaid care, in 2019 dollars.
10. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, “Transfer of Assets in the Medicaid Program”. Explains the 60-month look-back and that the penalty period begins on the later of the transfer date or the date the person enters a nursing home and would otherwise qualify.
11. Medicaid.gov, “Estate Recovery”. States that for individuals age 55 or older, states are required to seek recovery from the estate for nursing facility and related services, and may not recover while a spouse or a child under 21 survives.
12. Medicaid.gov, “Spousal Impoverishment”. Explains how a nursing home resident’s income goes toward the cost of care after protected amounts, including a personal needs allowance of at least $30, and how resources are protected for a spouse at home.
13. Nationwide, “Americans Fear Navigating Long-Term Care Alone More Than Affording It,” June 23, 2026. Reports that 73 percent of 1,208 adults 30 and older surveyed by The Harris Poll would prefer to receive long-term care in their own home or a loved one’s home.
14. 26 U.S. Code § 7702B, Legal Information Institute. Defines a chronically ill individual as unable to perform at least 2 of 6 activities of daily living for at least 90 days, or needing substantial supervision due to severe cognitive impairment.
15. Luppa and others, “Prediction of Institutionalization in the Elderly. A Systematic Review,” Age and Ageing, 2010. Reviews 36 studies and finds strong evidence for increased age, low self-rated health, functional and cognitive impairment, dementia, prior nursing home placement, and a high number of prescriptions.
16. “Predicting Short- to Medium-Term Care Home Admission Risk in Older Adults,” Age and Ageing, 2024. Reviews externally validated prediction models and concludes that model discrimination was at best acceptable.
17. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook shows a May 2025 median wage of $17.21 an hour for home health and personal care aides.
18. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook shows a May 2025 median wage of $30.96 an hour for licensed practical nurses.
19. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook shows a May 2025 median wage of $46.90 an hour for registered nurses.

Every figure on this page was checked against its numbered source on September 16, 2026.

All figures are as of the dates shown and are for education only. Care costs vary by location and by the level of care needed, and Medicare amounts change every year. This page is not legal, tax, or Medicaid planning advice. Medicaid rules can vary by state, and questions about Medicaid eligibility belong with an elder law attorney in your state.