How Much Does Long-Term Care Cost? Costs by Setting and State

The short answer: 2025 national medians

These are the middle prices CareScout found when it surveyed providers from July to November 2025 (CareScout Cost of Care Survey 2025, data tables dated March 2, 2026, CareScout cost of care). Half of providers charge more than the median, and half charge less.

Yearly figures assume 365 days in a nursing home, 44 hours a week of home care for 52 weeks, and 5 days a week of adult day care (same source). The calculator and the 50-state table below use the same survey.

Long-term care costs by state, 2025 (per year and per month)

Annual median cost with the monthly equivalent underneath, from the CareScout Cost of Care Survey 2025 (survey July to November 2025, state data tables dated March 2, 2026). Home care is a non-medical caregiver at 44 hours a week for 52 weeks; adult day care is 5 days a week; nursing homes are 365 days. Monthly figures are the annual median divided by 12, rounded. CareScout does not publish a separate figure for the District of Columbia, and marks N/A where it had too few responses. Medians: half of providers charge more.

Jump to a state: Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

What each setting is, and what it buys

• In-home care: a non-medical caregiver who helps with bathing, dressing, meals and getting around. In its 2025 survey CareScout combined homemaker and home health aide into one non-medical caregiver category (same survey).
• Adult day health care: a daytime program with supervision, meals and activities, often used so a family caregiver can keep working or rest.
• Assisted living: a private apartment or room with meals and help with daily tasks. California calls it a residential care facility.
• Nursing home: 24-hour care with nurses on staff, for people who need more help than assisted living gives. A semi-private room is shared.

Most long-term care is help with daily living, not medical treatment. Medicare.gov calls it custodial care, and says Medicare does not pay for it (Medicare.gov, Long-term care, checked October 14, 2026). See does Medicare pay for nursing home care.

Why home care hours change everything

Home care is priced by the hour, so the number of hours drives the bill. At the 2025 national median of $35 an hour (CareScout Cost of Care Survey 2025, data tables dated March 2, 2026), 20 hours a week is $36,400 a year, while round-the-clock care at the same hourly rate would be $305,760 a year, more than twice the cost of a private nursing home room.

That is why many families mix settings: a few hours of paid help plus family care at first, then assisted living or a nursing home when needs grow. Agencies often price live-in or overnight care differently from hourly visits, so ask each agency how it bills long shifts.

Why the median is only a starting point

Where you live matters as much as the setting. In the 2025 survey the median semi-private nursing home room ran from $67,525 a year in Texas to $333,975 in Alaska, and assisted living from $52,425 in Mississippi to $145,155 in Hawaii (CareScout Cost of Care Survey 2025, data tables dated March 2, 2026). CareScout does not report a figure for the District of Columbia, and a few states have no median for some settings.

Inside one state, prices also differ by city and by provider. A median is useful for planning, not for budgeting a specific move. Call two or three local providers and ask for their current rates in writing.

One more thing to know about the source: CareScout is owned by a company that sells long-term care insurance. We use its survey because it is the most detailed state-by-state price data we could find, and we report its figures as medians, not as a forecast.

How fast costs are rising

From the 2024 to the 2025 survey, national medians moved like this (CareScout Cost of Care Survey 2025, data tables dated March 2, 2026):

One year is not a trend. Any figure for future care costs is an assumption, not a fact. The calculator lets you pick an inflation rate; try a low and a high one and see how much the answer moves.

Long-term care cost inflation: how prices have grown, 2021 to 2025

Updated October 22, 2026. The survey Genworth started in 2004 (now run by CareScout) publishes a national median for each setting every year. Here are the medians we could verify in the survey's own published tables for 2021, 2023, 2024 and 2025. The last column is our arithmetic: the average yearly change from the 2021 median to the 2025 median.

Sources: Genworth Cost of Care Survey 2021 and 2023 (Genworth trends page, archived), CareScout Cost of Care Survey 2024 and 2025 (2024 figures as restated in the 2025 tables). We left out 2022 because we could not verify it on the survey pages we read. Two cautions: the 2025 survey merged homemaker and home health aide into one non-medical caregiver category, and survey months and provider samples change between editions, so a single year-to-year move is noisy (adult day care fell 5% in 2025 after rising 5% in 2024).

The survey's own longer view: in its 2021 table Genworth printed five-year annual compound growth rates (2016 to 2021) of 3.25% for a private nursing home room, 2.93% for a semi-private room, 4.40% for assisted living, 5.92% for a home health aide and 2.78% for adult day care (Genworth Cost of Care Surveys 2017-2021, conducted by CareScout). The 2021 to 2025 averages above are higher for most settings. Neither period is a forecast.

What care could cost in 10, 20 and 30 years

These are illustrations, not forecasts. Each figure is the 2025 national median (CareScout Cost of Care Survey 2025) multiplied by 1.03 or 1.05 for each year. Three percent is near the low end of the survey's recent range for nursing homes, and five percent is near the high end for assisted living and home care. Actual prices could land below, between or above.

Arithmetic: 2025 median x 1.03^years or x 1.05^years. Example: a $129,575 private nursing home room is $174,138 after 10 years at 3% and $211,064 at 5%; after 30 years the same room is $314,513 at 3% and $560,016 at 5%. Someone who is 55 today and needs care at 85 is on the 30-year row. Use the calculator below for your state.

Why a fixed benefit loses buying power, and how inflation protection works

A benefit that never changes buys less every year care prices rise. If a policy or savings plan pays a fixed $200 a day and care costs rise 4% a year, the same $200 covers about 68% of today's price in 10 years ($200 / 1.04¹⁰ = about $135 in today's dollars) and about 31% in 30 years. That shrinking gap, not the headline price, is the reason planners talk about inflation.

Long-term care insurance sellers describe the fix as an inflation protection rider or option. The common ideas, in plain terms (terms differ by policy and by state, so read the benefit schedule in any contract you are shown):

• Simple increase. The benefit grows by a fixed percentage of the original amount each year. A $200 daily benefit with 5% simple growth adds $10 a year: $300 after 10 years, $400 after 20, $500 after 30.
• Compound increase. The benefit grows by a percentage of the previous year's amount, so the increases themselves grow. $200 at 3% compound is about $269 after 10 years, $361 after 20 and $485 after 30. At 5% compound it is about $326, $531 and $864.
• 3% versus 5%. The higher rate keeps pace with faster price growth, but riders priced at higher rates usually cost more in premium. Whether 3% or 5% matches reality depends on what care prices actually do, which nobody knows. Compare each rate against the 2021 to 2025 history in the table above.
• CPI-linked or index-linked. The benefit follows a published price index, such as the Consumer Price Index. It can rise more or less than 3% or 5% in any given year, and general consumer inflation is not the same as long-term care price inflation, so check which index a contract uses.
• Periodic purchase options. Some designs offer the chance to buy more coverage every few years at then-current age-based prices instead of building growth into the benefit.

The arithmetic above is the same for savings: money set aside for care that earns less than care prices rise also loses buying power. This page does not recommend any product, rider or rate.

Inflation calculator: what care could cost when you need it

How families pay

Most families combine several sources. Medicare pays only for short skilled stays (what Medicare covers). Medicaid pays for the largest share of long-term care services, but only after income and assets fall under state limits (ACL, LongTermCare.gov, Who Pays for Long-Term Care?, last modified May 10, 2022); see Medicaid spend-down, the 5-year look-back and estate recovery. The rest comes from income, savings, insurance (is long-term care insurance worth it, hybrid policies) and often the house (selling a house to pay for care, reverse mortgages).

How to use the calculator above

1. Pick your state and the setting you expect. If you are unsure, run home care and assisted living both.
2. For home care, enter the hours you expect each week, not the full-time default.
3. Enter how many years. The federal planning site says women need care for 3.7 years on average and men for 2.2 years, and 20 percent of people will need care for more than 5 years (ACL, LongTermCare.gov, How Much Care Will You Need?, last modified February 18, 2020).
4. Choose an inflation assumption and the year care might start.
5. Compare the total with what you could pay from income, savings and insurance. The gap is the number to plan for.

Then use our long-term care guide to see which tools fit that gap. The retirement calculator can show how a care cost of that size fits into your overall plan.

A plain example: what home care hours cost in a year

Hypothetical: a parent who needs help at home, priced at the 2025 national median of $35 an hour, and at the lowest and highest state hourly medians, $24 in Mississippi and $46 in Wyoming (CareScout Cost of Care Survey 2025, data tables dated March 2, 2026).

Arithmetic: hourly rate x hours per week x 52 weeks. For 20 hours: $35 x 20 x 52 = $36,400 a year, or $3,033 a month. Real agencies may charge minimum visit lengths, weekend rates or a different price for live-in care.

Growth, also hypothetical: if the national private nursing home room ($129,575 a year in 2025) rose 3% a year for 10 years, it would cost $174,138; at 5% a year, $211,064. Arithmetic: $129,575 x 1.03 to the 10th power, and x 1.05 to the 10th power.

Sources

The Retirement Literacy Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public charity. This page is general education, not tax, legal or investment advice. Nothing is sold here, no product is recommended, and RLF accepts no funding from financial companies. Rules and figures change; each one above shows its source and date. Check anything you plan to act on with your state insurance department or a qualified professional who is not paid on the product.