When one spouse moves into a nursing home and applies for Medicaid to cover the bill, federal law is supposed to stop the other spouse from being wiped out along with the savings account. Every year, the dollar figures behind that protection change, and this summer they changed again: as of July 1, 2026, a healthy spouse living at home can keep at least $2,705 a month in income and a house worth up to $1,130,000, without either counting against the Medicaid applicant’s eligibility. Congress wrote these rules into law in 1988, specifically to stop a nursing home bill from forcing a healthy spouse into poverty just so the other spouse could qualify for coverage. The rules are federal, but the exact numbers move on a schedule most families never see coming until they are already filling out the paperwork.
The Minimum Allowance Jumped to $2,705 on July 1
The number at the center of the update is the minimum monthly maintenance needs allowance, or MMMNA, the smallest amount of income federal law guarantees a community spouse, the one staying home, when a husband or wife is institutionalized and applying for Medicaid long-term care coverage. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services set the 2026 floor at $2,705.00 a month, effective July 1, 2026, for every state except Alaska, at $3,381.25, and Hawaii, at $3,111.25. If the community spouse’s own income falls short of that floor, Medicaid caseworkers redirect some of the institutionalized spouse’s income to make up the difference before counting anything toward the nursing home bill.
The same bulletin resets the community spouse’s monthly housing allowance to $811.50, with Alaska at $1,014.38 and Hawaii at $933.38, the shelter-cost cushion added on top of the base allowance when a spouse’s rent, mortgage, taxes, insurance or utility costs run high. Both figures move automatically each July 1, tied to the federal poverty line rather than a vote in Congress, which is why the numbers change every summer without a new law ever passing.
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The Maximum Allowance Tops Out at $4,066.50 for High Housing Costs
The $2,705 floor is not a ceiling. CMS lists the 2026 maximum monthly maintenance needs allowance at $4,066.50, and a community spouse can reach that higher number through what Section 1924 of the Social Security Act calls an excess shelter allowance: extra income added when a spouse’s rent or mortgage, property taxes, homeowner’s insurance and utility costs exceed a set share of the poverty-line base figure. Under the statute, that excess shelter allowance only kicks in once qualifying housing costs exceed 30 percent of the poverty-line base amount used to set the standard allowance, with a standard utility allowance substituted for actual bills in states that use one. That formula, not a caseworker’s discretion, is what pushes some community spouses close to the $4,066.50 ceiling while others stay near the floor. A community spouse carrying a mortgage and a high utility bill in an expensive housing market can end up with an allowance well above the statewide minimum, while a spouse with modest housing costs stays closer to the $2,705 floor.
The Community Spouse Keeps Up to $162,660 in Savings and Investments
Income is only half the equation. Medicaid also decides how much of the couple’s combined savings, investments and other countable resources the community spouse gets to keep before the institutionalized spouse can qualify. Under the same 2026 update, that community spouse resource allowance runs from a floor of $32,532 up to a ceiling of $162,660, up from $31,584 and $157,920 the year before. States calculate the actual number by splitting the couple’s countable resources in half as of the date the institutionalized spouse enters care, then applying that split against the federal floor and ceiling, so a couple with modest joint savings may see the community spouse keep everything, while a couple with more in the bank hits the $162,660 cap.
That resource split happens once, at the start of the first continuous period of institutionalization, and either spouse can ask the state to formally assess and document the couple’s total countable resources right away, before ever filing a Medicaid application. That assessment locks in the numbers the community spouse resource allowance will later be built on, and either spouse has the right to challenge the state’s math at a fair hearing if the calculation looks wrong.
The Family Home Is Protected Up to $1,130,000 in Equity
The house is treated separately from savings. As long as the community spouse, or certain other dependents, still lives in it, the home is generally exempt from the institutionalized spouse’s resource count up to a home-equity limit that states set between $752,000 and $1,130,000 for 2026, both figures higher than last year’s range of $730,000 to $1,097,000. Medicaid.gov notes that nursing home care can run $5,000 to $8,000 a month or more, which is exactly the kind of bill these protections exist to keep from forcing a healthy spouse to sell the family home just to get a partner qualified for coverage.
Why Numbers From Last Year Are Already Wrong
Because the minimum monthly maintenance needs allowance resets every July 1 while the resource and home-equity limits reset every January 1, at any given moment there are at least two different current figures floating around, and pages that have not been updated since before July 1 are still quoting the old ones. CMS’s prior bulletin put the minimum allowance at $2,643.75 for the period running from July 2025 through June 2026, a number still showing up on elder-law and financial-planning sites months after it was replaced. Anyone using that figure to plan a Medicaid application this fall would understate the community spouse’s protected income by $61.25 a month, and would be working from a resource ceiling and home-equity limit that are both already out of date. The fix is simple: check the effective date on whatever figure is being cited before using it to plan a real Medicaid application.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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