Paying for care

The cost of care

Many people needing care find they’ll have to cover some or all of the costs themselves, which can be daunting. Thinking them through in advance will help you choose your next steps carefully. That can even stop you having to move to a new care provider later on if your care needs change.

In-home care costs

The United Kingdom Homecare Association (UKHCA) calculated a minimum price for homecare of £28.53 per hour. It covers the UK Living Wage for careworkers, and includes their travel time, mileage and wage-related costs. The rate also includes a minimum payment towards running a care business at a financially sustainable level.

Care home costs

Care home fees can be significant, though they will vary depending on where you live and what your needs are. In many homes you can expect to pay more than £1,000 per week, in fact the average weekly cost for a private payer in a residential care home is approximately £1,100 per week. This average increases to over £1,400 where nursing care is required.

Our quick and easy Care Costs Calculator

If you want to understand how your care may be paid for, our calculator can give you an answer in just five easy steps

Calculate my care costs

Local authority care funding

What to expect from the financial assessment

The first step is to ask for a free care assessment from the social services department of your local authority.

Find your local council

What to expect from the financial assessment

Once your local authority has agreed your care needs, they’ll look into your finances to work out how much you should pay towards the cost. It could mean you’ll need to pay for none, part or all of your care, depending on your income, savings and property you own.

Only the finances of the person who needs care should be considered in the financial assessment.

Your savings, assets, and investments

One of the first questions you’ll be asked is whether you have more than £23,250 in capital assets. If the answer is yes, you’ll be considered a ‘self-funder’ and you’ll need to cover the full cost of your care.

The financial assessment will look at your income and assets, including:

Savings, including ISAs
Stocks and shares
Second homes or buy-to-let properties
Investments with a ‘cash-in’ value
Your property if you’re moving to a care home.

If you have savings below £23,250 Then you may be able to get help to pay for care from your local authority.

Capital limits for local authority support in UK countries

‘Capital’ refers to the value of any savings or investments you have.

	England	Wales	Scotland	Northern Ireland
Home Care Capital Limit	£23,250	£24,000	N/A (Free when assessed as needing care by your local authority)	N/A (Free when assessed as needing care by your local authority)
Care Home Capital Limit	£23,250	£50,000	£35,000	£23,250

Assessing your income
Disability benefits and your financial assessment
Your property and care funding
Assessing your savings & investments

Your income from pensions, state benefits and some other sources will be considered in a financial assessment, but there are some types of income that won’t be counted. It’s called ‘disregarded income’ and includes:
- Disability Living Allowance or Personal Independence Payment mobility components
- War Widows’ and Widowers’ special payments
- Charitable and voluntary payments
- Personal injury trust payments
- Awards of certain damages
- Any earnings from employment
The local authority should check you’re claiming all the financial support and benefits you’re entitled to at the same time when they do your financial assessment.
For care at home

After working out what income should be counted in your assessment, your assessor needs to make sure you’re left with at least the Minimum Income Guarantee (MIG) after paying for care.

For a single person over State Pension age, the standard figure is £228.70 (£174.60 if you’re in a couple). This figure can be increased if you are also a carer. This is how much should be left over from your income after your rent, mortgage payments, ground rent and Council Tax payments are all taken care of.

For people aged 25 and over, the figure is £110.60 for a single person (£86.85 if you’re a member of a couple).

For people aged 18 to 24 the figure is £87.65 for a single person (and remains £86.85 if you’re in a couple).

These rates can be increased if you are a carer but also if you have a disability.

In Wales, the MIG is calculated differently and is around £320 for a single person of State Pension age and £130 for someone of working age. In Scotland and Northern Ireland personal care at home is free if your local authority has agreed you need it, so there is no MIG.

For care in a care home

As part of your financial assessment, your local authority must ensure that after you have contributed towards your care home costs from your income that you are left with a Personal Expenses Allowance (PEA).

Your allowance is a minimum of £30.15 per week and can be used however you wish. Many people choose to spend it on day trips, magazines, cosmetics or snacks. If your allowance is not enough to cover these costs, then you can ask your local authority to consider increasing it.

In Scotland PEA is £34.50 per week and in Northern Ireland, it’s £28.01. In Wales, PEA is known as the Minimum Income Amount and is £39.50 per week.

Couples and care funding

Only the finances of the person who needs care can be taken into account in the financial assessment. Your partner’s finances shouldn’t be considered. The guidance given to local authorities says that they have:

“no power to assess couples or civil partners according to their joint resources. Each person must therefore be treated individually.”

If you have joint savings, the value will be divided equally between you. If one of you owns more than the other, you can show evidence of this to the local authority for the financial assessment.

Read more in our section on rules for partners and spouses.
Depending on whether you need care at home or in a care home, you may be able to claim a disability benefit as well as financial support from your local authority. This is a non-means tested benefit for people aged 65 and over who have care and support needs.

Care at home

If you get Attendance Allowance, the daily living or care component of Personal Independence Payments (PIP) or Disability Living Allowance (DLA), these can be considered in your financial assessment.

The assessor must take into account any costs you have to pay because of disability and disregard these from your assessment – this is called ‘Disability Related Expenditure’. Some councils disregard a flat rate, but if you feel this isn’t enough to cover your costs, you can challenge it.

Find out how to apply for benefits

Care in a care home

If you’re receiving funding from the local authority and living in a care home, you won’t be able to claim Attendance Allowance or the Daily Living/Care component of PIP/DLA as well. But if you’re repaying your local authority’s contributions, through a Deferred Payments Agreement for example, then you can carry on receiving these benefits.

Note that if you receive the mobility component of PIP or DLA then you can continue to receive this, even if you are funded by the local authority.
Gardening

Extra heating costs

A special diet

Community alarms (telecare services)

Transport costs (for medical appointments and social contacts)

Cleaning

Buying and maintaining disability equipment

This is a non-exhaustive list and other costs may also be accepted.
Care at home

If you own the home you’re living in, its value won’t be counted in your financial assessment. But if you’d prefer a more expensive package of care than your local authority is willing to pay for. There maybe other funding methods available, use our Care Costs Calculator to find out what options might be right for you.

Care in a care home

If you have less than £23,250 in savings but you own a property, then its value may be used to pay for your care, unless the local authority decides not to include it in the financial assessment. This may happen when it's occupied by a partner or certain family members.
Care homes and the treatment of your property
The value of your home will be disregarded if it’s still being lived in by a:
- spouse, civil partner or unmarried partner
- family member over the age of 60
- family member who is deemed ‘incapacitated’ or living with a disability
- lone parent who is your estranged or divorced partner
- child of yours, under the age of 18
If you move into care but someone who cared for you still lives in your home, the local authority can choose to disregard your property for as long as the carer lives there. Local authorities can’t have a blanket policy for these situations and should consider the effect that caring responsibilities have had on the carer’s employment opportunities and housing arrangements.
The 12-week property disregard

If you move into a care home but none of the usual reasons to disregard your property apply, the local authority will expect you to contribute towards the cost of your care from your income. But they won’t use the value of your property for 12 weeks from the date you first move into a care home as a permanent resident.

If you jointly own your property

If the financial assessment includes a property you own with somebody else, they’ll only consider your share. If nobody lives there, it’s likely they’ll value your share close to its market value. However, if one of the owners still lives in the property, the local authority will apply the ‘trust principle’ when they value your share. This means if you brought the property as a home and it’s still used as one by the other owner, each owner's individual share is likely to be worth little or nothing when assessed for care costs.

Deferred Payment Agreement

If you have less than £23,250 in savings not counting the value of your home, you should be offered a Deferred Payment Agreement by your local authority after 12 weeks of living in a care home.

This means you don’t have to sell your home. Instead, the local authority will put a legal charge against your house so they can get back what they’ve paid towards your care. They'll charge interest on this amount, although it is typically minimal.
Any properties you own but don’t live in, savings, stocks or shares will be counted in the assessment. You’ll be treated as having a 50% share in anything you jointly own, such as a joint bank account.

What capital is disregarded from a financial assessment?
- Some types of investment bond with life assurance elements attached
- Certain personal injury payments
- Money held for you in some types of trust
For savings below £23,250

If you have less than £23,250 in capital or savings but more than £14,250 then you will be assumed to have an income equal to £1 for every £250 you have between these two amounts. For example, if you had savings of £16,050, there are seven full amounts of £250 and another partial amount towards your next £250. This means you would be assumed you have a ‘tariff income’ of £8 per week. The closer you get to £14,250 the lower this amount becomes.

In Wales, the capital limit for local authority support is £24,000 for care at home and £50,000 for care in a care home. There are no lower limits, so tariff income is not considered.

In Northern Ireland personal care at home is free when assessed and arranged by your local authority. Care in a care home is subject to the same capital limits and tariff income as England.

In Scotland the upper capital limit for local authority support in a care home is £35,000, the lower limit is £21,500. Care at home is typically provided free of charge when arranged through your local authority.

How local authority care payments work

If your local authority agrees to help you pay for care, they’ll decide a personal budget that covers the care needs they’ve identified.

For residential care in a home, this is sometimes called the ‘usual cost’ and your local authority must make sure that at least one care home has availability to meet your needs within the budget they set.

If you’re granted funding for care, your local authority should give you a written breakdown of how much they’ll contribute and how much you’ll be expected to pay. This total figure is your ‘personal budget’, which is the amount of money required to cover your care needs.

There are several ways of using your personal budget:

A direct payment (where the money is given directly to you)
A budget managed by the local authority
Having your budget managed by a third party (such as a care provider)
A combination of the above.

Most commonly, people ask the local authority to manage their budget and arrange their services, but you can receive your budget in the way that suits you best.

In most cases, your local authority will arrange to pay your care home directly. If you or a family member need to pay something towards your care as well, your payments can be arranged with the local authority or the care home. Start by talking to your local authority to set it up.

Once a local authority has worked out what they’ll pay and how much you’ll need to chip in, there may still be a gap to cover the full cost of the care you want. So, you might be asked to find a ‘third party top-up’. This can’t come from your own savings; it needs to be paid by someone close to you, like a partner, family member or friend.

A local authority can only ever ask for top-ups if they’ve found a lower cost care home for you that meets all your assessed needs and has availability. If they can’t find one, they’ll need to pay to cover your current shortfall.

There are two situations where you can pay your own top-up:

During the first 12 weeks of moving into a care home (12-week property disregard) as a permanent resident, if you’re going to use your property to pay for your care.
If you have a Deferred Payment Agreement. Where the local authority contributes to your care now, with repayment from the value of your property later.

Live-in care can be expensive, often costing more than £1,000 a week, which means it’s unlikely that a local authority will fund the full cost. Instead, they might recommend a care home as a lower cost alternative. Or, they could give you a personal budget, which you can top up with your own money or with help from family to meet the cost of a live-in carer.

If you think your care needs wouldn’t be properly met in a care home, you can challenge the local authority’s decision not to pay for live-in care.

You may also wish to explore releasing equity from your home to help give you greater flexibility.

Find out if you could use the value of your home to pay for any shortfall for in home care by completing our Care Costs Calculator.

Please be aware, if you take equity out of your home, you may no longer be eligible for financial support from your local authority.

Rules for couples

Often, it’s our partners who give the most support if we start to need help day to day. So, it’s essential that they get all the practical and emotional support they need.

If you contact your local authority and ask them to assess your care needs, they can look at support for your partner at the same time with a carer's assessment. Most local authorities offer a range of services to support carers, like temporary care for you to give your partner some time out for themselves, or details of local carers’ support groups and services to lend a little help around the home.

Find out more about support for carers, including details of local groups, at Carers UK.

Frequently Asked Questions

These can help you understand the rules for couples and what support may be available.

For as long as one of you lives in your home, its value can’t be used to pay for the other person's care. If the person living at home moves out, then the your partner’s share of the property can be considered from that day forward.

If your partner decides to downsize to a property that suits them better after you've moved into a home, they should be able to use some or all of your share of your home's value to cover the cost of the move. If there’s any money left over, it will likely be considered as belonging to you and be used to pay for your care.

The local authority aren’t allowed to consider your partner's finances when they assess your ability to pay for care. It’s up to your partner whether they contribute anything from their personal finances to cover the cost.

If care is being paid for by the local authority, it has a duty to arrange a care home that meets your needs without anyone else having to contribute. But your partner can choose to chip in extra to make up the shortfall of a more expensive care home if they want to – this is called a ‘third party top-up’.

If you're married or in a civil partnership, are moving into a care home and you have a private or occupational pension, you can give half of it over to your partner.

Your other half should also check whether they’re entitled to any means-tested benefits. The local Adult Social Care team should be able to look at which benefits they could receive at the same time they support you to get the right care in place.

Learn more about benefits

Care Concierge

If you would like some expert advice on finding a new care provider, resolving a dispute or exploring funding options then you might benefit from talking with our Care Concierge team.

Speak to a Care Expert

NHS funding

If you need help because you have certain medical needs as well as personal care needs, some or all of your care costs could be paid for by the NHS.

NHS funding

Mythbusting

Protecting your money from the cost of care: the facts.

Mythbusting: Ways to avoid paying for care costs

Care needs assessment

Your local authority could help you to get the right support in place, whether you’re in need of care yourself or looking after someone else.

Local authority assessments

Paying for care

In-home care costs

Care home costs

What to expect from the financial assessment

What to expect from the financial assessment

For care at home

For care in a care home

Couples and care funding

Care at home

Care in a care home

Care at home

Care in a care home

The 12-week property disregard

If you jointly own your property

Deferred Payment Agreement

Care Concierge

NHS funding

Mythbusting

Care needs assessment