How Much Does a Nursing Home Cost in NYC? The State's Own Figure, and Who Pays It

How much does a nursing home cost per month in New York City?

$15,282 a month in 2026, according to the New York State Department of Health. The figure comes from GIS 25 MA/14, the notice the Health Department sends to local Medicaid offices each year. The notice says the regional rates are based on average private pay nursing home costs in each of seven regions, and New York City is one region covering all five boroughs.

Multiplied out, that is $183,384 a year, or about $502 a day. Those two conversions are our arithmetic on the state figure, not separate published numbers.

We use this figure, and no other, for a reason. Commercial surveys of nursing home prices publish averages with different methods and sample sizes, and they disagree with each other. The state rate is the one New York itself uses in a legal calculation, the transfer penalty, and it is published with the counties it covers. That makes it the most defensible single number for a New York City family to plan with, as long as it is read as an average and not a quote.

How NYC compares with the rest of New York State

New York City is not the most expensive region on the state’s list in 2026; Rochester is. The spread between the highest and lowest region is under $2,000 a month, which says more about the cost of staffing a nursing home anywhere in the state than about any one borough.

The state does not publish a separate figure for Manhattan, Brooklyn or any other borough. A site that quotes a borough-level average is using its own survey, not a state number.

How the NYC figure has changed

From 2025 to 2026 the rate rose about 4.8%; from 2020 to 2026, about 19%. The Health Department issues the next year’s rates in a notice dated late December or January (the 2026 notice is dated December 22, 2025), so a 2027 figure will exist only once that notice is out. Until then, the 2026 number is the current one.

What Medicare pays toward a nursing home

Medicare covers skilled nursing facility care, which is rehabilitation or skilled care after a hospital stay, not long-term custodial care. Medicare.gov lists the conditions and the 2026 costs:

The observation-status row decides more cases than any other. A parent who spent three nights in a hospital bed “under observation” was never admitted, and Medicare will not pay for the rehab stay that follows. Ask on day one: “Is my mother admitted as an inpatient, or is she under observation?” A Medigap policy or a Medicare Advantage plan may cover the day 21 to 100 coinsurance; check the plan’s own terms. How Medicare and Medicaid work together.

What Medicaid pays, and what the resident still pays

Medicaid is the payer for most long-term nursing home stays in New York. Once a person qualifies, Medicaid pays the facility its Medicaid rate, and the resident contributes almost all of their monthly income toward that cost.

What the resident keeps, per the state’s 2026 standards:

• a personal needs allowance, listed at $50 a month for an institutionalized person on the state’s 2026 chart;
• if married, a monthly income allowance for the spouse at home of up to $4,066.50, and resources of at least $74,820 and up to $162,660 for that spouse;
• countable resources of $33,038 for a single applicant in the non-MAGI category, which covers people 65 and older and people with disabilities.

The resource rules come with a 60-month look-back on gifts. A penalty for a transfer is measured in months of the same $15,282 figure on this page. The look-back and the exempt transfers.

Cheaper settings that Medicaid also pays for

A nursing home is not the only setting Medicaid covers for someone who needs this level of help. Two other routes can cost the household less:

Details: MLTC plans, the Assisted Living Program, the NHTD and TBI waivers.

How to check one facility before signing

The state average does not tell you what a specific home charges or how well it is run. Three things to do: