Florida Medicaid Eligibility Calculator

The Three Tests for Florida Nursing-Home Medicaid

Florida’s Institutional Care Program (ICP) Medicaid pays for nursing-home care if you meet three tests. Here are the 2026 numbers, which move almost every year. Our plain-English rundown of the 2026 Florida Medicaid figures explains what each limit actually means for a family.

• Income at or under $2,982/month (single applicant). Over the cap, a Qualified Income (Miller) Trust still lets you qualify, so being “over income” is rarely the real barrier.
• Countable assets of $2,000 or less (single applicant). A married community spouse keeps up to $162,660 (the CSRA).
• Level of care, meaning a medical need for nursing-facility services (assessed separately).

For the full walk-through, including what to do if you are over the income or asset limit, see how to qualify for Medicaid in Florida, step by step →

What’s Exempt (and What Counts)

Exempt (doesn’t count) covers your Florida homestead up to $752,000 equity (no cap if a spouse, a child under 21, or a disabled child lives there), one car, personal belongings, prepaid burial, and certain life insurance.

Countable items include bank accounts, CDs, stocks, a second property, and cash-value life insurance over the limit.

The biggest mistake families make is giving assets away to “get under” the limit. That triggers Florida’s five-year look-back and a penalty period. There are legitimate ways to protect assets, but a naked gift isn’t one. See how the home is protected from Medicaid estate recovery →

How Much Money Can You Have and Still Qualify for Medicaid in Florida?

A single applicant can hold $2,000 of countable assets, and a married couple with one spouse applying can hold $164,660 between them, being the $162,660 the community spouse keeps plus the $2,000 the applicant keeps. Where both spouses apply the limit is $3,000. Those are the numbers the calculator above compares against, and they are the easy part. The number that decides most cases is which of your assets reach the countable side of the ledger at all, because the homestead, one car, personal belongings and a prepaid funeral are already off it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

• 2026 Florida ICP (nursing home) Medicaid figures. Income cap $2,982 a month, which is 300 percent of the SSI federal benefit rate. Applicant countable asset limit $2,000, or $3,000 where both spouses apply. Community spouse resource allowance $162,660, a flat maximum. Fla. Admin. Code R. 65A-1.712(4)(c) provides that the allowance "is equal to the maximum resource allocation standard allowed under 42 U.S.C. §1396r-5 or any court-ordered support, whichever is larger." Florida took the State-plan election in 42 U.S.C. §1396r-5(f)(2)(A)(i) and set its own floor at the federal maximum, so the one-half spousal-share computation used by many states does not operate here. Under 65A-1.712(4)(b) the allowance is subtracted from the couple's total countable resources and the remainder is compared to the applicant's limit, which makes the married threshold $164,660. See also DCF ESS 1640.0205 and 1640.0314.01. Home equity limit $752,000 per 42 U.S.C. §1396p(f). Minimum monthly maintenance needs allowance maximum $4,067. Personal needs allowance about $160. Transfer penalty divisor $10,645. Florida rules at FAC 65A-1.712 (resources), 65A-1.713 (income) and 65A-1.716, with DCF ESS Policy Manual ch. 1640 (assets) and ch. 1840 (income). Figures change each January; verify before relying on them.
• Resources are measured at the time of application under Fla. Admin. Code R. 65A-1.712(4)(b). Florida's manual contains no asset-assessment or snapshot procedure for the community spouse allowance, because in a state that grants the maximum outright there is nothing to compute as of an earlier date.
• Gross income means the entitlement before every withholding. Medicare Part B (about $202.90 a month in 2026), Part D and Medicare Advantage premiums, voluntary tax withholding, and garnishments are all added back, per DCF ESS 1840.0102 and .0903, POMS SI 00830.210 and 20 C.F.R. §416.1123(b)(2). Florida verifies income directly from the Social Security Administration rather than from bank statements, so the amount deposited in the account is not the figure that is tested. VA Aid and Attendance is excluded from the income cap.
• Qualified Income (Miller) Trust, required in Florida (an income-cap state) when income exceeds the cap. Estate recovery: Fla. Stat. §409.9101. (retrieved 2026-07-11)

What the Arithmetic Hides

In 14 years of law practice, the arithmetic families do themselves usually gets the income test right and the asset test wrong.

I have a few take-home points about why that happens.

The first is that the two tests are different kinds of problem. Income is one number against one number, so a family that knows the cap is $2,982 a month can do that comparison as well as I can. The asset test asks something else, which is whether each thing a person owns is countable at all, and I have watched careful people add up a column correctly after putting the wrong items in it.

Clients are often confused about whether a life insurance policy counts, and ask me, “Does it count if I never cash it in?” The answer is that it can, and the same two items go in the wrong column almost every time. A whole life policy is the first, because its cash surrender value becomes countable once the total face value passes $2,500, and most families I meet have written down the death benefit or nothing at all. A retirement account is the second, because an IRA that is not in payout status sits on the countable ledger at its full balance. Both of those have a fix I can usually complete in the same week, meaning the policy is surrendered into a prepaid funeral contract and the account elects periodic payout so the corpus comes off the ledger and is treated as income instead.

What that changes is the size of the problem rather than the answer to it. When somebody tells me they have $90,000 in countable assets and $40,000 of it is an IRA outside payout, I am not looking at a $90,000 spend-down, I am looking at $50,000 and an election form. The families who never ask spend the difference.

The third point runs the other way, because there is one income mistake I do see. People use the amount that lands in the checking account, and Florida tests the gross entitlement before every withholding, verified directly from Social Security rather than from a bank statement. Medicare Part B alone is about $202.90 a month in 2026 and gets added back, which is enough to move somebody from under the cap to over it on paper.

Practice pointer. Before anyone compares a total to $2,000, I write down every life insurance policy at its face value rather than its cash value, and the payout status of every retirement account. Those two lines reclassify more money than any strategy I could suggest afterward, and they cost nothing to check.

Avoid treating a gift as a way to get under the limit. Florida divides the amount transferred by $10,645 to set the penalty, so giving away $53,225 buys five months during which Medicaid pays nothing and the nursing home still bills about $10,000 a month. A transfer between spouses carries no penalty at all, which is the move people could have made instead.

An honest limit belongs here. The calculator above runs three comparisons and it is an estimate rather than an eligibility determination. Whether a particular annuity, policy or account is countable turns on its own terms, the figures change every January, and I cannot classify an asset I have not read the paperwork on. A qualified income trust is a flat fee from $750 and the rest of the planning is quoted at the consult once I know what you actually own.

Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., admitted in Florida since 2012. General information rather than advice on your situation.

Updated September 8, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate and tax planning, business structuring, and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. General information about Florida law, not legal advice, and not an eligibility determination. Medicaid figures change annually and eligibility turns on your specific facts.