# Long-Term Care Costs in California (2026): Nursing Home, Assisted Living, and Home Care by Region

> California long-term care costs by region for 2025: nursing home, assisted living, and home care, compared to national medians and cited.

Source: https://ridleylawoffices.com/long-term-care-costs-california/

By Eric Ridley, attorney, Ridley Law. Updated September 2026.

This page tracks what nursing homes, assisted living, and home care cost across California, using the CareScout 2025 Cost of Care Survey, the most recent edition published. It covers the statewide median and 24 California regions CareScout reports separately, for four cost categories, compared against the national median. Every figure links to its source. We review this page each time CareScout publishes a new survey, typically in the spring.

**Cite this page:** Ridley Law, “Long-Term Care Costs in California (2026): Nursing Home, Assisted Living, and Home Care by Region,” ridleylawoffices.com/long-term-care-costs-california/, September 2026.

## Key findings

- California’s median private nursing home room costs $15,178 a month, 41 percent above the $10,798 national median, per the [CareScout 2025 Cost of Care Survey state data tables](https://assets.carescout.com/x/5c90319b6a/298701.pdf).
- A semi-private nursing home room in California runs $12,167 a month, 27 percent above the $9,581 national median, in the same [CareScout survey](https://assets.carescout.com/x/5c90319b6a/298701.pdf).
- Assisted living, licensed in California as a Residential Care Facility for the Elderly, costs $7,000 a month statewide, 13 percent above the $6,200 national median, according to [CareScout](https://assets.carescout.com/x/5c90319b6a/298701.pdf).
- Non-medical in-home care, CareScout’s combined homemaker and home health aide category, costs $7,627 a month statewide based on 44 hours a week, 14 percent above the $6,673 national median, per [CareScout](https://assets.carescout.com/x/5c90319b6a/298701.pdf).
- Adult day health care is the one category where California tracks the nation closely: $2,037 a month against a $2,058 national median, per the [CareScout 2025 methodology report](https://assets.carescout.com/x/e3933bfcf1/131168.pdf).
- Regional costs vary widely: a private nursing home room ranges from about $10,600 a month in Visalia to more than $20,000 a month in several Bay Area and Central Coast regions, according to the [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/).

## Long-term care costs by California region

Figures are the 2025 median monthly rate CareScout reports for each category. Nursing home rates are for a private-pay resident. In-home care is priced on 44 hours of non-medical caregiver time a week. Some regions have no reported median for a category because CareScout did not collect enough survey responses there for that service; those cells read N/A rather than guess at a number.

| Region | Nursing Home, Private Room | Nursing Home, Semi-Private Room | Assisted Living (Residential Care) | In-Home Non-Medical Care | Source |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| California (statewide median) | $15,178 | $12,167 | $7,000 | $7,627 | [CareScout 2025 state data](https://assets.carescout.com/x/5c90319b6a/298701.pdf) |
| Bakersfield-Delano | $10,874 | $10,357 | $6,770 | $6,247 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| Chico | N/A | $13,429 | $5,473 | $6,864 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| Fresno | $14,570 | $11,452 | $6,250 | $6,864 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| Hanford-Corcoran | $12,228 | $11,710 | N/A | N/A | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim | $11,832 | $10,707 | $6,600 | $7,245 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| Merced | $12,151 | $11,528 | $5,250 | $7,436 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| Modesto | $14,843 | $12,805 | $6,515 | $6,959 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| Napa | $14,904 | $11,863 | $4,605 | $8,389 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura | $15,999 | $12,167 | $7,858 | $7,436 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| Redding | N/A | $13,094 | $6,456 | $8,580 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario | $13,992 | $12,167 | $6,250 | $7,055 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom | $19,771 | $13,688 | $7,750 | $7,627 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| Salinas | $27,983 | $19,391 | $9,500 | $7,865 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad | $16,729 | $12,319 | $6,820 | $7,627 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont | $20,896 | $15,208 | $8,450 | $8,199 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara | $18,767 | $14,296 | $10,495 | $8,389 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles | N/A | $12,167 | $9,400 | $8,008 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| Santa Cruz-Watsonville | N/A | N/A | $7,498 | $10,105 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| Santa Maria-Santa Barbara | $17,870 | $14,448 | $5,500 | $8,389 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| Santa Rosa-Petaluma | $30,417 | $16,121 | $7,250 | $8,199 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| Stockton-Lodi | $13,079 | $11,376 | $5,791 | $7,055 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| Vallejo | $22,919 | $14,570 | $7,482 | $7,627 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| Visalia | $10,646 | $10,494 | $6,135 | $6,864 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |
| Yuba City | $14,068 | $13,688 | $5,423 | $7,531 | [CareScout Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/) |

Two categories are not broken out by region above. Adult day health care priced at $2,037 a month in every California region CareScout queried, matching the statewide figure exactly, which tells us CareScout did not have enough regional survey responses to report a distinct local rate. Skilled nursing in the home, CareScout’s private-duty-nurse category, showed the same pattern at a statewide rate of $110 an hour. Both are real, current CareScout figures, just not regional ones. See the [state data tables](https://assets.carescout.com/x/5c90319b6a/298701.pdf) for the statewide numbers.

## How long-term care gets paid for in California

Most people paying for nursing home, assisted living, or home care cover it from savings, income, long-term care insurance, or Medi-Cal. Each works differently.

Medicare is not a long-term care payer. Medicare.gov states plainly that “since most long-term care is non-medical, Medicare and most health insurance, including Medicare Supplement Insurance (Medigap), don’t pay for long-term care services,” and that you pay all costs for non-covered services, including most long-term care. Medicare Part A can cover a short stay in a Medicare-certified skilled nursing facility after a qualifying hospital stay, but that is short-term rehabilitation, not custodial long-term care. See [Medicare.gov’s long-term care coverage page](https://www.medicare.gov/coverage/long-term-care).

Medi-Cal does pay for long-term nursing facility care for members who qualify, through the managed care plan each member is enrolled in. The California Department of Health Care Services confirms that since January 1, 2023, all Medi-Cal managed care plans are responsible for covering long-term care services provided in skilled nursing facilities, both freestanding and hospital-based. See [DHCS’s CalAIM Skilled Nursing Facility Long-Term Care Carve-In page](https://www.dhcs.ca.gov/providers-partners/calaim-skilled-nursing-facility-long-term-care-carve-in/). Qualifying for Medi-Cal and paying a share of cost involve income and asset rules that changed in 2026, with a further change scheduled for no sooner than July 2027. We cover those rules, with current numbers, on the pages linked below.

Long-term care insurance is a private option some people buy years before they need care. The California Department of Insurance describes long-term care as “the assistance or supervision you may need when you are not able to do some of the basic activities of daily living,” and notes that it can include home and community-based care, not only a nursing home. See the [CDI long-term care insurance page](https://www.insurance.ca.gov/0150-seniors/0500longtermcare/) for how these policies work and what to check before buying one.

## What this means in California

These are private-pay rates. When a family can’t sustain them from income and savings, Medi-Cal is usually the fallback, and Medi-Cal planning works best when it starts well before care is needed. Our [Medi-Cal, long-term care, and estate recovery guide](https://ridleylawoffices.com/medi-cal-guides/) is the starting point. From there, the current [Medi-Cal asset limits](https://ridleylawoffices.com/medi-cal-asset-limit-california/) and [share of cost rules](https://ridleylawoffices.com/guides/medi-cal-share-of-cost-california/) determine what a household can keep and what it owes toward care. If a Medi-Cal recipient later passes away, the state can seek reimbursement from the estate under the rules on our [Medi-Cal estate recovery page](https://ridleylawoffices.com/medi-cal-estate-recovery-ab-116-2026/), updated for AB 116. Broader elder law strategy, including how a trust or other planning interacts with a Medi-Cal application, is on our [Medi-Cal planning and elder law page](https://ridleylawoffices.com/medi-cal-planning-elder-law-california/). A durable power of attorney, explained on our [glossary page](https://ridleylawoffices.com/estate-planning-glossary-california/durable-power-of-attorney/), lets a trusted person manage finances if the person who signed it no longer can.

## Related pages on this site

- [Does a Living Trust Protect Assets From Nursing Home Costs?](https://ridleylawoffices.com/does-a-living-trust-protect-assets-from-nursing-home-california/)
- [A Parent Is Entering Skilled Nursing and the Medi-Cal Asset Test Is Back](https://ridleylawoffices.com/parent-entering-nursing-home-medi-cal-2026/)
- [California Estate Planning Numbers 2026: Probate, Estate Tax, and Medi-Cal Limits](https://ridleylawoffices.com/2026-california-estate-law-changes/)
- [AHCD vs Living Will vs POLST, a California-Specific Guide](https://ridleylawoffices.com/ahcd-vs-living-will-vs-polst-california/)
- [Advance Healthcare Directive Lawyer in California](https://ridleylawoffices.com/advance-healthcare-directive-attorney/)
- [California Power of Attorney Guide for Families](https://ridleylawoffices.com/appointing-power-of-attorney-california/)

## Methodology

Cost figures come from the CareScout 2025 Cost of Care Survey, the most recent edition, published March 2, 2026 by CareScout Holdings, a Genworth Financial subsidiary. CareScout surveyed long-term care providers nationwide between July and November 2025. Statewide and national medians are from CareScout’s [Ranked Median Costs by State Data Tables](https://assets.carescout.com/x/5c90319b6a/298701.pdf) and [2025 Methodology report](https://assets.carescout.com/x/e3933bfcf1/131168.pdf), both fetched and checked against the figures on this page in September 2026. Regional figures for the 24 California metro areas and counties CareScout reports separately came from CareScout’s own [Cost of Care tool](https://www.carescout.com/cost-of-care/), queried by region in September 2026 and cross-checked against the statewide totals in the PDF.

CareScout changed its home care taxonomy for the 2025 survey. Homemaker services and home health aide services, reported separately in older Genworth surveys, are now combined into one “non-medical caregiver” category because CareScout found the two had converged in price. This page reports that combined figure rather than inventing a split CareScout no longer publishes.

We excluded the El Centro region because CareScout’s tool returned the statewide fallback rather than a distinct local figure, meaning it has no region-specific data this year. We also did not break out adult day health care or skilled nursing in the home by region, because every region queried returned the identical statewide rate rather than a real local one. Both exclusions, and the full list of what we checked, are documented in this report’s delivery notes.

We plan to review this page again after CareScout publishes its next annual survey, typically in the first quarter of the following year. To report an error or an outdated figure, email eric@ridleylawoffices.com.