By Naomi Foster · Health Writer, Senior Care CostsUpdated 2026-07-09
Get a monthly cost estimate for semi-private and private nursing home rooms in your region.
By Naomi Foster · Health Writer, Senior Care CostsA planning figure for one resident. Facilities quote by level of medical need, not just room type.
The daily rates behind this tool, $260 for a semi-private room and $300 for a private room nationally, come from SeniorLivingCostGuide's own 2026 Senior Living Cost Reference, not a generic estimate. The CareScout Cost of Care Survey from Genworth Financial (dated March 2026), an independent industry benchmark, put semi-private nursing home care closer to $9,590 a month nationally and private rooms near $10,810, both above this site's model. The gap usually comes down to whether a survey is sampling skilled nursing specifically or blending in lower-acuity settings.
| Room type | Low-cost region | National (site model) | High-cost region |
|---|---|---|---|
| Semi-private | $6,165/mo | $7,904/mo | $12,646/mo |
| Private room | $7,114/mo | $9,120/mo | $14,592/mo |
The calculator multiplies a base daily rate, $260 for semi-private or $300 for private, by your region's cost index, then multiplies that adjusted daily rate by 30.4 to get a monthly figure. Annual cost is simply the monthly number times twelve.
Take a private room in a high-cost state, index 1.6: the daily rate becomes $300 x 1.6, or $480, and the monthly cost is $480 x 30.4, about $14,592. Drop to a low-cost state at index 0.78 for the same private room and the daily rate falls to roughly $234, or about $7,114 a month. Skilled nursing facilities provide around-the-clock medical staffing, which is the main reason this tier costs more than assisted living or memory care.
See how skilled nursing stacks up against assisted living or hourly home aides.
Budget $8,000 to $10,000 or more a month for a semi-private room nationally, and expect private rooms to run several hundred dollars a month higher. High-cost states push both figures well past those numbers.
Medicare covers a limited window of skilled nursing after a qualifying hospital stay, typically capped around 100 days with cost-sharing kicking in after day 20. It does not pay for ongoing custodial nursing home care.
Most residents start with private savings or long-term care insurance, then transition to Medicaid once assets fall under their state's limit. Medicaid is the largest single payer of long-term nursing home care nationally.
That is the average number of days in a month across a year, so the monthly figure does not run high in 31-day months and low in February. It is the same convention this site's other calculators use.
No. Facilities set their own rates by acuity and location, so use this as a planning range and call ahead for current pricing.
Wondering if assisted living could delay the move to skilled nursing? Try the assisted living cost calculator. For a resident who needs dementia-specific staffing rather than medical care, the memory care calculator may fit better. To see how Medicare and Medicaid actually split the bill, read does Medicare cover nursing home costs.