Personal Expenses Allowance in a Care Home

If the council is helping to pay for your care home, you do not hand over every penny of your income. The council must leave you a set amount each week, called the personal expenses allowance, to spend on yourself. In England the charging regulations set it at £31.80 a week for a resident or temporary resident in a care home¹. The Welsh Government requires local authorities to leave at least £46.35 a week². Guidance for Northern Ireland gives £34.10 a week, and Scotland is given as £35.90 a week³.

The allowance is not a benefit and it is not paid on top of your income. It is the slice of your own income, usually your pension and any benefits, that the council must not take towards your fees. Everything above it goes towards the cost of your care until the council's share is worked out. That is why the figure matters: it is the difference between having nothing of your own to spend and having a small weekly amount for haircuts, newspapers, presents and trips out.

The amount is set by government, not by the care home, and it is reviewed each year. The figures below are the ones in force for 2026/27 and the most recent published rates for the other nations.

What the personal expenses allowance is and how the council works it out

When you move into a care home and ask the council for help with the fees, the council carries out a financial assessment. Your income and savings are taken into account, and your property too if you are moving into residential care rather than being cared for at home⁶. The assessment produces the figure you are expected to contribute towards your care each week.

The personal expenses allowance is the floor underneath that contribution. Whatever the assessment says you can pay, the council must leave you the allowance out of your income. The rest of your income goes to the home, and the council pays the difference between your contribution and the home's agreed fee. The council also has to make sure the overall amount it will pay for you, called your personal budget, is enough to cover at least one suitable care home in the area⁷.

Two things follow from that. First, the allowance is not means-tested: it applies whether you have £500 of savings or £50,000, as long as the council is arranging or funding your care. Second, it is a weekly figure, so it accrues week by week and is normally paid to you by the home out of the money it receives, or held for you if you would rather it was.

The English figure of £31.80 a week is the one written into the charging regulations¹. Age UK states that you must be left a personal expenses allowance of at least £30.15 per week, and one analysis of the English charging system describes the protected income as £31.80 a week⁷.

Personal expenses allowance in England: £31.80 a week

In England the allowance is set in the Care and Support (Charging and Assessment of Resources) Regulations. The regulations specify £31.80 each week in relation to a resident or temporary resident provided with accommodation in a care home¹. That is the figure a council in England should be leaving you from 2026/27.

The word "temporary" matters. A stay of a few weeks for rehabilitation, or a trial period while a permanent placement is found, is still a stay in a care home for this purpose, so the allowance still applies. It is not reserved for people who have sold their home and moved in for good.

The allowance is reviewed annually alongside the wider benefit uprating. The Department for Work and Pensions memo covering the 2026/27 rates records the increase in the amount allowed for personal expenses for a person in certain accommodation to £33.55⁹. That figure applies where your benefit is paid directly to the accommodation provider rather than to you, which is a different payment route from the council charging rules. If your benefits are paid straight to the home, the £33.55 figure is the one to look for; if the council is assessing your contribution, the £31.80 figure applies⁹.

Rates in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Social care charging is devolved, so the allowance is set separately in each nation and the figures differ.

In Wales the Welsh Government states that local authorities must ensure you are left with at least £46.35 a week to spend on personal items². That is the highest of the four and reflects a different policy choice rather than a different cost of living. The Welsh figure is set by the Welsh Government, so it does not move automatically when the English regulations are uprated.

In Scotland, free personal care is available to people who need it, which changes what you pay for in the first place¹⁰. The allowance figure of £35.90 a week sits alongside that separate entitlement. In Northern Ireland the figure given is £34.10 a week³. Because these are devolved matters, a move across a border can change both what you pay and what you keep, and the council or trust handling your case will apply the rules of the nation you live in.

What the allowance can and cannot be spent on

The allowance is for you to spend as you wish, and it should not be spent on any aspect of care, board or lodgings⁴. That is the dividing line. Your fees cover your room, your meals and your personal care. The allowance covers everything else that is yours: clothes, toiletries, a haircut, a newspaper, stamps, a birthday present for a grandchild, a taxi to see a friend.

Some services are chargeable on top of your fees and are not covered by the allowance. These include help with housework or laundry, shopping, and services outside your home such as day care centres or lunch clubs, along with the cost of supplying food or pre-prepared meals¹⁰. If you use those, they are paid for separately, either by you from the allowance or by whoever arranges them.

The practical test is whether the spending is part of the care package or part of your own life. A chiropody appointment arranged by the home as part of your care plan is care. A pair of slippers is yours. If a home is deducting the allowance to cover care costs, or treating it as part of the fee, that is not what the allowance is for⁴.

When residents get a different amount and where to get help

The allowance is a minimum, not a fixed entitlement in every case. A few situations change the figure or the way it is paid.

• Benefits paid to the home. Where your benefit is paid directly to the accommodation provider, the amount allowed for personal expenses is £33.55, up from £32.30, a 3.8 per cent increase⁹. This is the route used for some residents whose benefits are paid to the home rather than to them.
• A temporary stay. The regulations cover a temporary resident as well as a permanent one, so the allowance still applies during a short stay¹.
• Attendance Allowance. If the local authority pays for your care, you do not usually get Attendance Allowance¹². Where it is paid, it stops after 28 days in a care home if the council is paying some or all of your fees, and it restarts from the 13th week or when you start self-funding¹³.
• Giving money away. If you have transferred assets to reduce what you pay, the council can treat it as deliberate deprivation and charge as though you still had them¹⁴.

If the allowance is not reaching you, start with the council's charging team and ask for the financial assessment in writing. If that does not resolve it, every council has a complaints procedure, and after that the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman in England, or the equivalent ombudsman in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. Free, impartial help is available from Age UK and Turn2us, and if care fees have pushed you into debt, StepChange offers free debt advice¹⁵. The care needs assessment and financial assessment page explains how the assessment itself works, and the nation pages cover paying for care in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.