Community Spouse Resource Allowance (CSRA)

Updated August 3, 2026. Quick answer: the community spouse resource allowance is the amount of the couple’s countable savings the at-home spouse keeps. It is broadly half the couple’s countable resources as measured at the snapshot date, subject to a floor and a ceiling that are set federally and adjusted every year.

The formula, from the statute

the greatest of—(i) $12,000 (subject to adjustment under subsection (g)), or, if greater (but not to exceed the amount specified in clause (ii)(II)) an amount specified under the State plan, (ii) the lesser of (I) the spousal share computed under subsection (c)(1), or (II) $60,000 (subject to adjustment under subsection (g)) … For services furnished during a calendar year after 1989, the dollar amounts specified in subsections (d)(3)(C), (f)(2)(A)(i), and (f)(2)(A)(ii)(II) shall be increased by the same percentage as the percentage increase in…

— 42 U.S.C. 1396r-5(f)(2)(A); (c)(1)(A)(ii) (spousal share definition); (g) (indexing)

Unpacking that: the allowance is the greatest of a floor amount (or a higher amount your state’s plan sets, up to the ceiling), or the lesser of the spousal share — one half of the couple’s total countable resources at the snapshot — or the ceiling.

So for most couples it works out as half, bounded at both ends. Below the floor, the at-home spouse keeps more than half. Above the ceiling, they keep less.

The figures

We are not printing this year’s figures. The amounts in the statute are 1988 base amounts, and the law requires them to be increased every year by the change in the consumer price index. The current published figures are much higher. CMS publishes them annually and CMS blocked every request from us this session, so rather than print a number that would send someone to the wrong conclusion, we publish the mechanism and tell you to get the current figure from your state Medicaid agency.

The mechanism is what stays stable: a floor, a ceiling, and a half-share between them, all indexed annually to the consumer price index from a September 1988 base. Some states set a higher floor than the federal minimum, which the statute expressly permits, so the state matters as well as the year.

What counts, and what does not

Countable resources are broadly savings, investments, and second properties. Normally not counted while a spouse lives there: the home, one vehicle, household goods and personal effects. That last point is the one that most often surprises people, because the fear is almost always about the house.

The house is protected during the stay. Estate recovery is a separate question that arrives later — and it is a real one, with rules that differ sharply between states. Protection now is not protection forever, and being told otherwise is how families are caught out.

If the allowance is not enough to live on

If either such spouse establishes that the community spouse resource allowance (in relation to the amount of income generated by such an allowance) is inadequate to raise the community spouse’s income to the minimum monthly maintenance needs allowance, there shall be substituted, for the community spouse resource allowance under subsection (f)(2), an amount adequate to provide such a minimum monthly maintenance needs allowance.

— 42 U.S.C. 1396r-5(e)(2)(C)

There is a route: if the resource allowance produces too little income to bring the at-home spouse up to their monthly needs allowance, a fair hearing can substitute a larger resource allowance. It is a real remedy and it is under-used, because it requires knowing it exists and asking for it.

What we could not confirm. The statute does not settle the ‘income-first versus resource-first’ question. We looked for a general rule requiring income to be shifted before extra resources may be protected, and the U.S. Code does not contain one — the only sequencing language governs the fair-hearing remedy quoted above. How that ambiguity is resolved comes from CMS guidance and state practice, and CMS blocked every request this session. We are not publishing a state-by-state classification we could not verify. Ask your state Medicaid agency which approach it applies.

Related: the overview · when resources are counted · the income allowance.

General information drawn from federal statute and regulation, not legal advice. Medicaid long-term-care eligibility is administered by each STATE within federal rules, and states differ materially – on the resource allowance, on how income is counted, and on whether some strategies are recognised at all. Federal figures are adjusted annually; every figure here is labelled with what it is and when it applied. Decisions in this area are hard to reverse and often need a qualified elder-law attorney in your own state. We sell nothing on these pages and we do not refer you anywhere for a fee.