Updated August 27, 2026. Quick answer: Wisconsin runs its own three-tier table, and the bottom tier is the story. “IF the total countable assets of the couple are: Then the community spouse asset share is: $325,320 or more $162,660 Less than $325,320 but greater than $100,000 ½ of the total countable assets of the couple $100,000 or less” $50,000. A couple with $100,000 or less protects $50,000 for the spouse at home — well above the federal minimum most states floor at, and Wisconsin reaches it by setting its own threshold rather than by following the federal one.
What Wisconsin actually sets out
| What the state provides | What it says |
|---|---|
| Wisconsin’s name for it | the community spouse asset share, Medicaid Eligibility Handbook 18.4 (Release 26-03, August 12, 2026) |
| What it is | “The community spouse asset share is the amount of countable assets greater than $2,000 that the community spouse, the institutionalized person, or both, can possess at the time the institutionalized person applies for Medicaid.” |
| The schedule | “IF the total countable assets of the couple are: Then the community spouse asset share is: $325,320 or more $162,660 Less than $325,320 but greater than $100,000 ½ of the total countable assets of the couple $100,000 or less” $50,000 |
| The eligibility test | “When an institutionalized person applies for Medicaid, compare the total countable assets of the couple to $2,000 plus the greater of one of the following: Community spouse asset share. An amount ordered by a court or fair hearing.” |
| Prenuptial agreements | “Marital agreements, including prenuptial and postnuptial agreements, have no effect on spousal impoverishment determinations.” |
| Deadline to move the money | “The institutionalized spouse must transfer the assets to the community spouse by the next regularly scheduled review (12 months).” |
| How much can move | “The maximum amount he or she can transfer is the community spouse asset share (or a greater amount ordered by a court or a fair hearing).” |
| If the spouse at home dies | “If the community spouse passes away or is no longer married to the institutionalized person, then spousal impoverishment rules no longer apply and the institutionalized person is subject to the $2,000 asset limit.” |
How it works in practice
- The $100,000 break is a genuine cliff, and it runs the wrong way from most intuitions. Below it, the share is a flat $50,000. Just above it, the share is half — which at $101,000 is $50,500. The two branches meet almost exactly at the threshold, so the flat floor is what protects couples with modest savings, not the half rule.
- Wisconsin sets that floor itself. Every state has to respect the federal minimum, and for 2026 that minimum is $32,532; Wisconsin’s handbook instead protects $50,000 at the bottom of its table. A couple with $80,000 keeps $50,000 in Wisconsin where the federal floor alone would protect $32,532.
- The top of the table is the federal maximum. “$325,320 or more $162,660” — $162,660 is the 2026 federal maximum, and $325,320 is exactly twice it, which is the point at which half stops being the larger figure.
- Marital agreements are expressly worthless here. “Marital agreements, including prenuptial and postnuptial agreements, have no effect on spousal impoverishment determinations.” That is one of the clearest statements of the point published by any state, and it answers a question families ask constantly.
- The asset test adds the couple’s own $2,000 on top. “When an institutionalized person applies for Medicaid, compare the total countable assets of the couple to $2,000 plus the greater of one of the following: Community spouse asset share. An amount ordered by a court or fair hearing.” A court order or fair hearing amount substitutes for the share where it is larger.
- There is a hard transfer deadline and it is a year, not a month. “The institutionalized spouse must transfer the assets to the community spouse by the next regularly scheduled review (12 months).” And “The maximum amount he or she can transfer is the community spouse asset share (or a greater amount ordered by a court or a fair hearing).”
- The protection ends with the marriage, in both directions. “If the community spouse passes away or is no longer married to the institutionalized person, then spousal impoverishment rules no longer apply and the institutionalized person is subject to the $2,000 asset limit.” That is a consequence families rarely plan for: the death of the healthier spouse can move the person in care from a protected couple’s figure to a $2,000 individual limit.
What the allowance is for, and why protecting the spouse at home is a federal requirement rather than a state kindness, is explained on the community spouse resource allowance page. The date the couple’s resources are counted is its own subject, on the snapshot date page, and the monthly income allowance that runs alongside it is on the MMMNA page. This page is the record for Wisconsin.
What this page does not settle
- This page reads the asset chapter only. Wisconsin’s income allowance for the spouse at home sits in different sections of the same handbook, and the undue-hardship provision at 18.4.5 is not quoted here.
- This page reads one source: Wisconsin Medicaid Eligibility Handbook section 18.4, Spousal Impoverishment Assets, Release 26-03, August 12, 2026. It is the state’s own publication on this rule, but no state puts its whole treatment of a couple’s resources in a single document, and a detail that decides your case may sit in one this page did not read.
- The resource rule is one hurdle. The income rules for the spouse at home are separate and are decided on their own numbers, the level-of-care test is separate again, and the transfer-of-assets look-back is separate from all of them. Clearing this rule does not clear any of the others.
- Every quotation here was read against the source on August 27, 2026. The federal minimum and maximum figures are reset each January, and a state can revise its own rule without the page around it changing. Open the source before you rely on a number.
Eligibility is decided by the state agency on the whole file, not by one rule on one page. Nothing here is legal advice, and no one should move, retitle or spend a couple’s savings on the strength of a web page.
Sources
The source above was retrieved and read against the state text on August 27, 2026. Every quotation on this page was checked against those bytes.
Related: Wisconsin’s Long-Term Care Partnership Program status; a separate, policy-based way some families protect assets alongside this spend-down allowance.