Updated September 17, 2026. Quick answer: In New Hampshire, a Medicaid nursing-facility resident’s Personal Needs Allowance is $93.00/Month, the amount of their own income they keep for personal use each month, with the rest going to the facility as the patient-pay amount toward the cost of care. That is well above the $30/month federal floor set in 1988 and never raised since. New Hampshire DHHS Bureau of Family Assistance, System Release SR 25-40 states the figure directly.
Why New Hampshire’s figure isn’t the federal floor
Federal Medicaid law requires only a $30-a-month personal needs allowance as a floor; a state is free to set its own, higher figure by statute, regulation, or agency policy. New Hampshire has done exactly that, setting $93.00/Month, effective January 1, 2026.
What the allowance covers, and what it doesn’t
The personal needs allowance pays for the things a facility’s daily rate doesn’t cover: clothing, haircuts, snacks, a phone or television, small personal purchases. It is deducted before the rest of a resident’s income is applied to the facility bill as the patient-pay (or post-eligibility treatment of income, PETI) amount. It is not extra money on top of what Medicaid already pays the facility; it is the one slice of a resident’s own income that Medicaid rules guarantee the resident, not the facility, keeps.
One exception or caveat worth knowing
This figure has risen through a series of periodic cost-of-living adjustments under RSA 167:27-a, most recently to $93 effective January 1, 2026 from $90 the prior period; RSA 167:27-a, as amended effective January 1, 2026, requires the commissioner to adjust the personal needs allowance every year for cost of living increases to reflect Social Security increases.
| Federal personal needs allowance floor | $30.00/month |
| New Hampshire’s personal needs allowance | $93.00/Month |
| How far above the federal floor (calculated by comparing this state’s own figure to the $30.00 federal floor) | 210% higher |
| State citation | New Hampshire DHHS Bureau of Family Assistance, System Release SR 25-40 |
| What it says | “Effective January 1, 2026, the monthly personal needs allowance (PNA) increases from $90 to $93.” |
| Second state citation | N.H. Code Admin. R. He-W 600 series, the Medical Assistance eligibility rules this SR guidance implements |
| Federal floor citation | 42 CFR § 435.725 (the federal $30.00/month personal needs allowance floor) |
Figures verified against RSA 167:27-a, the N.H. Code Admin. R. He-W 600 series, 42 CFR § 435.725 and 42 U.S.C. § 1396a(q) on September 30, 2026; the $93 amount, its January 1, 2026 effective date and the quoted System Release SR 25-40 sentence were not re-checked because the DHHS site refused access.
Every citation on this page was read directly from the state’s own Medicaid agency, administrative code, or official eligibility manual this session. General information, not legal or financial advice; a figure this specific can change with a budget cycle or a rule amendment, and a facility or state caseworker has the final say on any individual case.