Updated September 24, 2026. Quick answer: Hawaii’s Medicaid home equity limit for a single nursing-home applicant is $1,130,000 for 2026. Hawaii’s own administrative rule set the starting figure at the higher federal option, $750,000, indexed to inflation every year since 2011; Hawaii’s own Med-QUEST division separately confirmed the running total at $1,097,000 for 2025, and applying the same rule for one more year matches the 2026 federal maximum other maximum-electing states confirm this year. A separate federal law, Public Law 119-21 (H.R. 1), section 71108, caps the limit a state may apply to non-agricultural homes at $1,000,000 starting in 2028, so this inflation-adjusted approach ends then.
What Hawaii’s own rule says
Hawaii Administrative Rules Section 17-1725.1-59 sets the state’s home equity limit at $750,000, the higher of the two options federal law allowed when the rule took effect, and states directly that the figure is increased every calendar year by the Consumer Price Index, rounded to the nearest $1,000, the same formula and starting point the federal maximum itself uses.
One change worth knowing about
Hawaii’s Med-QUEST division separately confirmed the running total at $1,097,000 as of 2025, one year’s index short of the current 2026 figure, $1,130,000, which matches what other maximum-electing states publish this year. A federal law, Public Law 119-21 (H.R. 1), section 71108, will replace this inflation-adjusted approach for non-agricultural homes with a flat $1,000,000 cap, no longer CPI-indexed, applying beginning January 1, 2028: a lower, fixed figure than today’s rule would otherwise produce by then.
| 2026 federal minimum | $752,000 |
| 2026 federal maximum | $1,130,000 |
| Hawaii’s 2026 home equity limit | $1,130,000 |
| State citation | Hawaii Department of Human Services, Hawaii Administrative Rules Title 17, Section 17-1725.1-59, “Individual with substantive equity in a home property” |
| What it says | “An individual shall not be eligible for coverage of long-term care services if the individual’s home equity interest exceeds $750,000. … Effective 2011, the amount of the equity interest shall be subject to increase each calendar year based on the percentage increase in the consumer price index for all urban consumers, rounded to the nearest $1,000.” |
| Federal statute | 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(f)(1)(C) (the federal statute setting the home equity minimum/maximum range and its annual CPI-U adjustment) |
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Figures verified against Hawaii Administrative Rules section 17-1725.1-59, the CMS Informational Bulletin on the 2026 SSI and Spousal Impoverishment Standards (April 27, 2026), Public Law 119-21 section 71108, and 42 U.S.C. 1396p(f); Hawaii’s own 2026 limit was not separately confirmed by a Med-QUEST notice and is inferred from the rule and the federal maximum on September 30, 2026.
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 federal inflation adjustment, and a county or state caseworker has the final say on any individual application.