Updated September 24, 2026. Quick answer: In Alabama, a Medicaid nursing-facility resident’s Personal Needs Allowance is $30.00/Month, the federal minimum, 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. Alabama’s own Administrative Code defers this figure to State Plan Attachment 2.6-A, which prints $30.00 for aged, blind, or disabled individuals, the same as the federal $30.00/month floor set in 1988 and never raised since.
Why Alabama’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. Alabama’s own materials show it has not exercised that option: its Administrative Code defers the figure to State Plan Attachment 2.6-A, and the version of that attachment posted by the Alabama Medicaid Agency prints $30.00 for aged, blind, or disabled individuals, so the federal $30.00/month floor applies.
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
Alabama Admin. Code r. 560-X-25-.10(4)(a) defers the personal needs allowance dollar figure to a separate document, State Plan Attachment 2.6-A. That attachment, at Page 4a (TN AL-98-07), reads “Personal Needs Allowance (PNA) of not less than $30 for Individuals and $60 for couples for all institutional persons” and lists $30.00 for aged, blind, or disabled individuals (Alabama Medicaid Agency State Plan Attachment 2.6-A, posted file dated 10-9-20). Alabama’s Section 7 disaster-relief State Plan Amendments (2020 through 2023) also leave the checkbox for “The state elects to modify the basic personal needs allowance for institutionalized individuals” unchecked, which is consistent with no higher election, and the 42 CFR 435.725 minimum of $30.00/month is the same figure. No 2026-dated Alabama document restating the figure was found, so a state plan change after the posted 10-9-20 file was not ruled out.
| Federal personal needs allowance floor | $30.00/month |
| Alabama’s personal needs allowance | $30 |
| Difference from the federal floor | $0.00 (matches the floor exactly) |
| State citation | Alabama Medicaid Agency, State Plan, Section 7, “General Provisions,” Section F, “Post-Eligibility Treatment of Income” |
| What it says | “Section F – Post-Eligibility Treatment of Income 1. _____ The state elects to modify the basic personal needs allowance for institutionalized individuals. The basic personal needs allowance is equal to one of the following amounts: a. _____ The individual’s total income b. _____ 300 percent of the SSI federal benefit rate c. _____ Other reasonable amount: _________________” |
| Federal floor citation | 42 CFR § 435.725 (the federal $30.00/month personal needs allowance floor) |
Figures verified against Alabama Medicaid Agency State Plan Attachment 2.6-A (page 4a), Alabama Admin. Code r. 560-X-25-.10, 42 U.S.C. 1396a(q) and 42 CFR 435.725 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 rule amendment, and a facility or state caseworker has the final say on any individual case.