Updated September 17, 2026. Quick answer: In Maine, a Medicaid nursing-facility resident’s Personal Needs Allowance is $40.00/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. 10-144 C.M.R. Chapter 332, MaineCare Eligibility Manual, Part 14, Section 6.1.4 states the figure directly.
Why Maine’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. Maine has done exactly that, setting $40.00/Month, effective current filed rule text (last updated, effective April 29, 2025, filing 2025-101).
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
A narrower $130.00/month figure applies only to specific VA-pension nursing-facility residents named in the rule; $40.00 is the general figure for other MaineCare long-term-care residents. A 2019 legislative resolve (LD 539) proposed that DHHS raise this from $40 to $50 by 1/1/2020, but the Maine Legislature’s record shows it died at the conclusion of the 129th Legislature on November 16, 2020, and the currently filed rule text this session read still states $40, so $40 is the operative figure.
| Federal personal needs allowance floor | $30.00/month |
| Maine’s personal needs allowance | $40.00/Month |
| How far above the federal floor (calculated by comparing this state’s own figure to the $30.00 federal floor) | 33% higher |
| State citation | 10-144 C.M.R. Chapter 332, MaineCare Eligibility Manual, Part 14, Section 6.1.4 |
| What it says | “III.Subtract the appropriate home. This is:A.$40.00 per month, orB.$130.00 for the following individuals:1.those receiving the reduced VA pension of $90.00 who are not in a VA facility, or2.those in VA nursing facilities who receive a VA pension and are single with no dependents or are the surviving spouse with no dependents” |
| Federal floor citation | 42 CFR § 435.725 (the federal $30.00/month personal needs allowance floor) |
Figures verified against 10-144 CMR Chapter 332 (MaineCare Eligibility Manual, effective April 29, 2025), the Maine Legislature’s LD 539 record, 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.