How to Pay for Assisted Living in Virginia (2026)

If you have been up at night watching your parent's savings drain toward an assisted living bill, you are not alone, and the way to pay for it is rarely one single source.

Most Virginia families cover assisted living, which runs about $6,944 a month, by combining personal income and savings, long-term care insurance, VA benefits for those who served, and, for low-income seniors, the state Auxiliary Grant toward room and board in a licensed facility.1,2 This guide walks through each source, with the eligibility test and the actual agency door for the ones that take an application, so you can build a realistic plan.

In This Guide

• What It Costs to Pay for Assisted Living in Virginia
• Private Pay
• Long-Term Care Insurance
• VA Aid and Attendance
• The Auxiliary Grant and Medicaid
• How to Pay for Assisted Living in Virginia by Layering Sources
• Frequently Asked Questions

What It Costs to Pay for Assisted Living in Virginia

Assisted living in Virginia runs about $6,944 a month (roughly $83,328 a year), above the national median, based on the CareScout (Genworth) 2025 Cost of Care Survey released in March 2026.1 The figure varies by region: Northern Virginia runs higher, rural areas lower, and a memory-care unit or a higher care level adds to the base. Treat the median as a planning anchor, not a quote, and ask each assisted living facility for an all-in monthly price that separates the base rent from the care-level add-ons.

That monthly number is the starting point for everything below. The goal is to assemble enough from the sources that follow to cover it for as long as your parent needs care.

Private Pay

Most assisted living in Virginia is paid for privately, at least at first. That can feel daunting, so it helps to see the common sources families actually draw on:

• Income: Social Security, pensions, and retirement-account withdrawals are the steadiest base.
• Savings and investments: drawn down on a planned schedule so you know how many months or years they will cover at about $6,944 a month.1
• The family home: selling the home, or borrowing against it through a home-equity line or a reverse mortgage if a spouse still lives there, frees up a large share of many families' net worth.
• Annuities and life-insurance conversions: some families convert a life-insurance policy to a long-term-care benefit or use an annuity to turn a lump sum into predictable monthly income.
• Bridge loans: a short-term loan can cover the gap between move-in and the month a home sale closes or a benefit is approved.

One caution worth knowing before you sell an asset to spend down: a home-sale or reverse-mortgage lump sum that you still hold into the next month becomes a countable asset against Virginia Medicaid's $2,000 limit, and gifts or below-market transfers can trigger a five-year look-back penalty.4 If a Medicaid pathway might be in your family's future, get advice before moving large sums.

Build a written timeline of how long private funds will last. Knowing the month at which savings would run low is what makes it possible to apply for the Auxiliary Grant in time, rather than in a crisis.

Long-Term Care Insurance

If your parent bought a long-term care insurance policy, it can cover a large part of Virginia's roughly $6,944-a-month assisted living bill.1 Read the policy for three things: the daily or monthly benefit amount, the elimination period (the waiting days you pay out of pocket before benefits start), and whether assisted living, not just nursing-home care, is a covered setting. Most modern policies cover assisted living, but older ones sometimes do not. File the claim early, because the elimination period does not start until the claim is approved and care has begun. This is general guidance; your parent's own policy language controls what it pays.

VA Aid and Attendance

If your parent served in wartime, this is the benefit families most often leave on the table. A wartime veteran or a surviving spouse who needs help with daily activities may qualify for VA Aid and Attendance, an add-on to the VA pension that provides extra monthly income you can apply to assisted living.

For 2026 (rates effective December 1, 2025 through November 30, 2026), the maximum Aid and Attendance benefit is about $2,424 a month for a veteran with no dependents and $1,558 a month for a surviving spouse.3 Eligibility turns on three things: qualifying wartime service (generally at least 90 days of active duty with at least one day during a wartime period for those who entered before September 8, 1980, or 24 months for later enlistees), age 65 or older or a permanent and total disability, and a documented need for aid and attendance, such as needing help to bathe, dress, or feed oneself.5 There is also a net-worth limit of $163,699 for 2026 and a three-year look-back on asset transfers.3

It is worth applying even if you are unsure your parent qualifies. You can apply at VA.gov or, at no cost, through a VA-accredited Veterans Service Officer.

The Auxiliary Grant and Medicaid

Here is the part that surprises most families: while Medicaid in most states will not pay assisted-living room and board, Virginia offers a distinctive backstop. The Auxiliary Grant (AG) is a state income supplement, administered by the Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services, that helps pay for room and board in a licensed assisted living facility for low-income residents.2

Who qualifies. The AG is for people who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and certain other aged, blind, or disabled adults who live in a licensed assisted living facility or an approved adult foster care home.2 The grant supplements the resident's own income up to a maximum monthly rate set by the Virginia General Assembly, so the facility is paid a capped amount and your parent contributes their income toward it.

How to apply. The Auxiliary Grant is a separate program from Medicaid and has its own application, filed through your local Department of Social Services. You can learn the rules and find your local office through the Virginia Auxiliary Grant program. Because the AG caps the rate a participating facility can charge, not every facility accepts it, so identifying an AG-participating facility is part of the planning.

When no participating facility has an opening. This is a real and stressful bottleneck. If no AG-participating facility near you has a bed, ask your local Department of Social Services and the facility's admissions office to put your parent on a waiting list, widen the search to adult foster care homes (which can also accept the AG), and in the meantime use private pay or VA Aid and Attendance to hold a spot. Planning before savings run out gives you the room to wait for an opening rather than face a forced move.

For care needs beyond what assisted living provides, Virginia Medicaid covers nursing-facility care and home- and community-based services through the Commonwealth Coordinated Care Plus (CCC Plus) waiver for those who meet a nursing-facility level of care and the financial rules: an income standard around $2,982 a month (300% of the SSI federal benefit rate) and a $2,000 asset limit, with a medically-needy spend-down path for those over the income limit.4 If your parent's finances are near the limits, getting advice before applying can prevent costly missteps.

How to Pay for Assisted Living in Virginia by Layering Sources

You do not have to solve the whole bill at once, and almost no family pays for assisted living from a single source. Most Virginia families layer them: private income and savings cover the early months, VA Aid and Attendance or long-term care insurance fills part of the gap for those who qualify, and the Auxiliary Grant becomes the backstop for room and board in a participating facility once income is low enough.

The key planning move is to map out, in advance, how long private funds last, then line up the next source before you need it. Doing this early, before a crisis, is what gives a family options.

Learn More

Find personalized help paying for assisted living in Virginia at brevy.com.

The information on Brevy.com is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional legal, financial, or medical advice. Rules vary by state and program and change frequently. Always verify with the relevant agency or a qualified professional. Brevy is not a law firm, financial advisor, or healthcare provider.