New York Medicaid Income Limits 2026: $1,836 and $33,038

If you typed "New York Medicaid income limit" into Google and got a single number, you got bad information. New York runs two parallel Medicaid systems, each with different rules, and within the long-term-care side, the asset limits, look-back rules, and income-protection mechanisms are unlike any other state in the country.

New York's community Medicaid asset limit is $33,038 for a single applicant in 2026, far above the $2,000 SSI resource limit Texas applies.1,2 It keeps the institutionalized spouse's monthly income allowance at just $50 in a spousal-impoverishment budget.1 It has a 30-month look-back for home care that the Legislature authorized in 2020 and whose current operational status you must confirm with your local district before making any gift.1 And it has a Pooled Income Trust mechanism that lets many disabled New Yorkers deposit excess income into a nonprofit-administered trust each month instead of spending it down.3

This guide walks through every income, asset, and look-back rule a New York senior or family caregiver needs to know in 2026, with the actual dollars, the legal authority, and the parts most aggregator websites get wrong.

The 30-Second Answer: Two Parallel Systems

The single most important thing to understand about New York Medicaid is that the program is split into two distinct eligibility tracks, MAGI and Non-MAGI, and the rules for each are different.

• MAGI Medicaid uses Modified Adjusted Gross Income rules and governs Affordable Care Act (ACA) expansion adults, parents and caretaker relatives, children, and pregnant women. Applications run through NY State of Health, the state's ACA marketplace.
• Non-MAGI Medicaid uses the older SSI-related rules and governs aged, blind, and disabled (ABD) adults, all long-term-care applicants, and enrollees in the Medicare Savings Program (which the Medicare Savings Program guide covers in detail). Applications run through the Local Department of Social Services (LDSS) in each county, or in New York City through the Human Resources Administration (HRA).

If you are 65+, blind, or disabled, or you need any form of long-term care, your eligibility runs under Non-MAGI rules, not MAGI. Everything in this guide describes the Non-MAGI side.

The table below summarizes every 2026 Non-MAGI figure a New York senior or family caregiver needs, with the detail sections that follow explaining each one.1

New York Medicaid for Adults Under 65: The MAGI Income Limit

Most of this guide covers the Non-MAGI side, which governs seniors and everyone needing long-term care. But working-age and pre-Medicare adults, including the 60-to-64-year-old not yet in Medicare, qualify under the other track, MAGI, where the limit is set a completely different way and there is no asset test.

New York adopted the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion; it is one of the 41 states (including the District of Columbia) that did.5 So any adult aged 19 to 64 who is not pregnant and not enrolled in Medicare can qualify for regular Medicaid with income up to 138% of the federal poverty level: roughly $22,000 a year, or about $1,835 a month, for one person in 2026 (138% of the $15,960 single-person poverty guideline for the 48 contiguous states and DC).6,7 There is no asset test on this pathway: savings, a car, and a retirement account do not count against you, because federal law bars states from applying any resource test to the MAGI groups.6

That $1,835 MAGI figure looks nearly identical to the $1,836 Non-MAGI limit described below, but the two are unrelated: one is 138% of the poverty level with no asset test, the other is the SSI-related standard that governs seniors and carries the $33,038 asset limit. Which one applies to you turns on age and Medicare status, not income. And on the MAGI track, Social Security counts in full, including any non-taxable portion, with none of the SSI-related income disregards subtracted, so a pre-Medicare adult drawing early Social Security should budget the gross monthly benefit against the $1,835 ceiling.8

Turning 65 or enrolling in Medicare closes this particular door. The expansion adult group is written for people under 65 who are not enrolled in Medicare, so that pathway ends the moment either becomes true.6 If the aged, blind, and disabled track is where you land, the income yardstick drops toward the SSI federal benefit rate of $994 a month for an individual, and the $33,038 asset test appears, even though not a dollar of the person's income changed.9,1

But turning 65 does not by itself push you off MAGI, and this is worth knowing before you accept an asset test you may not owe. Federal law sets MAGI aside for people 65 or older only when age is a condition of eligibility for the group being tested, so a 65-year-old assessed as a parent or caretaker relative, a mandatory group with no upper age limit, stays on MAGI rules with no resource test at all.10 A grandparent raising a grandchild is where this matters most. Ask your district which group you are being tested under before assuming the $33,038 limit is yours.

New York Medicaid Income Limits: $1,836/Month, and Why That's Not the Whole Story

New York's 2026 SSI-Related "Medicaid Income Level" is $1,836/month for a household of one and $2,489/month for a household of two, and on the state's non-MAGI standards chart, household size is always one or two.1

New York runs this as a medically-needy standard, not a hard dollar cap. Being over the level does not end the inquiry: the standards chart repeatedly directs an applicant whose income is above a category's level to "spend down to the Medicaid Income level," and NYS DOH GIS 26 MA/05 told districts to re-budget every redetermination effective January 1, 2026 or later using the Medically Needy Income Level based on the 2026 Federal Poverty Levels.1

For context on how other states structure this: federal law caps a state's Special Income Level for institutional Medicaid at 300% of the individual Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Federal Benefit Rate, which is $2,982/month in 2026. A state may set its level at or below that ceiling but not above it, and whether a given state elects it is a state-by-state question you have to check rather than assume.9 Which New York level applies to which long-term-care program, and whether New York elects that 300% special income level at all, is not something we can source to a New York directive. Confirm the standard for your specific program (Community Medicaid, MLTC, or nursing facility) with your local district rather than assuming a single number governs all of them. A senior above the level should ask about the Excess Income Program and Pooled Income Trusts, covered next.

The Excess Income Program ("Surplus Income" / Spend-Down)

If your monthly income exceeds $1,836, you are not automatically disqualified. New York operates a Medicaid Excess Income Program, colloquially called "Surplus Income" or "spend-down," that lets you become eligible by incurring medical expenses each month equal to or greater than your "excess" amount.1

How it works: the LDSS calculates your monthly excess income (the amount above $1,836), and you "meet the spend-down" by submitting receipts for medical expenses (doctor visits, prescriptions, equipment, home-care hours) totaling at least that much. In any month they do, you have Medicaid coverage. You can also "pay-in" the excess directly to the LDSS each month for guaranteed coverage.1

The Excess Income Program works well for seniors with high recurring medical costs, and poorly for those with low costs and modest excess income, who pay their entire excess each month for coverage they barely use. That is the gap the Pooled Income Trust fills.

Pooled Income Trusts: New York's Unique Spend-Down Workaround

New York permits certified disabled Community Medicaid applicants to deposit excess income each month into a Pooled Income Trust administered by a nonprofit organization, and have that deposited income disregarded for Community Medicaid budgeting. Unlike the self-settled special needs trust under 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(d)(4)(A), which is limited to people under 65, the pooled-trust exception carries no age restriction, but it does require a disability certification, so being over 65 is not by itself a ticket in.3

The federal authority is 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(d)(4)(C), which exempts from Medicaid resource counting a trust established and managed by a nonprofit association that keeps a separate account for each beneficiary. New York State Department of Health guidance (GIS 19 MA/04) treats income placed into a qualifying pooled trust as not-counted income for Community Medicaid, for applicants certified disabled under Social Security Administration standards, a status that must be established by an SSI or SSDI award or a New York State disability determination.3

How it works:

1. The senior joins a qualifying Pooled Income Trust. The major NY trusts are administered by NYSARC (the largest), the Center for Disability Rights, Life's WORC, and other 501(c)(3) nonprofits.
2. Each month, the senior deposits their "excess income" (the amount above $1,836) into a sub-account in their name, then submits bills (rent, utilities, food, transportation, phone) that the trust pays directly.1
3. So long as the deposit is made in the month the income is received, it is treated as not received for Community Medicaid budgeting, so the senior is treated as having only $1,836/month of countable income.3
4. When the senior dies, federal law requires the trust to either retain any remaining sub-account funds for its other disabled beneficiaries or pay the state up to the total Medicaid paid on the senior's behalf.3

The trust matters most for a senior whose income sits above $1,836/month but whose recurring medical costs are low. Without it, that senior surrenders the excess to medical bills each month to keep coverage; with it, the excess pays rent and utilities while Community Medicaid continues.3

Pooled trusts carry enrollment, administrative, and bookkeeping requirements the Excess Income Program does not, so confirm the fees with the administrator first. For seniors with significant excess income and low medical costs, they are still typically more efficient than spending down.

Asset Limits: $33,038 for a Household of One

New York's 2026 non-MAGI resource limit is $33,038 for a household of one and $44,796 for a household of two, on the same standards-chart line as the income level above.1

For comparison, Texas sets its Medicaid resource limit for the elderly and people with disabilities at the SSI resource limit of $2,000 for an individual.2,9 Michigan sets its 2026 single-applicant limit for SSI-related long-term-care categories at $9,950.4 New York's $33,038 sits well above both.1

The 2026 figures took effect once the 2026 Federal Poverty Levels were applied. GIS 26 MA/03, issued January 23, 2026, told districts the medically-needy levels would not rise until those FPLs were issued; GIS 26 MA/05 applied them, superseding the lower interim figures. If you were screened early in 2026 and told you were over the limit, ask whether the interim numbers were used.1

In practical terms, a New York senior with $30,000 in savings sits under the $33,038 limit, where a senior in a $2,000-limit state such as Texas would first have to spend down. Ask your district which resource standard applies to the program you are seeking.1,2

There are still exempt assets, items that don't count toward the limit at all:

• The primary residence, if the applicant intends to return or a spouse/minor/disabled child lives there.
• One vehicle of any value.
• Household goods and personal effects.
• Burial plots and prepaid funeral arrangements.
• Term life insurance, and whole life insurance with a low face value (confirm the current threshold with your LDSS, as it differs by state).
• Retirement accounts in payout status (when the applicant is taking required minimum distributions, the principal is generally exempt and only the income counts).

Spousal Protections: CSRA and CSMIA

When a married applicant needs nursing-facility care or HCBS waiver services and the other spouse remains in the community, federal Medicaid law protects the community spouse with two separate allowances. New York sets a high resource floor and uses the federal maximum for the income allowance.1

• Community Spouse Resource Allowance (CSRA): On or after January 1, 2026, the community spouse may keep the greater of $74,820 (New York's state-elected minimum, which is above the federal minimum) or the spousal share (one-half of the couple's countable resources), up to the federal maximum of $162,660.1
• Minimum Monthly Maintenance Needs Allowance (MMNA), called the Community Spouse Monthly Income Allowance in NY: If the community spouse's own income is below a federal threshold, income from the institutionalized spouse can be diverted to bring the community spouse up to $4,066.50/month in 2026, the federal maximum.1

So a married couple where one spouse needs nursing care has substantially more asset protection than a single applicant: the community spouse keeps at least $74,820 and as much as $162,660, plus the home, one car, and personal effects, while the institutionalized spouse keeps $33,038.1

The Personal Needs Allowance, and the $50 vs. $653 Trap

If you enter a New York nursing facility on Medicaid, your Social Security and pension income is largely directed to the facility as "patient liability," but you keep a small amount each month for personal expenses (clothing, haircuts, snacks, telephone, gifts to grandchildren). This is the Personal Needs Allowance (PNA).

Two different New York figures get confused here, and the gap between them is roughly $600 a month.1

The $50 figure comes from the "Spousal Impoverishment" table on the NYS non-MAGI standards chart, where it is the institutionalized spouse's monthly income allowance in a spousal-impoverishment budget. The chart does not label it a personal needs allowance.1

The $653 figure is separate: GIS 26 MA/05 raised the personal needs allowance to $653 effective January 1, 2026 for certain waiver participants and Managed Long Term Care enrollees who are subject to spousal-impoverishment budgeting. If that describes you, $50 is the wrong number for your budget.1

Which figure applies to an unmarried nursing-facility resident is not something we can source to a New York directive, so do not plan around $50 without asking your local district or your facility's business office to confirm the PNA line in your own budget letter.1

What is firm is the federal floor underneath all of it: federal law requires states to set the institutional nursing-facility PNA at at least $30/month (and at least $60 for an institutionalized couple where both are aged, blind, or disabled), and states may set it higher. The $30 has been unchanged since it took effect July 1, 1988.11 Texas, for instance, sets its nursing-facility PNA at $75/month.12 California sets the maintenance need at $35/month for a resident who will be in long-term care for an entire calendar month, with different amounts for a partial month or for a resident earning therapeutic wages.13

The PNA is also not the only money held back from the facility. Federal rules deduct, in order, the personal needs allowance, a maintenance allowance for a spouse or family at home, and unpaid medical and health-insurance costs, and they permit a home-maintenance allowance for up to six months where a physician certifies the resident is likely to return home.11 Still, the PNA is one of the few parts of long-term-care Medicaid that reaches the resident directly every month, and at $50 it covers very little, which is exactly why it is worth confirming whether $653 is your figure.1

Home Equity Cap: $1,130,000 (Federal Upper Bound)

New York applies the federal upper-bound home equity cap, $1,130,000 in 2026, to Medicaid coverage of both nursing-facility services and community-based long-term care. Federal Medicaid law (42 U.S.C. § 1396p(f)) sets a base amount that a state may elect to raise, both indexed to the CPI, producing a 2026 range from $752,000 (lower bound) to $1,130,000 (upper bound). The minimum applies unless a state elects higher; New York elects the maximum.1,3 That upper bound is scheduled to fall rather than keep rising: under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Public Law 119-21, § 71108), homes not on a lot zoned for agricultural use will be subject to a flat $1,000,000 cap beginning January 1, 2028, regardless of indexing, which would move New York's elected maximum down from $1,130,000.3

Under 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(f)(2), the equity cap does not apply at all, no matter how much the home is worth, if any of these people is lawfully residing in the home:1

• The applicant's spouse.
• The applicant's child under age 21.
• The applicant's child of any age who is blind or permanently and totally disabled.

This exemption is the single most important thing on this page for a family whose main asset is an appreciated New York home. If a spouse still lives there, the equity figure is not the obstacle. And if nobody on that list lives there, being over the cap is not permanent either: federal law expressly preserves the right to use a reverse mortgage or a home-equity loan to bring the equity below the limit, and requires the Secretary to maintain a hardship-waiver process.3

Look-Back Rules: The 5-Year, and the 30-Month You Must Ask About

The federal look-back is the period Medicaid reviews for uncompensated transfers (gifts, below-market sales, transfers to trusts) when someone applies for long-term care. A transfer inside it can trigger a penalty: a period of ineligibility calculated by dividing the transferred amount by the regional penalty divisor.

New York operates two separate look-backs, with very different status:

The 5-Year Look-Back (Active)

Under 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(c)(1)(B)(i), the look-back date is 60 months (5 years) before the date on which the individual is both institutionalized and has applied for Medicaid, for any disposal of assets made on or after February 8, 2006. This 60-month look-back applies to Nursing Home Medicaid. Uncompensated transfers inside it trigger penalty periods calculated using the regional penalty divisors below.1

The 30-Month Community Medicaid Look-Back: Confirm Before You Gift

New York separately authorized a 30-month look-back for community-based long-term care (CBLTC: home care, MLTC, CDPAP) by a state statutory change of April 2, 2020, under which the CBLTC transfer-of-assets rules are stated to be effective October 1, 2020. New York sought federal approval through an 1115 waiver amendment request and stated that the earliest date it would seek implementation was March 31, 2024.1

Regional Penalty Divisors (For When the Look-Back Applies)

When a transfer triggers a penalty period, the divisor used to convert the transfer amount into months of ineligibility varies by region. Per NYS DOH GIS 25 MA/14 (effective January 1, 2026), the 2026 regional penalty divisors are as follows.1

The divisor used is the one for the region where the nursing facility is located, not where the applicant lived before admission. A $150,000 gift inside the look-back, against admission to a New York City nursing home, generates a penalty of about 9.8 months ($150,000 divided by $15,282).1

Estate Recovery: Probate-Only

When a Medicaid recipient dies, federal law requires states to seek recovery of certain Medicaid expenditures from the estate. States have wide latitude in defining "estate": some use an expanded definition reaching joint property, life estates, and living trusts; others use the narrower "probate-only" definition.

New York operates as a probate-only recovery state. The revised regulation at 18 NYCRR 360-7.11 that had implemented an expanded definition of "estate" expired effective December 6, 2011, and since then districts must not include assets that pass outside of the probate estate as part of the decedent's estate for recovery purposes.1

New York's own guidance states the rule at exactly that level of generality: it does not publish a list of which asset forms pass outside the probate estate. Other websites publish such lists, naming joint property with right of survivorship, living trusts, life estates, and POD/TOD accounts. Whether any particular asset of yours is inside or outside is a question of New York estate law applied to how that asset is actually titled, and it belongs in front of an elder-law attorney rather than read off a chart. Titling a family assumed was probate-avoiding, but executed incorrectly, is a common and expensive surprise. What you can rely on is that recovery reaches the probate estate and not beyond it.

Meeting the New York Medicaid Income and Asset Limits: A Decision Framework for Families

For a family helping a New York parent navigate Medicaid eligibility in 2026, the practical sequence is:

Where to Apply

• NYC residents: Apply through the Human Resources Administration (HRA) Medicaid Office. Online at access.nyc.gov; in-person at HRA Medicaid Centers in each borough.
• Outside NYC: Apply through your county's Local Department of Social Services (LDSS); the county-by-county directory is at health.ny.gov.
• MAGI Medicaid (non-LTC adults under 65, families, children): Apply through NY State of Health at nystateofhealth.ny.gov.
• Community Medicaid with home care: Apply through LDSS, then enroll in a Managed Long Term Care plan through the New York Independent Assessor (NYIA).

Because of the 5-year look-back, the Non-MAGI long-term-care application requires 60 months of financial records.1

Document checklist for a Non-MAGI LTC application:

• Photo ID and Social Security card.
• Birth certificate.
• Proof of all income (Social Security award letter, pension statements) for the past 3 months.
• Bank statements for all accounts for the past 60 months (5-year look-back).
• Deed or mortgage statement for the home, and vehicle title.
• Life insurance policies and pre-need funeral contracts.
• Power of attorney documentation, if applicable.

Plan for 60 to 90 days from a complete submission to a determination.

Key Phone Numbers and Resources

For complex Non-MAGI applications, especially anything involving the 5-year look-back, a Pooled Income Trust, or spousal-impoverishment planning, a New York elder-law attorney is almost always worth the cost. The State Bar Association's Elder Law and Special Needs Section maintains a referral directory.

Learn More

Find personalized help navigating New York Medicaid eligibility 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.