Care funding in Wales: the weekly cap and the care home rules

The two differences that matter most are at the top of each group. For care at home, Wales puts a ceiling on the weekly charge, which England does not. For care homes, Wales uses one savings limit, set more than twice as high as England's upper limit, and ignores savings below it entirely rather than charging on part of them. Almost everything else, including the benefits, works in the same way on both sides of the border.

Most of the guides on this site describe the rules in England. Where this page points you to council funding for care at home, direct payments or the rest of the funding care guides, read them for how the process works and use the Welsh figures on this page for the money. If your relative lives in Scotland, care funding in Scotland covers a third set of rules.

1. 1

   The council adds up the care it is arranging

   Step 1

   Home care visits, day care, a sitting service and any other support in the care plan are added together. The council cannot charge more for them than they cost it to provide or arrange.
2. 2

   The total is capped at £100 a week

   Step 2

   If the care costs the council £300 a week, the most your parent can be charged is £100. If it costs less than £100, the most they can be charged is what it costs.
3. 3

   Savings are checked against one limit

   Step 3

   With savings over £24,000, not counting the home they live in, your parent can be charged up to the cap. With £24,000 or less, savings are ignored completely and only income is looked at.
4. 4

   Income is checked, leaving enough to live on

   Step 4

   The council must leave your parent with a minimum income amount. For a single person over State Pension age that is at least £345.10 a week, and the charge is whatever is left above it, up to the cap.
5. 5

   The council sends a statement of the charge

   Step 5

   No charge can start until your parent has had a written statement of it, which must also explain how to ask for a review.

The cap covers all the care and support the council arranges for your parent at home, and the same cap applies to a direct payment. A short respite stay in a care home is means-tested as if your parent were still living at home, rather than under the care home rules. The exceptions are small, low-cost services that stand in for ordinary living, such as meals or laundry, which the council can charge a flat rate for on top. And the council is allowed to set a lower maximum in its own charging policy if it chooses, so check the council's published policy.

The minimum income amount is worked out from your parent's "basic entitlement", which for a pensioner is the Pension Credit guarantee level of £238.00 a week for a single person, plus a buffer of 35% and at least another 10% for disability-related spending. If your parent has high costs because of their condition, such as extra heating, laundry or special food, ask the council to allow more than the standard 10%. It has to look at each case.

A limit of £50,000 can still be reached quickly once the house is counted, so the property rules are the part to get advice on. The deferred payment scheme in Wales works on the same principle as deferred payment agreements in England: the council pays and takes a charge on the house, and the money is repaid when the house is sold. Interest can be charged, and the Welsh details differ, so ask the council for its terms in writing and take advice from a solicitor or regulated adviser before you sign. If the family is choosing a home that costs more than the council will pay, care home top-up fees explains how a third party pays the difference; that guide describes England, and the Welsh rules on paying an additional cost for a chosen home are set out in the charging code of practice on gov.wales.

1. 1

   Contact adult social services

   Today

   Find the council from your parent's postcode on gov.wales and ask its adult social services team for an assessment of your parent's needs. The GP or a hospital team can ask for you.
2. 2

   The "what matters" conversation

   The assessment

   A social worker or other practitioner talks with your parent, and with you if your parent wants, about what matters to them, what they can still do, and who already helps. The Welsh code of practice says the assessment must start from the person rather than from a list of services.
3. 3

   Eligibility and a care and support plan

   After the assessment

   The council decides against national eligibility criteria whether it must meet the needs. If it must, it writes a care and support plan with your parent, which says how the needs will be met and whether that is by care it arranges or by a direct payment.
4. 4

   The financial assessment

   Before any charge

   A separate check of income and savings decides what, if anything, your parent pays, up to the £100 cap for care at home. The house they live in is not counted.
5. 5

   If you disagree

   Review, then complaint

   Ask for a review of the charge in writing. The council must acknowledge it within 5 working days and decide within 10 working days of having what it needs. For the assessment or the care itself, use the council's complaints procedure, and after that the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales.

It helps to go into the conversation having written down a normal week: what your parent manages, what they struggle with, what has gone wrong lately and what they would most like to keep doing. The Welsh approach is built around the outcomes a person wants, such as staying in their own home, getting to chapel or seeing friends, so say those out loud rather than asking only for a number of visits. Social Care Wales publishes a short guide to what matters conversations and assessment if you want to know what the practitioner will be asked to cover.

The Welsh Government funds councils so that care workers, including personal assistants paid through a council direct payment, receive at least the Real Living Wage, and it has done so since April 2022. Since 1 April 2026, health boards in Wales can also make direct payments for people who qualify for NHS Continuing Healthcare, which is new and has no equivalent in the council rules. The direct payments guide explains how the money, the account and the records work, and applies to England; in Wales the council's direct payments team will give you its own agreement to sign.

Some families pay for care themselves: because the council has said the needs are not eligible, because they want more hours than the care plan covers, or because they want to choose the carer and the times. The cap does not help here, because it only limits what the council charges for care it arranges or funds. A week of private care is simply the hours multiplied by the rate. An hour every morning and every evening is 14 hours a week, which costs £252 to £350 with carers on PrimeCarers, who charge £18 to £25 an hour with our fee included. Through an agency at £28 to £35 an hour, the same week is £392 to £490. If you are paying above what the council would charge, search for carers near your parent and compare their rates before you settle on anyone, and read what hourly care costs for how the rates are made up.

The council counts some of these benefits as income in its financial assessment, which is one reason the minimum income amount includes an allowance for disability-related spending. Claiming them is still worth it, because the charge for care at home can never go above the cap. The Welsh framework for NHS care is called Continuing NHS Healthcare: the national framework for implementation in Wales, and our NHS Continuing Healthcare guide describes the English process, which is similar in outline but not the same document. If your parent's needs are mainly health needs, ask for a Continuing Healthcare assessment before the council's means test is applied, because care funded by the NHS is free.