What Care Costs
An older woman and a younger man sitting together on a bench by a lake at dusk, a walking stick resting beside her and a lantern lit between them

Know what a care home should cost

Every home on the CQC register, with what your council pays and how old each inspection really is.

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✓ Every registered home, not just paying ones✓ No commission, no sales calls

The hardest thing to find out

Nobody tells you what it costs until you are already frightened

Care homes rarely publish their fees, and the price a council pays is not the price a family is quoted for the same room.

Homes on the register4,373for older people, England
Beds between them169,039across 49 council areas
Commission we take£0wherever you go

Where a council publishes its own rate you will see it on every home in that area, with its date and its source — 12 of the 49 areas we cover so far, the rest requested under the Freedom of Information Act. Where we do not have a figure we can stand behind, the page says so rather than guessing. How we source our numbers.

What the badge on the wall leaves out

A “Good” rating may be older than you think

Care homes display their CQC rating proudly, and rightly so. What it never tells you is when it was earned. Across England the middle home’s rating is 4.1 years old, and 6,845 homes — 62% of them — are working from a judgement made more than three years ago. See the research.

Managers move on. Owners sell up. Staff turn over. A rating from 2021 describes a home that may no longer exist in any meaningful sense — so on every page here we print the date beside the rating and say plainly how old it is. All of it is published as open research, dataset included.
3,381 rated Good or Outstanding 226 carry no current rating See the research →

Why the order of the list can be trusted

We are not paid when you choose

Most care directories are paid when someone moves in. That commission is worth thousands, it is paid by the home, and it means the list you are shown is not neutral — the homes that refuse to pay are simply missing from it.

We take nothing when you choose a home. Every home on the CQC register appears here whether it has ever heard of us or not. Providers can pay a flat monthly fee to add photographs and publish their prices, and that is all it buys them.

Start here

Care is arranged council by council

And so are the rates. These are the largest markets we cover — or search by postcode for anywhere else.

Kent351 homes · 13,698 beds Hampshire334 homes · 13,128 bedscouncil rate published Lancashire343 homes · 12,538 beds Surrey286 homes · 11,728 bedsno standard rate exists Essex285 homes · 11,628 bedsframework floor published West Sussex268 homes · 9,777 bedscouncil rate published Norfolk247 homes · 8,966 bedscouncil rate published Hertfordshire176 homes · 8,939 bedscouncil rate published Nottinghamshire205 homes · 8,274 bedscouncil rate published Staffordshire199 homes · 7,929 bedsno standard rate exists

See all 49 councils → · Browse by operator →

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Will the council pay?

Six questions and the 2026/27 means test: the £23,250 threshold, tariff income, the 12-week property disregard and NHS-funded nursing care. It tells you what you would pay each week, and what the council should cover.

Work out your contribution

Read next

If you need to talk to someone today

Age UK runs a free advice line on 0800 678 1602, 8am to 7pm, every day of the year. Independent Age and MoneyHelper publish free guides to care funding, and your council must carry out a needs assessment on request under the Care Act 2014, free, whatever your savings.

We are a reference site. We do not arrange care, and we are not a substitute for advice about your own situation.

The questions families ask first

What a care home costs in EnglandReal council rates, and why there is no average What happens when the money runs outThe £23,250 threshold, and when to call the council When the NHS pays the whole billContinuing Healthcare, and why most claims fail All guidesCosts, funding and choosing a home
An older man and a younger man talking on a bench beside a lake at dusk, a lantern lit between them

Before you decide

You should not have to work this out alone

Every registered home in England, what your council actually pays, and how old each inspection really is.

Browse by councilSearch by postcode

Reviewed 28 August 2026. Figures are for 2026/27 unless stated. This is information, not financial or legal advice.