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England · 2026/27 rates
Not a national average. The actual rates 10 councils have published for this financial year, each with its source and the date we checked it.
There are two prices for the same room. Councils publish between £768 and £1,090 a week for a standard residential place in 2026/27. A family paying for itself is almost always quoted more — the Competition and Markets Authority found self-funders pay around 40% more than councils for the same care.
Every figure below comes from a council’s own published rate card or committee paper. Where a council has not published one, we say so rather than estimating. How we source fees.
These are rates for placements the council arranges. They are the firm number to negotiate against — not what a home will quote you.
| Council | Residential | Dementia | Nursing, with FNC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bolton45 homes | £754 | £838 | — |
| Devon241 homes | £915–£1,182 | — | — |
| Hampshire334 homes | £990–£1,090 | — | — |
| Hertfordshire176 homes | £768 | £919 | £1,149 |
| Norfolk247 homes | £867 | £956 | £1,145 |
| Nottinghamshire205 homes | £776–£868 | — | — |
| Sandwell58 homes | £775 | — | £1,043 |
| Solihull38 homes | £800 | £909 | — |
| Suffolk166 homes | £912 | — | — |
| West Sussex268 homes | £900 | £1,000 | £1,298 |
Where a cell is empty, the council has not published that figure separately. We do not fill gaps with estimates. Each council page carries the full rate card and a link to the source.
Comparison sites publish one number per council. Having read the actual rate cards, we can tell you that number often does not exist. Councils use four incompatible models:
Nottinghamshire is worth knowing about for a different reason: its four bands are assigned by an annual quality audit of each home, not by the resident’s needs. If the council pays a home its top band, the council has judged that home to be better. Nobody else publishes that as a quality signal.
NHS-funded nursing care is £267.68 a week from 1 April 2026. The NHS pays it straight to the nursing home, on top of the social care element, and it is not means-tested.
The problem is that councils publish it differently. Sandwell shows its nursing rate as £775.11; the home actually receives £1,042.79. Norfolk prints both figures side by side. West Sussex says its rates are “net of FNC”. A council quoting the inclusive figure looks 35% more generous than one quoting the exclusive figure, while paying exactly the same.
Among the councils that publish a separate dementia rate, the premium is consistent: Norfolk pays 10% more, Solihull 14%, Hertfordshire 20%. Nottinghamshire runs a separate “Dementia Quality Mark” payment worth roughly £66–£78 a week — though it is being phased out, with no new applications accepted after April 2026.
West Sussex is the clearest illustration of what dementia costs: its Band C for specialist dementia care is £1,000 a week, against £900 for Band P frailty. The care is more staff-intensive, and every council that separates the two prices it higher.
Where councils publish an hourly rate for care in your own home, 2026/27 figures run from £22.12 (Sandwell) to £28.00 (Hertfordshire), with Solihull at £25.84 and Nottinghamshire’s district medians between £25.94 and £27.83.
Note what that means over a week. Four one-hour visits a day at £28 is £784 a week — close to a residential place, without the accommodation. Home care is cheaper only up to a point, and that point arrives sooner than most families expect.
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 contributionWe publish prices and register data. We are not an advice service, and for the decisions that follow these are the sources worth your time — all free, none of them selling you anything.
Every care home on the CQC register in the areas we cover, with its inspection rating, the date that rating was published, and the council rate for the area where we have it.