Long-term care daily allowance: amount, payout and choosing a plan

The right amount follows from the gap that actually arises when you need care. If you want to protect yourself against the cost of a nursing home, it is best to calculate backwards. In 2026, the care-related own share in the first year in a nursing home is €1,685 a month on the national average (vdek, as of January 2026). Over 30 days, that is around €56 per day.

On top of this come accommodation and meals at an average of €1,046 and investment costs of €514. The total burden in the first year in a nursing home is therefore €3,245 a month on average. A daily allowance meant to cover this sum in full would have to be over €100 per day. A middle way is more common: if you cover the care-related share and plan a margin of 20 to 30 percent for future cost increases, you end up with a daily allowance of about €60 to €80 for care level 5. Your pension and other income cover the rest. For cover of outpatient care at home only, a starting amount of €30 to €50 per day is often enough.

The allowance is paid monthly as soon as the long-term care fund has established the care level. The assessment is based on § 14 and § 15 SGB XI. What counts is the degree of independence, which an assessor determines across six areas of life. The staggering by care level is the most important feature of the plan.

With an agreed daily allowance of €60, around €720 a month is paid at care level 2, and the full €1,800 at care level 5. Some plans pay from care level 1, others only from level 2. In practice, the difference matters less than often assumed, because care level 1 comes with only small benefit entitlements and rarely with lasting care costs. If the care level gets worse later, the payout rises automatically in line with the staggering. You do not need a new application to the insurer.

Care costs rise year after year. From 2025 to 2026 alone, the own share in the first year in a nursing home rose by nine percent. A daily allowance without adjustment will cover only a fraction of the costs due in fifteen years. Plans with automatic indexation, usually 5 percent every three years, make up for this loss of purchasing power.

Classic conditions provide for a waiting period of up to three years. Many current plans do without it entirely, while the state-subsidized Pflege-Bahr has five years. If you need care because of an accident, the waiting period usually does not apply. Before you sign, there are health questions that you must answer completely and truthfully, because false information entitles the insurer to refuse benefits when you need care. It is also worth looking at how the premium is calculated: plans with ageing reserves start a little more expensive but stay much more stable in old age.

The benefit supplement under § 43c SGB XI relieves nursing home residents the longer they stay. The long-term care fund pays 15 percent of the care-related own share in the first year, 30 percent from the second, 50 percent from the third and 75 percent from the fourth year. What is often overlooked is that this supplement only applies to the care-related share. Accommodation, meals and investment costs of over €1,500 a month in total remain in place for good and keep rising.

In our advice work with over 5,000 applications with health questions, we see the same pattern again and again: the long-term care daily allowance is set too low because the actual own share was never calculated in concrete terms. We recommend that you look at the ratio of premium to benefit over the whole term. A slightly more expensive plan with good indexation and stable premiums as a rule clearly beats a cheap plan with later premium jumps. The Pflege-Bahr, with a state allowance of €5 a month, is mainly interesting for people with pre-existing conditions, because it works without health questions and without rejection. If care cases run in your family, a higher daily allowance makes sense. If you already have a long-term care cost insurance, align the two plans and avoid insuring the same costs twice.

The long-term care annuity is a life insurance product with a guaranteed monthly pension and much higher premiums. The long-term care daily allowance is pure risk cover. If the contract ends or the insured person dies, there is no credit balance and no further payout.

Yes. The long-term care daily allowance is a private supplementary product and is open to people with statutory and with private health insurance. In both systems, the Pflegepflichtversicherung (i)PflegepflichtversicherungCompulsory long-term care insurance. Everyone with health insurance in Germany must have it, privately insured people through their private insurer. covers only part of the costs, and the gap in cover is of a similar size.

In principle yes, as other provident expenses. In practice, this rarely has an effect, because the maximum amount of €1,900 for employees or €2,800 for the self-employed is usually already used up by the premiums for health insurance and Pflegepflichtversicherung (i).