A continuing care retirement community (CCRC) entrance fee payment schedule works in stages: a small application or waitlist deposit, a reservation deposit once a unit is offered, and the balance of the entrance fee by your move-in date. National entrance fees average roughly $300,000 to $400,000, with monthly service fees averaging about $4,285 in 2025 and projected to rise 4% to 4.5% in 2026.1National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care. 2026 Outlook for U.S. Continuing Care Retirement Communities What those numbers actually mean for you depends on the contract you sign and how your health changes over time.
The Entrance Fee, Step by Step
Paying the entrance fee is not a single wire transfer. It’s a sequence that typically stretches over several months.
Most communities start you on a waitlist or ask for an application deposit, anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. Some apply this toward the entrance fee later; others treat it as a separate, sometimes non-refundable processing charge. Once a unit becomes available and you’re approved, you’ll pay a reservation deposit to hold it while the contract is finalized. The remaining balance of the entrance fee is due on or before your move-in date.
Before you sign anything, the provider should give you a disclosure statement. Roughly 38 states regulate CCRCs, and most require this document days or weeks before the contract. It covers the community’s financial health, the full fee schedule, refund terms, and the services included at each level of care. Read it carefully. If you haven’t received one, ask. If the provider won’t give you one, walk away.
Entrance fees vary widely. The national average sits around $300,000 to $400,000, but figures below $100,000 exist in some markets, and communities in high-cost urban areas can exceed $1 million. Location, unit size, and contract type all drive the number.
How Contract Type Changes What You Pay
The contract type determines how much of the financial risk for your future care you keep and how much you hand to the provider. There are three standard models.
Type A (Life Care). You pay the highest entrance fee and a predictable monthly fee. In return, you get access to assisted living, memory care, and skilled nursing at little or no additional cost if your health declines. The provider absorbs the risk of your future care needs. Most expensive upfront, most predictable over time.
Type B (Modified). Lower entrance fee than Type A. Your contract includes a limited number of days or months of higher-level care at a discounted rate. Once that allotment is used up, you pay additional fees for ongoing care.
Type C (Fee-for-Service). Lowest entrance fee and lowest monthly fee during independent living. If you need assisted living or skilled nursing later, you pay full market rates. The cheapest way in, the most expensive way to age in place.
Most communities offer at least two of these models, and some let you choose among all three for the same floor plan. The contract type also affects how much of what you pay may qualify as a medical expense on your taxes, discussed below.
Monthly Fees, Billing, and Annual Increases
Once you move in, the provider bills a monthly service fee covering housing, meals, utilities, maintenance, and amenities. The 2025 national average for independent living was approximately $4,285. Industry projections put 2026 fee growth at 4% to 4.5%, above the pre-pandemic norm of roughly 3%.1National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care. 2026 Outlook for U.S. Continuing Care Retirement Communities
Billing is typically on the first of each month, with statements arriving ten to fifteen days before the due date so you can review extra charges. Payment methods usually include electronic transfer, wire, or paper check. Late fees apply if payment misses the grace period in your contract, commonly five to ten business days. The penalty may be a flat amount or a percentage of the overdue balance.
Your contract should describe how annual increases are calculated and how much advance notice the provider must give. Many state regulations require at least 30 days’ written notice before any change in monthly fees, though this varies by jurisdiction.
When Your Care Level Changes
The biggest shift in your payment schedule happens when you move from independent living to assisted living or skilled nursing. How much that costs depends on your contract.
Under Type A, your monthly fee generally stays close to what you were already paying. The provider may add charges for specialized supplies or extra meals, but the core rate holds. You prepaid for this care through the higher entrance fee.
Under Type C, you start paying the current market rate for the new level of care. Skilled nursing can easily run two to three times your independent living fee, and those rates climb every year.
Type B falls in between. You draw down your included care days at the discounted rate first, then pay additional fees that are typically below full market rate but well above your independent living cost.
The billing change usually takes effect on the day you physically transfer, though some contracts delay the adjustment until the next billing cycle. For a temporary stay, such as rehab after surgery, many providers charge a daily rate for the higher-level care while keeping your independent living fee in place to hold your apartment. Permanent transfers usually require you to vacate the original unit within 15 to 30 days to avoid being billed for both.
Your Right to Cancel After Signing
Most states that regulate CCRCs give new residents a statutory right to cancel the contract within a set number of days after signing. This cooling-off period is typically between 7 and 30 days, and during that window you’re entitled to a full refund of your entrance fee minus any daily charges for time you actually lived in the community. Florida, for example, provides a 7-day rescission window.
After the window closes, your refund rights shift to whatever amortization or refund schedule the contract specifies. That almost always means getting back less money, sometimes much less.
Getting the Entrance Fee Back
What you (or your estate) can recover depends on your contract’s refund model, how long you’ve lived there, and sometimes whether someone else moves into your old unit.
Declining-Balance Refunds
The most common structure is an amortizing entrance fee. The refundable portion shrinks each month you live in the community. A typical amortization rate is 1% to 2% per month, so the refund drops to zero after roughly four to eight years. At 1% per month, 94% remains refundable after six months, and nothing remains after about eight and a half years.
Partially or Fully Refundable Contracts
Some communities offer contracts where a fixed percentage of the entrance fee, often 50%, 80%, or even 90%, remains refundable no matter how long you live there. These contracts carry a significantly higher entrance fee because the provider is guaranteeing that money back. A 50% refundable contract, for instance, might amortize only the non-guaranteed half while the other half stays locked in as a permanent refund.
The Re-Occupancy Catch
Some contracts tie the refund payout to re-occupancy. The provider doesn’t write the check until a new resident moves into your old unit and pays their own entrance fee. If demand for that unit type is slow, the wait can stretch to a year or more. Some state laws cap this delay by requiring the provider to issue the refund within a fixed period, often 12 months, regardless of whether the unit is filled. Check whether your contract has a re-occupancy clause and whether your state imposes a backstop deadline.
Before releasing any refund, the provider will issue a final accounting statement, deducting unit refurbishment costs, unpaid fees, or outstanding care charges. If you’re handling this for a deceased resident, monitor the deadlines closely.
What’s Deductible on Your Taxes
A portion of what you pay a CCRC may qualify as a deductible medical expense on your federal return, but the rules are specific.
The IRS allows you to include the part of a life-care fee or founder’s fee, whether paid monthly or as a lump sum, that is properly allocable to medical care.2IRS. Publication 502 (2025), Medical and Dental Expenses Your CCRC should provide an annual statement showing what percentage of your entrance fee and monthly fees went toward medical care. The percentage varies by community and by year, based on the community’s actual healthcare spending relative to total costs.
Type A contracts generally produce the largest deductible portion because more of the fee is allocated to prepaid healthcare. Type C contracts produce little or no deductible amount, since you’re paying for care only when you use it. Type B is in between.
Medical expenses are deductible only to the extent they exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income, and only if you itemize on Schedule A.2IRS. Publication 502 (2025), Medical and Dental Expenses In the year you pay a large, partly deductible entrance fee, the medical portion alone may push you past the standard deduction. In later years, when only the monthly fee’s medical portion counts, itemizing may no longer make sense. A tax advisor familiar with CCRC fee structures can help you plan around this.
How Medicaid Treats the Entrance Fee
If you or a spouse ever applies for Medicaid, your entrance fee could count as an available resource. Federal law treats it as a countable asset when three conditions are all met: you can use the fee to pay for care if your other resources run short, you’re eligible for a refund of any remaining balance when you leave or die, and the fee doesn’t give you an ownership interest in the community.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1396p – Liens, Adjustments and Recoveries, and Transfers of Assets
The countable amount is the entrance fee minus whatever has already been spent on your care. If a spouse remains in the community, the balance factors into the spousal share of assets. A $300,000 refundable entrance fee can push a couple over Medicaid’s asset limits even after most other savings are gone.
Non-refundable fees, or fees that have fully amortized to zero, generally don’t create this problem, because there’s no remaining balance to count.
If the Provider Goes Bankrupt
CCRC residents make a long-term bet on the provider’s solvency, and the protections if that bet fails are thinner than most people assume.
In bankruptcy, entrance fee refund claims are typically classified as unsecured debt, behind secured creditors like banks holding mortgages on the property. Federal bankruptcy law gives individuals a priority claim for consumer deposits, but the cap is just $3,800 per person, a fraction of most entrance fees.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 507 – Priorities Anything above that is lumped with other unsecured claims, and residents may recover only cents on the dollar.
Resident agreements are generally treated as executory contracts, meaning the bankrupt provider can potentially reject the contract. State regulations that would normally protect you, including reserve requirements, refund deadlines, and disclosure rules, are often overridden by federal bankruptcy law under the Supremacy Clause.
Checking the provider’s financial health before signing matters for this reason. Most states require CCRCs to maintain operating reserves and file annual financial disclosures. Review them, and watch occupancy rates, debt levels, and whether reserves have been drawn down. A community at 85% occupancy with heavy debt looks very different from one at 95% with minimal leverage.
If You Run Out of Money
Many CCRC agreements include language guaranteeing continued residency for life, even if your finances become insufficient to cover the monthly fees. In practice, the community may apply your remaining entrance fee balance toward costs, move you to a smaller unit, or draw from an internal benevolent care fund set aside for residents in financial distress.
There’s a limit. If the provider can show you deliberately gave away assets or made large gifts to reduce your resources, sometimes called dissipation of assets, you may lose access to benevolent care protections. Read this contract language carefully before assuming you can gift money to family after moving in. And remember that a benevolent care fund is only as reliable as the organization behind it, which brings you back to the provider’s financial disclosures before you commit.