How Much Does VA Pay for Foster Care? Rates, VEMAT, Clothing

Virginia pays foster parents a base rate of $563 to $836 per month, depending on the child’s age, and these amounts have been in effect since July 2024.¹ The base covers room, board, clothing, and personal care. Children with documented behavioral, emotional, or medical needs can qualify for enhanced monthly payments on top of that, and every child gets a separate clothing allowance each year. None of it counts as taxable income under federal law.

Monthly Base Rates by Age

Virginia sets one statewide rate for each of three age brackets. Local departments cannot raise or lower them.² The current amounts are:¹

Birth through age 4: $563 per month
Ages 5 through 12: $658 per month
Age 13 and older: $836 per month

Each payment includes a room-and-board portion, a monthly clothing portion, and an allowance for personal care and recreation. The $836 teen rate, for example, contains $535 for room and board, $140 for clothing, and $161 covering personal care and a small monthly allowance.¹ The maintenance rate is meant for daily basics. Services like therapy or tutoring are funded through other channels and are not expected to come out of your monthly deposit.²

Partial Months and Short Absences

Children rarely arrive on the first of a month or leave on the last, so Virginia prorates the room-and-board portion by dividing the actual days of care by the days in that month.² Payment starts the day the child arrives. For counting purposes, the last day of placement is the day before the child is removed. A child placed on June 1 and removed on June 14 generates payment for June 1 through June 13.

Short absences do not interrupt the payment. If the child is with family, in respite care, or briefly hospitalized for 14 or fewer consecutive days and then returns to your home, you still receive the full monthly rate.²

Enhanced Payments Through the VEMAT

Some children need far more supervision, support, or hands-on care than a typical placement. For those cases, Virginia uses the Virginia Enhanced Maintenance Assessment Tool (VEMAT) to determine an additional monthly payment on top of the base rate.³

The VEMAT scores a child in three areas: behavioral, emotional, and physical or personal care needs. Each characteristic in each area is rated not applicable, minimal, moderate, or severe, worth 0, 4, 8, or 12 points. The maximum total is 36 points, and higher scores generate larger enhanced payments.⁴ Whatever the score directs is what you get. Local departments cannot reduce it at their discretion or because you also receive other services like childcare.²

The score depends heavily on documentation. Therapist and psychiatrist recommendations, critical incident reports, your own daily logs of behaviors and interventions, and any home care plan all feed into the rating.³ Keep written records from day one. Foster parents who don’t log incidents in writing frequently end up with lower VEMAT scores than their child’s actual needs would justify.

Annual Clothing Allowance

Beyond the clothing portion built into the monthly rate, Virginia issues a separate clothing allowance for each year a child stays in care, and again when a child first enters your home:²

Birth through age 4: $347
Ages 5 through 12: $435
Age 13 and older: $522

These figures were last set at the July 2022 level and may be adjusted by the state from time to time. Combined with the monthly clothing component in the base rate, a teenager in your home for a full year draws roughly $2,200 in clothing support.

Relative Caregivers and Youth Over 18

Kinship placements are paid at the same rates. If a relative home meets standard foster family licensing requirements, the relative receives the same age-based maintenance and is eligible for the same VEMAT-enhanced payments as any other foster parent. Virginia does not use a separate, lower kinship rate.²

Support does not have to end at 18. Through Fostering Futures, any youth in foster care at their 18th birthday can continue receiving services if they sign a Voluntary Continuing Services and Support Agreement within 30 days. To keep participating, the young adult must be finishing high school or a GED, enrolled at least half-time in college or vocational training, in an employment-readiness activity, working at least 80 hours a month, or medically unable to do any of those. When the youth lives with a foster parent, the foster parent continues to receive the standard base and enhanced maintenance. When the youth moves to an independent living setting, the payment goes to the youth directly.⁵

Are Foster Care Payments Taxable?

No. Under Section 131 of the Internal Revenue Code, qualified foster care payments are excluded from your gross income, and that exclusion covers both the base maintenance and difficulty-of-care (enhanced) amounts.⁶ You do not report Virginia’s monthly maintenance or VEMAT-enhanced payments as income on your federal return.

There are ceilings by household size, though most families never hit them. Difficulty-of-care payments are tax-free for up to 10 foster children under 19, and standard maintenance is tax-free for up to five individuals who have turned 19.⁶

If a Payment Is Wrong, Denied, or Reduced

You can appeal to the Commissioner of Social Services if maintenance is denied or reduced without your agreement. The local department is required to notify you of this right in writing when you sign the foster care agreement and any time an action changes your benefits.⁷

You have 30 days after a denial to request a hearing. Once you do, the state must hold the hearing, decide, and notify you within 90 days. If a reduction is coming and you request the hearing during the notice period, your payments continue at the existing level until the decision is reached. The local department has to give at least 10 days’ notice before reducing, suspending, or terminating a payment, and you can represent yourself or bring counsel, a relative, or any other representative.⁷

If a VEMAT score looks too low for the care you’re providing, or a deposit arrives smaller than the rate table says it should, the appeal is the tool. Continuation-of-benefits during the appeal means you are not punished financially for using it.

1
Virginia Department of Social Services. Funding Maintenance Costs (April 2026)
2
Virginia Department of Social Services. Funding Maintenance Costs (September 2024)
3
Virginia Department of Social Services. Funding Maintenance Costs (July 2019)
4
Virginia Department of Social Services. Virginia Enhanced Maintenance Assessment Tool (VEMAT)
5
Office of Children’s Services. Fostering Futures and CSA Guidance
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 131 – Certain Foster Care Payments
7
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Administrative Code 22VAC40-201-115 – Foster Care Appeal Process