Long-Term Care Premium Deduction 2027: $500 to $6,290 by Age

The 2027 table against 2026

The limits come from a table in the statute that the IRS indexes every year. Section 213(d)(10)(A) lists the base amounts, $200, $375, $750, $2,000 and $2,500, and Section 213(d)(10)(B) says each is increased by the medical care cost adjustment and, if the increase is not a multiple of $10, rounded to the nearest multiple of $10. Rev. Proc. 2026-35 publishes the result for taxable years beginning in 2027. The age that counts is the attained age before the close of the taxable year, so a person who turns 71 on December 30, 2027 uses the over-70 limit for the whole of 2027.

Source: Rev. Proc. 2026-35 sections 3.29 and 3.67 (IRS, announced November 5, 2026 in IR-2026-133); Rev. Proc. 2025-32 sections 4.27 and 4.62. The change columns are our arithmetic.

Two reading notes. First, the PDF text of the 2027 table can be extracted with the columns misaligned; we read the age labels and amounts from the PDF's own text layer and checked them against the 2026 table in Rev. Proc. 2025-32, where each limit is lower than the 2027 one in the same row. Second, the copy we saved still carries the bracketed placeholder “as in effect on [Release Date, 2026]” in section 1, so the bulletin version may be dated differently; the section 3.29 figures are the ones the IRS announced.

The revenue procedure says section 3 “applies to taxable years beginning in 2027” (section 4.01), except for the calendar-year items in section 4.02. The per diem in section 3.67 is one of those: it applies to payments received in calendar year 2027.

Who can use the limit: three routes

The age limit is not a deduction by itself. It caps the amount of a qualified long-term care premium that the Code treats as medical care. What happens next depends on the route.

Source: 26 U.S. Code Sections 213, 162 and 223 as read on November 6, 2026. The HSA row is our reading of Sections 223(d)(2)(A) and (C)(ii) together with Section 213(d)(1)(D).

Schedule A. Section 213(a) allows medical care expenses “to the extent that such expenses exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income”. Section 213(d)(1)(D) says that for a qualified long-term care insurance contract “only eligible long-term care premiums (as defined in paragraph (10)) shall be taken into account”. The deduction is only worth taking if all your itemized deductions beat the standard deduction, which in 2027 is $33,200 for joint filers and $16,600 for an unmarried person, plus $1,700 per spouse aged 65 or older, or $2,100 if unmarried (Rev. Proc. 2026-35 section 3.15). Our 2027 brackets and standard deduction page has the full table.

Self-employed. Section 162(l)(2)(C) uses the same limit: “only eligible long-term care premiums (as defined in section 213(d)(10)) shall be taken into account under paragraph (1).” The deduction is capped at earned income from the business (Section 162(l)(2)(A)), it is not available for any month in which you are eligible for a subsidized employer plan, tested separately for long-term care plans (Section 162(l)(2)(B)), and an amount used here “shall not be taken into account” on Schedule A (Section 162(l)(3)). Section 162(l)(4) keeps it out of net earnings from self-employment, so it lowers income tax but not the self-employment tax. Section 162(l)(5) treats wages of a more-than-2% S corporation shareholder as earned income for this purpose.

HSA. Section 223(d)(2)(B) says the general rule that qualified medical expenses exclude insurance does not apply to “a qualified long-term care insurance contract (as defined in section 7702B(b))” (Section 223(d)(2)(C)(ii)). A distribution used exclusively for qualified medical expenses is not included in gross income (Section 223(f)(1)). Our reading is that the premium counts only up to the Section 213(d)(10) limit, because Section 223(d)(2)(A) borrows the Section 213(d) definition of medical care; we found no IRS text on the point in the sources we saved, so check it with your preparer. Our HSA and Medicare enrollment page covers who can still contribute.

The 7.5% floor: the highest AGI at which a premium counts

If the premium were your only medical expense, it would count only while 7.5% of AGI is below the limit, so the highest AGI is the limit divided by 0.075. Any other unreimbursed medical cost raises the answer by the same logic.

Source: limits from Rev. Proc. 2026-35 section 3.29 and Rev. Proc. 2025-32 section 4.27; the AGI columns are our arithmetic (limit divided by 0.075, rounded to the dollar, no other medical expense).

For a reader with $250,000 or more of investable assets the table has a plain message: a retiree with $150,000 of income has a $11,250 floor, which swallows the premium of one person and most of a couple's. The premium becomes a real Schedule A item only when income is low, other medical costs are large (a year of qualified long-term care services is also medical care, with no age cap, as in our hybrid page), or the household is deducting a lot else.

Four worked examples for 2027 (our arithmetic)

All numbers below are invented; the limits and brackets are from Rev. Proc. 2026-35.

Example 1: single, age 72, AGI $60,000, itemizing. The policy costs $8,000 a year, but only $6,290 counts (over-70 limit). The floor is $60,000 x 7.5% = $4,500, so the medical deduction is $6,290 - $4,500 = $1,790. The standard deduction is $16,600 + $2,100 = $18,700. Itemizing wins only if the person has more than $16,910 of other itemized deductions.

Example 2: married couple, ages 67 and 73, AGI $150,000. Counted premiums are $5,030 + $6,290 = $11,320. The floor is $150,000 x 7.5% = $11,250, so the deduction is $70. The joint standard deduction with two additional amounts is $33,200 + $1,700 + $1,700 = $36,600.

Example 3: self-employed, age 66, paying $7,500 a year. Only $5,030 counts. If the business income is at least that and the person has no subsidized employer plan, the Section 162(l) deduction is $5,030. With unmarried taxable income between $52,025 and $109,125 the marginal rate is 22% (Rev. Proc. 2026-35 section 3.01 Table 3), so the income tax falls by $5,030 x 22% = $1,106.60. Self-employment tax is unchanged.

Example 4: HSA owner, age 72, paying $8,000 a year. On our reading, $6,290 of the premium is a qualified medical expense and can be paid from the HSA without tax; $1,710 is above the limit. At a 24% marginal rate (unmarried taxable income between $109,125 and $208,325) the same $6,290 would otherwise have cost $1,509.60 of tax, if it were taxable income from the account.

What did not change

The 7.5% floor is in the statute text we read. The statute base amounts and the $175 base per diem in Section 7702B(d)(4) are the starting point for the indexing, and Section 7702B(d)(5) says the per diem is increased “at the same time and in the same manner as amounts are increased pursuant to section 213(d)(10).” The revenue procedure also lists the 2027 per diem as a calendar-year item. What this page cannot tell you is the tax treatment of any particular policy: whether the contract is a qualified long-term care insurance contract under Section 7702B(b), or a hybrid whose premium is a charge against cash value, is decided by the contract and covered on our hybrid long-term care tax page.

What a reader can do with this

• Find your age on the table, per person, at December 31, 2027. A person who turns 61 during 2027 uses the $5,030 limit for the whole year.
• Compare the limit with the premium you pay. Only the part of the premium up to the limit counts. A policy that costs $8,000 for someone over 70 counts $6,290.
• Run the standard deduction test before anything else. If the premium plus your other itemized deductions is below the 2027 standard deduction, the Schedule A route gives nothing.
• If you are self-employed, ask whether Section 162(l) applies. It has no 7.5% floor, but it is limited to earned income and it fails for any month you can join a subsidized employer plan.
• If you have an HSA, ask your preparer whether paying the premium from it fits your situation. Keep the insurer's statement showing the contract is a qualified long-term care contract.
• Check the policy's tax status first. A hybrid contract's cash-value charge is not a deductible premium under Section 7702B(e)(2), per our hybrid page.
• If Medicaid might become relevant, read our pages on asset protection trusts and the home equity rules.

FAQ

This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice. Sources, read and saved on November 6, 2026: Rev. Proc. 2026-35 (IRS) and IR-2026-133, November 5, 2026; Rev. Proc. 2025-32 (IRS); 26 U.S. Code Sections 213, 162, 223 and 7702B (Cornell Legal Information Institute). The change columns, the highest-AGI table and the four examples are our arithmetic on invented numbers.