Fort Myers Senior AdvisorHow much does assisted living cost in Fort Myers and Cape Coral?
No Lee County median is published; CareScout's 2025 survey puts Florida's median for an assisted living community at $66,000 a year, about $5,500 a month, and individual Fort Myers and Cape Coral quotes land above or below that depending on apartment size, care level and the building's age.
| Care type (Florida, 2025) | Annual median | Per month (our math) | Change vs. 2024 | U.S. median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Assisted living community | $66,000 | $5,500 | +3% | $74,400 |
| Nursing home, semi-private room | $124,100 | $10,342 | 0% | $114,975 |
| Nursing home, private room | $146,000 | $12,167 | +5% | $129,575 |
| Home care, non-medical (44 hrs/week) | $73,216 | $6,101 | +7% | $80,080 |
| Adult day health care (5 days/week) | $19,500 | $1,625 | n/a | $24,700 |
CareScout 2025 Cost of Care Survey, Florida results (Business Wire, March 2, 2026). Monthly, hourly and daily figures are our arithmetic on CareScout's annual medians (annual / 12; home care annual / 2,288 hours; nursing home annual / 365; adult day annual / 260 days).
Why is there no Fort Myers or Lee County cost median?
CareScout gathers prices by metro area but its Florida release published only statewide and national medians for 2025, and it does not survey memory care at all, so any "average Fort Myers memory care cost" you see quoted is somebody's estimate.
We use the Florida figure and say so. When you collect quotes, ask each community for the base rate, the care-level fee at your parent's assessed level, medication management, and any one-time community fee, and compare the total.
What does a nursing home cost per day in Florida?
At CareScout's 2025 Florida medians a semi-private nursing home room runs about $340 a day ($124,100 a year) and a private room about $400 a day ($146,000 a year).
Medicare covers short rehabilitation stays after a qualifying hospital admission; Florida Medicaid pays for long-term stays once the resident qualifies. Most private-pay nursing home stays in Lee County are the gap between those two.
What does in-home care cost per hour in Lee County?
Florida's 2025 median for a non-medical home care worker is $73,216 a year for 44 hours a week, which is about $32 an hour; agencies in Fort Myers and Cape Coral often set minimum visit lengths of three or four hours.
| Paid hours a week | Monthly cost at $32/hour | Compared with the $5,500 assisted living median |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | $1,109 | below |
| 16 | $2,219 | below |
| 24 | $3,328 | below |
| 32 | $4,437 | below |
| 40 | $5,547 | above |
| 48 | $6,656 | above |
| 72 | $9,984 | above |
| 168 | $23,296 | above |
Past roughly 40 hours a week, paid home care usually costs more than assisted living, before counting the home's own costs. Overnight and live-in arrangements are priced differently, so ask agencies for a written quote.
What other costs do families in Lee County forget to budget?
The common surprises are care-level increases after a reassessment, medication management fees, incontinence supplies, transportation to appointments, a community or move-in fee, and, for homeowners, flood insurance and storm costs on a house that stays empty.
After Hurricane Ian many Lee County homeowners saw insurance premiums rise sharply, which matters when a parent's house is being kept or sold to pay for care. Count it in the monthly comparison.
The short version
| A Florida median is | A Florida median is not | |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | The middle price across the state | A Fort Myers or Cape Coral price list |
| Use | A benchmark for comparing quotes | A figure any facility must honor |
| Memory care | Not published at all | Simply the assisted living figure |
Built from Chapters 400, 408, 429 and 651 of the Florida Statutes, Fla. Admin. Code chapters 59A-4, 59A-36 and 65A-2, and AHCA, DCF, OIR, Elder Affairs, CMS, VA and CareScout publications cited on the page; see our editorial standards.
