Can you foster if you are over 55?

If you are in your late fifties or sixties and quietly wondering whether fostering is still open to you, the answer is almost certainly yes. There is no upper age limit for foster carers in England, and plenty of people come to fostering once their own children have grown up and the house has gone quiet. This article covers what the rules actually say, what the medical really looks at, how fostering pay sits alongside a pension, and the questions an assessing social worker is likely to ask someone starting later in life.

Please note: this is general information rather than personal financial, tax or benefits advice. Figures are for the 2026/27 tax year unless stated otherwise, and rates change. Check your own position with HMRC, your benefits office or an adviser before making decisions.

The short answer: there is no upper age limit

The law sets a floor and no ceiling. Government guidance says you must be at least 18 to foster, and that most fostering services will want you to be at least 21. Nothing above that is fixed. The Fostering Network puts it plainly: “Legally there is no upper age limit to foster, and there are many fantastic foster carers in their 60s or 70s.” What counts, in their words, is “that you are fit and able to care for and meet the needs of any child you are approved to look after.”

The Department for Education said the same thing in its February 2026 paper Renewing Fostering: homes for 10,000 more children, which carries a myth-busting list aimed at people who rule themselves out before they ever pick up the phone. Myth 6 is “I’m too old to foster”, and the answer given is that there is no upper age limit. Our own training material for carers across the Positive Aspirations group says it in one line: your relationship status, sexuality and age, as long as you are 18 or over, will not affect your ability to foster. The same principle is why single people can foster just as readily as couples.

So the honest position is this. Being 58, or 64, or 71 is not a reason to be turned down. It is a reason to have a slightly different conversation about what kind of fostering would suit you.

What actually decides it is the medical, not your birthday

Every applicant, at any age, has a health assessment. Fostering regulations require services to obtain health information when they assess whether someone is suitable to foster. Your own GP completes an adult health report, the agency’s medical adviser reads it and gives an opinion, and that opinion goes into your assessment alongside everything else. Two things are worth knowing before you worry about it.

The first is that the assessment looks at you as a whole person rather than at a diagnosis. The Fostering Network describes it as taking account of “any specific illness, disability, past or current treatment, or prescribed medication”, and is clear about the weight it carries: “Medical information is only one element of the wider assessment of a person’s suitability to foster. What matters most is that a foster carer can safely care for and meet the needs of children.”

The second is that no condition is an automatic bar. There is nothing in the fostering regulations or standards that would direct a service to turn an application down because of any named illness, disability, medication or past treatment. Blood pressure tablets, a replaced hip, managed diabetes, a back that needs looking after: none of these is a stop sign on its own. What the medical adviser is asked is whether anything limits what you can safely do, and if so, what it limits.

Repeat medicals after approval are set by each agency rather than by national rules. Some services ask for a new one every three years. That is local policy, so it is a fair question to put to any agency you speak to.

Being honest about energy and what suits you

This is where an older applicant is usually more clear-eyed than a younger one, and it works in your favour. Fostering a baby, with the broken nights and the round of health visitor appointments that come with it, is a different physical proposition from offering a settled home to a twelve year old who is at school all day. Some carers in their sixties love the former and would not swap it. Others know their limits and say so, and a good agency respects that rather than pushing. There are also carers who start with short breaks, giving another family regular weekends, and build from there.

The matching conversation exists precisely so this gets said out loud. You are approved for an age range and a number of children, and that approval reflects what you have told the assessing social worker about your household and your stamina. You can read more about the different types of foster care and what each one asks of a carer.

There is a flip side that rarely appears in recruitment adverts. Patience is not evenly distributed across a lifetime. A carer of 60 who has raised children already and stopped being rattled by a slammed door is often exactly what a child who has moved home several times needs. Time helps too. If you are semi-retired, you can get to the school meeting at two in the afternoon without negotiating with an employer.

Money in later life: pension, fostering pay and tax

Fostering is paid, and the pay is not pocket money. At South Coast Fostering the weekly fee for one child is:

• £479.50 a week for a child aged 10 and under, of which about £90 is spent directly on the child
• £507.50 a week for a child aged 11 and over, of which about £100 is spent directly on the child
• £987 a week for a parent and child placement, where a deduction may apply if the parent receives benefits
• Typically £100 to £200 a week more for Enhanced fostering, rising in rare and exceptional cases to around £1,600

That is a single weekly fee per child, combining the allowance for the child’s costs and your professional fee. The full picture is on our fostering pay page.

The part that matters most if you already have a pension is how the tax works. Foster carers are self-employed and use Qualifying Care Relief. For 2026/27 that is a fixed £20,440 per household per year, plus £435 a week for each child under 11 and £515 a week for each child aged 11 or over. Add those together and the total is what you can receive from fostering before any tax is due. Most carers land well under it and show no taxable profit at all.

Crucially, the relief applies to your fostering income only. As the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group puts it, “Any other income you have, for example from employment or savings, will not be affected if you are claiming qualifying care relief and will be taxed in the usual way.” Your State Pension and any private pension are taxed as normal against your personal allowance of £12,570. Fostering does not push that income into a higher band, because the fostering side of it is dealt with separately.

Two more points affect people who start fostering later in life. If you have not yet reached State Pension age and your National Insurance record is short of the 35 qualifying years needed for the full new State Pension, be aware that showing nil profit from fostering means you build up no National Insurance record from it. The fix is to claim National Insurance credits on form CF411A, one claim per tax year, with a letter from your agency confirming you fostered. We write those letters. The State Pension age is legislated to rise to 67 between 2026 and 2028, so if you are in your fifties it is worth checking your own date and your forecast on GOV.UK. If you are already drawing your pension, this no longer applies to you.

Fostering income is disregarded if you receive means-tested benefits. Fosterline states that “all allowances and fees received by foster carers in return for fostering are fully disregarded for the purposes of calculating entitlement to means tested benefits.” Do check your own circumstances with whoever pays them, because household situations vary.

Our articles on how foster carer pay works and tax and Qualifying Care Relief go into both in more depth.

Fostering into your sixties and seventies

Older carers are part of the backbone of the system. Ofsted’s figures for the year ending 31 March 2025 show 42,190 fostering households in England, of which 8,755 were formal kinship households, roughly one in five. A great many of those are grandparents and other relatives who stepped in for a child they already loved, and what they offer is the steadiness that comes with having done family life before.

Fostering does not necessarily stop at 18 for the young person in your home either. Under the Children and Families Act 2014, local authorities in England must facilitate, monitor and support Staying Put arrangements until a young person turns 21, provided they were in care for at least 13 weeks after their 14th birthday and were still in care at 18. Someone approved at 62 could still be the steady adult in a 20 year old’s life at 70, with the same young person at the same kitchen table. The fostering rules stop applying and a Staying Put allowance replaces the fostering fee, usually at a lower rate, with the young person contributing to rent and household costs.

What the assessment will ask you

The process is the same whatever your age. It runs in six steps: an enquiry, a home visit, preparatory training, the Form F assessment written by a social worker who visits you several times, a fostering panel, and finally the agency decision maker who gives the approval. You and every adult in your household will need a DBS check, and parts of your support network may need one too. Expect two questions to get more attention than they might for a 35 year old applicant, and expect them to be asked kindly.

• Who is your back-up? If you were unwell for a fortnight, who would collect from school and cook the tea? Every carer needs an answer to this, at any age. Older applicants tend to have thought about it more carefully.
• What is your plan for the long haul? If you hope to offer a permanent home to a young child, a social worker will want to talk through what the next ten or fifteen years look like for you. That is not an attempt to catch you out. It is the same planning any thoughtful family does.

You will also complete the Skills to Foster course before approval, plus first aid and safeguarding training, and in England the Training, Support and Development Standards within your first 18 months.

You won’t have to do this alone

Nobody is asking you to run on your own reserves. Every South Coast carer has a supervising social worker, regular supervision, a local network of other carers, and a phone line answered by a person 24 hours a day. You can see what that looks like day to day on our foster carer support page. If you have questions about your health or your pension or how fostering would sit alongside the rest of your life, ask them at the first phone call. We would far rather have that conversation early than have you talk yourself out of it in the car park.

A child isn’t just given a home, they’re given a chance. Quite often the person best placed to give it has already raised a family, has a spare room and a settled routine, and has been assuming for years that fostering is something other people do.

Frequently asked questions

Is there an upper age limit for fostering in the UK?

No. There is no legal upper age limit for foster carers in England. You must be at least 18, and most fostering services look for applicants aged 21 or over, but there is nothing above that. The Fostering Network notes that there are many foster carers in their 60s and 70s.

Will a health condition or long-term medication rule me out?

Not on its own. Your GP completes a health report and the agency’s medical adviser gives an opinion on whether anything limits what you can safely do. There is nothing in the fostering regulations that requires a service to refuse an application because of a named condition, disability or medication.

Does fostering affect my State Pension or my benefits?

Your pensions are taxed as normal and are unaffected by Qualifying Care Relief, which applies to fostering income only. Fostering allowances and fees are fully disregarded when means-tested benefits are calculated. If you have not yet reached State Pension age, ask your agency about National Insurance credits on form CF411A.

I am 60. Is it too late to start the assessment?

No. Approval usually takes several months from enquiry to panel, and plenty of people are approved in their sixties. Talk to at least three agencies, ask each one how they would match a carer of your age, and see whose answers you trust.