Who owns a nursing home? Reading CMS ownership data
CMS publishes three things about who owns a nursing home: the owners and operators each facility reports with a 5% or greater stake or managerial control, flags for owner types such as private equity and REITs from Medicare enrollment, and a record of every change of ownership since January 2016. Together they usually name the operating company and often the parent. They rarely show the full chain of investors above that.
The three files
CMS’s monthly Nursing Home Ownership file has one row per owner or manager per facility, with the role, whether the owner is a person or an organization, the ownership percentage where one applies, and the date the relationship began. The roles that matter most are 5% or greater direct ownership, 5% or greater indirect ownership, and operational or managerial control. In the September 2026 file the average facility lists between five and six of these.
The Skilled Nursing Facility All Owners file on data.cms.gov, drawn monthly from the Medicare enrollment system, has a longer list per enrollment, with yes or no flags on each owner: private equity company, REIT, holding company, investment firm, management services company, created for acquisition, and others. It also lists anyone with a 5% or greater mortgage or security interest, which is how some lenders show up.
The Skilled Nursing Facility Change of Ownership file gives the buyer, the seller and the effective date of each change since January 2016.
What the flags show, and what they miss
Of the 14,690 certified nursing homes in CMS’s September 2026 file, 437 have at least one owner flagged as a REIT and 64 have one flagged as private equity. The REIT names are recognizable: Welltower, American Healthcare REIT, Sabra, CareTrust, Omega and others.
Treat sixty-four as a floor. The flag is self-reported on the Medicare enrollment form, and a facility owned through a holding company, an LLC created for the acquisition or a fund’s portfolio company may check none of the boxes. A missing flag means the facility did not report one.
Chains
CMS also groups facilities into chains, which it calls affiliated entities. 69% of certified nursing homes belong to one of 611 chains in the September 2026 file, and each facility page names the chain, its size and its average overall rating. CMS’s Nursing Home Chain Performance file has more on each chain’s ratings and staffing.
The property and the operator are often different companies
A common structure puts the real estate in one entity and the license in another, with a lease between them. In CMS’s files the operating entity is the enrolled provider; the property owner appears as an indirect owner, a mortgage-interest holder or not at all, depending on how the facility filed. HUD loans sit with whichever entity owns the real estate, which is one reason SNF Register shows the HUD project name beside the CMS legal business name.
Following an owner across facilities
Owner names in the ownership file are spelled consistently enough to filter. CMS’s full Nursing Home Ownership download can be filtered by an owner’s name to list every facility where that person or company holds a stake or control, nationwide. On SNF Register, the chain name on a facility page and the state’s list of largest chains are the quicker route.
Look up a facility to see its owners, chain and ownership history on one page.
Questions people ask
Where can I find who owns a nursing home?
CMS publishes each certified nursing home's owners with a 5% or greater direct or indirect stake, and any organization with operational or managerial control, in its monthly Nursing Home Ownership file. SNF Register shows that list on every facility page.
Does CMS say whether a nursing home is owned by private equity?
Partly. The Skilled Nursing Facility All Owners file carries a yes or no flag for private equity and REIT owners, but it is what each facility reported on its Medicare enrollment, and many PE and REIT ties go unflagged.