Widening a Doorway Costs Less Than You'd Guess
A standard interior door frame is 30 to 32 inches wide, fine for walking through, genuinely difficult for a wheelchair or a wide walker to clear. It's one of the most common barriers to aging in place, and also one of the cheapest accessibility fixes available, which makes it worth understanding before assuming a bigger renovation is the only option.
The full standard for comfortable wheelchair clearance is 36 inches, and getting there costs $500 to $1,500 per doorway in most cases, a modest number compared to almost any other accessibility project. Two different approaches get you there depending on how much clearance you actually need.
If you only need a couple of extra inches, offset hinges are the cheapest possible fix, running just $20 to $40 per door. These specialized hinges swing the door completely out of the opening rather than partially blocking it the way a standard hinge does, effectively adding 1.5 to 2 inches of usable clearance without touching the frame or wall at all. For someone who just barely doesn't fit through comfortably, this alone can solve the problem for under $50.
If you need the full 36-inch clearance, that requires actually reframing the opening, removing the existing frame and trim, cutting the wall opening wider, and installing a new, wider frame and door. This is the $500 to $1,500 range, and it's a job worth hiring a contractor for rather than attempting yourself, since it involves the structural framing around the opening, not just cosmetic work.
A few alternatives worth knowing about if a full reframe isn't the right fit for a specific doorway:
- Pocket doors, which slide into the wall rather than swinging, eliminate the door swing entirely and can make a tight space feel more open, though installing one where a swinging door currently exists is its own project involving wall framing
- Removing the door entirely, in spaces where privacy isn't essential, a hallway-to-hallway transition, for instance, is the cheapest option of all, simply eliminating the obstruction
Doorway widening rarely happens in isolation as a single line item. It commonly gets bundled into a broader accessibility project, a basic aging-in-place package including a curbless shower, grab bars, and one or two widened doorways typically runs $15,000 to $25,000 total. If you're only dealing with a single problem doorway rather than a whole-home accessibility overhaul, it's worth asking a contractor to price the doorway alone rather than assuming you need the full package.
Funding help exists specifically for this kind of modification, and it's worth checking before assuming the full cost falls on you:
- Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services waivers cover doorway widening and similar accessibility items in most states, though eligibility and covered items vary, check your state's specific Medicaid office
- VA grants for qualifying veterans with service-connected disabilities can cover this and considerably more, the Specially Adapted Housing grant runs up to $126,526 for fiscal year 2026, and the Special Housing Adaptation grant runs up to $25,350
- Area Agencies on Aging frequently offer smaller grants, commonly $500 to $5,000, specifically for grab bars, ramps, and minor modifications like this, and calling the national Eldercare Locator at 1-800-677-1116 connects you to your local agency
Before hiring anyone, measure the actual clear opening yourself with a tape measure, not the door slab width, but the space you'd actually have to move through once the door is open, since that's the number that determines whether offset hinges alone will solve your specific situation or whether a full reframe is genuinely necessary.
Doorknobs and handles are worth addressing at the same time if you're already having a contractor out for this work. Lever-style handles are far easier to operate for anyone with limited grip strength or arthritis than a round knob, and swapping the hardware during the same visit adds very little to the labor cost compared to scheduling it as its own separate job later.
If you're prioritizing which doorways to tackle first in a home with several tight openings, start with the ones on the path between the bedroom and the bathroom, since that's the route used most frequently, often at night, and it's the one where a tight squeeze creates the most day-to-day friction and the highest fall risk if someone's rushing, tired, or navigating in low light without wanting to turn on a bright overhead lamp at 3am. That's the highest-traffic, highest-stakes route in most homes, and the one most worth fixing first if budget only allows one doorway this year.
