Section 8 Income Limits 2026

Most people never find out whether they qualify for a Housing Choice Voucher, because the answer is buried in a spreadsheet. HUD does not set one national income limit — it sets a different one for every county in the country, and it changes with how many people live in your home.

The checker below reads HUD’s own published tables for FY2026 — all 4,764 counties and towns — to show you the exact dollar limit for where you live, and roughly what your rent would be if you got a voucher.

How HUD decides who qualifies

Eligibility is not a judgment about your situation — it is arithmetic. HUD calculates the median family income for every metropolitan area and rural county in the United States, then draws three lines through it:

• Extremely Low Income — 30% of the area median. This is the priority band. Federal law requires that at least 75% of the families a housing agency newly admits to the voucher program come from here.
• Very Low Income — 50% of the area median. This is the standard cutoff for the Housing Choice Voucher program. If your income is below this line for your household size, you are income-eligible.
• Low Income — 80% of the area median. Agencies may admit a limited number of families in this band, and other HUD programs use this line instead.

Two details catch people out. First, the limit rises with household size — a family of five can earn considerably more than a single person and still qualify in the same county. Second, the limits are local: the same income can be comfortably under the line in one county and over it in the county next door.

Why the checker asks for your county

HUD publishes limits for 56 states and territories broken into thousands of separate areas. Some counties are grouped into a metropolitan area and share one set of figures; rural counties usually get their own. That is why a national "Section 8 income limit" does not exist, and why any tool that gives you a single number for the whole country is guessing.

The figures in the checker are the ones HUD published for fiscal year 2026 — the same tables a housing agency uses when it processes your application.

The rent figure is local too

The monthly number in the result is the Fair Market Rent HUD publishes for your specific area — the same benchmark your agency starts from when it sets how much a voucher will cover there. It moves as much between counties as the income limits do, which is why a voucher stretches much further in one place than in another. Treat the split shown as the high end of your share: it uses your gross income, while agencies calculate from adjusted income, which is lower.

Being under the limit is not the same as being first in line

Income decides whether you are eligible. What decides how fast your name comes up is something most people never hear about: local preferences. Every agency picks its own, and they reorder the list regardless of when you applied.

The ones that show up most often are households that are homeless or about to be, families paying more than half their income in rent, people involuntarily displaced, veterans, and elderly or disabled applicants. Some agencies add a residency or a working-family preference. Two families with identical incomes and identical application dates can wait years apart because one of them ticked a box the other did not know existed.

So when you call, ask two questions instead of one: whether the list is open, and which preferences the agency uses. Then ask whether you qualify for any of them — the answer is yes more often than people expect, and it is worth far more than being early.

Common questions

Does the checker send my information anywhere? No. The HUD tables are loaded into your browser and the comparison happens there. Nothing you type is transmitted or stored.

Whose income did I just add up? HUD counts the expected annual income of everyone in the household, not only the people who file a tax return — wages, self-employment, tips, cash work, benefits, child support and regular help from outside the home all count. The earnings of household members under 18 do not, and a full-time student's earnings above a set amount are excluded. If you left something out, run the check again with the full figure.

My income is just over the limit. Is it worth applying? Often yes. What matters is your income when your name reaches the top of the list, not the day you apply — and on a list that takes a year or more, plenty changes before then. The limits themselves are also re-published every year.

Does a criminal record disqualify me? Only a narrow set of convictions carries a lifetime ban. Everything else is the agency's call, and most let you present evidence of rehabilitation before they decide.

Do I need to be a U.S. citizen? Not everyone in the home does. If at least one member is a citizen or has eligible immigration status, a mixed-status household can still receive assistance, prorated to the number of eligible members.

This page is an independent guide. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development or any housing agency. Figures come from HUD's published FY2026 Income Limits and Fair Market Rent datasets and are provided for orientation — your housing agency makes the final determination. Applying for housing assistance is always free.