HUD Releases Fiscal Year 2025 Income Limits Datasets

HUD Releases Fiscal Year 2025 Income Limits Datasets

HUD's Income Limits calculations determine the maximum income eligibility for many HUD programs and are calculated relative to the median family income of each area for metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties throughout the United States.

On April 1, 2025, HUD released the Section 8 income limits for fiscal year (FY) 2025. HUD's income limit calculations determine the maximum income levels for eligibility for several HUD programs, including Public Housing, the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher and Project-Based Voucher programs, the Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly program, and the Section 811 Supportive Housing for Persons With Disabilities program. Other programs, including those run by agencies such as the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, rely on HUD's determination of area median family income (MFI), though they may issue their own income limits. HUD's community planning and development programs, as well as HOME Investment Partnerships investments, which use separate but related income limits in their administration, were released on May 1.

HUD calculates income limits for metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties in the United States in relation to the MFI of that area, so HUD must both delineate geographic areas and calculate the MFI of those areas.

HUD draws the area definitions for income limits from the metropolitan statistical areas delineated in Office of Management and Budget Bulletin No. 23–01, which were also incorporated into American Community Survey (ACS) data. In some cases, HUD has further subdivided metropolitan statistical areas into HUD Metropolitan Fair Market Rent Areas. HUD uses median family income data from the 2023 ACS and the Puerto Rico Community Survey and then updates those values for FY 2025. Previously, HUD used an inflation forecast from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to update ACS estimates, but it determined that using CBO's estimate of changes in per capita wage growth would be more accurate. Starting with the FY 2025 income limits, HUD will use the wage growth estimate, which for this year's release is an 8 percent increase from 2023.

Income limit categories defined by statute in the U.S. Housing Act of 1937, as amended, include low-income families (those whose incomes do not exceed 80% of median family income for the area), very low-income families (those whose incomes do not exceed 50% of median family income for the area), and extremely low-income families (those whose incomes do not exceed the greater of 30% of the median family income for the area or the federal poverty guidelines published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). Legislation for various programs may also set income limit standards at 60 percent, 95 percent, or 120 percent of the median family income for the area.

HUD uses the very low-income family income limits, defined as not exceeding 50 percent of the median family income for the area, as the basis for determining other income limits such as "low-income" and "extremely low-income" to ensure that the standards maintain their intended relationship to one another. HUD's calculation of 50 percent of the area median family income serves as the preliminary four-person family very low-income limit. However, HUD may adjust these limits up or down depending on whether housing costs in an area are particularly high or low, or may make adjustments to ensure that they do not increase or decrease excessively from the prior year or fall below 50 percent of the state's nonmetropolitan area median family income. Using the four-person family as a base, HUD also adjusts income limits for each standard according to family size.

Consistent with its commitment to making data accessible to the public, HUD now makes income limits data available through an application programming interface so that developers can easily access and use the data in new and existing applications.

In addition to the general income limits dataset, HUD released income limits datasets specific to Multifamily Tax Subsidy Projects, the Uniform Relocation Act, and the Homeowner Assistance Fund.