Income Limits Fact Sheet from HUD User

September 23, 2020  

FY 2020 Income Limits Fact Sheet from HUD User

HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) offers a wealth of data on the HUD User website. PD&R is pleased to present a FY 2020 Income Limits fact sheet, which summarizes and highlights statistics from the Income Limits dataset.

For more information, visit the Income Limits page. For information on other PD&R datasets, visit the HUD User Datasets page and view the Guide to HUD User Data Sets.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) sets income limits that determine eligibility for assisted housing programs including the Public Housing, Section 8 project-based, Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher, Section 202 housing for the elderly, and Section 811 housing for persons with disabilities programs.

The Median Family Income in the United States for fiscal year 2020 is $78,500.

The Income Limits Documentation System Query Tool provides complete documentation of the development of the FY 2020 Income Limits for any area of the country selected by the user.

Income limits are presented at 3 different levels:

1. The Low Income Limit: 80% of the Median Family Income

2. The Very Low Income Limit: 50% of the Median Family Income

3. The Extremely Low Income Limit: The greater value of either 60% of the Very Low Income Limit or the poverty guideline as established by the Department of Health and Human Services provided that this amount does not exceed the Very Low Income Limit*

*Consequently, the extremely low income limits may equal the very low (50%) income limits.

Family Size Adjustments

The income limit statute requires adjustments for family size. With a family size of 4 as the base for these calculations you can use the following guidelines to make adjustments:

Are you looking for the 60% Income Limits?

For the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, users should refer to the FY 2020 Multifamily Tax Subsidy Project income limits available at https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/mtsp.html.

The formula used to compute these income limits is as follows: take 120 percent of the Very Low-Income Limit. Do not calculate income limit percentages based on a direct arithmetic relationship with the median family income; there are too many exceptions made to the arithmetic rule in computing income limits.

For further information on Income Limits and to access the Query Tool please visit: https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/il.html