Related income limits · HUD rental data
Area median income(AMI)
HUD's median family income for an area — the base for nearly every affordability threshold.
Area median income is HUD's annual estimate of median family income for a metropolitan area or non-metropolitan county, adjusted for household size. Income limits for most housing programmes are expressed as percentages of it — 80% for low income, 50% for very low income, 30% for extremely low income.
Two cautions. The published limits are not straight arithmetic on the median: HUD applies floors, ceilings and year-over-year change caps, so the 80% limit is frequently not 1.6 times the 50% limit. And New England defines these areas by town rather than by county, so county-level AMI does not exist there — an absence that must be read as 'not published', never as zero.
Also known as: AMI, HUD income limits, median family income.
See area median income in the data
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Area median income — FAQ
What is area median income in HUD rent data?+
HUD's median family income for an area — the base for nearly every affordability threshold. Area median income is HUD's annual estimate of median family income for a metropolitan area or non-metropolitan county, adjusted for household size. Income limits for most housing programmes are expressed as percentages of it — 80% for low income, 50% for very low income, 30% for extremely low income.
Why does area median income matter?+
Two cautions. The published limits are not straight arithmetic on the median: HUD applies floors, ceilings and year-over-year change caps, so the 80% limit is frequently not 1.6 times the 50% limit. And New England defines these areas by town rather than by county, so county-level AMI does not exist there — an absence that must be read as 'not published', never as zero.
Where does this HUD rent data come from?+
Fair Market Rents are published annually by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for each fiscal year. pumsdata is independent and not affiliated with HUD; nothing here is a determination of any household's benefit.