Transmittal of Fiscal Year 2012 Income Limits for the Public Housing and Section 8 Programs

Summary:  HUD’s notice (PDR-2012-02) transmits revisions in the income limits used to define the terms "very low-income" and "low-income" in accordance with Section 3(b)(2) of the United States Housing Act of 1937, as amended. These income limits are listed by dollar amount and family size.

Beginning with FY 2010 Income Limits published on May 14, 2010, HUD eliminated its long standing “hold harmless” policy1 but limited all annual decreases to 5 percent and all annual increases to 5 percent or twice the change in the national median family income, whichever is greater. HUD has maintained these limits to increases and decreases in income limits for FY 2012.

HUD Section 8 Income Limits begin with the production of Median Family Income (MFI) estimates. HUD uses the Section 8 program’s Fair Market Rent (FMR) area definitions in developing MFIs, which means that income estimates are developed for each metropolitan area, parts of some metropolitan areas, and each non-metropolitan county. HUD calculates Section 8 Income Limits for every FMR area with adjustments for family size and for areas that have unusually high or low income-to-housing-cost relationships.

Date of Publication:  December 1, 2011

Tables for Income Limits, as well as HUD’s answers to “Frequently Asked Questions” are available at: http://www.huduser.org/portal/datasets/il/il12/index.html