The full USDA Single Family Housing Guaranteed Loan (Section 502) moderate-income limit table for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, by household size, as a free CSV or JSON download. Built from USDA HB-1-3555 Appendix 5 (FY 2026 table, PN 657, effective 07/13/2026): 3,578 published geographies, of which 1,172 sit above the national floor under 569 USDA area rows — every one listed below with the printed Appendix 5 page it was read from.
Income limits verified 2026-07-18
Reviewed by Rural Home Check; last reviewed 2026-07-18
Two shapes of the same FY 2026 table. The state summary is 51 rows: the national moderate-income floor of $122,800 (1-4 people) and $162,100 (5-8 people) that most counties use, every Appendix 5 area covering that state which beats the floor, and the largest urban cores that fall outside the USDA eligible-area map. The county table is 3,578 rows — one per published geography, keyed to Census FIPS, with the printed Appendix 5 page beside every figure. CC BY 4.0 — attribute Rural Home Check (ruralhomecheck.com) and USDA as the underlying source.
Fiscal year FY2026 · effective 2026-07-13 · retrieved 2026-07-18 · source: USDA income-limit PDF. Please attribute Rural Home Check and USDA when you republish or cite these figures.
Income limits are set by USDA per county and household-size band; most counties across every state sit at the national moderate-income floor, while high-cost metro counties carry higher limits. The last column counts the Appendix 5 areas covering each state that beat the floor and links to them; the full list is below. Confirm the exact county row in USDA's official PDF.
| State | 1-4 person limit | 5-8 person limit | Appendix 5 areas above the floor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $122,800 | $162,100 | 1 area — highest Huntsville, AL MSA at $132,850 (1-4) / $175,400 (5-8) |
| Alaska | $122,800 | $162,100 | None published — USDA prints no resolvable row for 30 of this state's geographies, so the floor is this site's working figure rather than USDA's printed one |
| Arizona | $122,800 | $162,100 | 2 areas — highest Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ MSA at $129,250 (1-4) / $170,650 (5-8) |
| Arkansas | $122,800 | $162,100 | 1 area — highest Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR MSA at $122,900 (1-4) / $162,250 (5-8) |
| California | $122,800 | $162,100 | 51 areas — highest Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA MSA at $282,450 (1-4) / $372,850 (5-8) |
| Colorado | $122,800 | $162,100 | 55 areas — highest Summit County, CO at $165,400 (1-4) / $218,350 (5-8) |
| Connecticut | $122,800 | $162,100 | 23 areas — highest Darien town, CT Exception Area at $176,150 (1-4) / $232,550 (5-8)3 geographies in this state resolve to no USDA row at all |
| Delaware | $122,800 | $162,100 | 3 areas — highest Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA at $141,100 (1-4) / $186,300 (5-8) |
| District of Columbia | $122,800 | $162,100 | 1 area — highest Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD HUD Metro FMR Area at $153,550 (1-4) / $202,700 (5-8) |
| Florida | $122,800 | $162,100 | 10 areas — highest Monroe County, FL at $164,800 (1-4) / $217,550 (5-8) |
| Georgia | $122,800 | $162,100 | 4 areas — highest Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA HUD Metro FMR Area at $135,500 (1-4) / $178,900 (5-8) |
| Hawaii | $122,800 | $162,100 | 4 areas — highest Urban Honolulu, HI MSA at $177,100 (1-4) / $233,800 (5-8)1 geography in this state resolves to no USDA row at all |
| Idaho | $122,800 | $162,100 | 5 areas — highest Teton County, ID at $137,200 (1-4) / $181,150 (5-8) |
| Illinois | $122,800 | $162,100 | 8 areas — highest Kendall County, IL HUD Metro FMR Area at $153,550 (1-4) / $202,700 (5-8) |
| Indiana | $122,800 | $162,100 | 3 areas — highest Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN HUD Metro FMR Area at $128,600 (1-4) / $169,800 (5-8) |
| Iowa | $122,800 | $162,100 | 9 areas — highest Ames, IA HUD Metro FMR Area at $142,450 (1-4) / $188,050 (5-8) |
| Kansas | $122,800 | $162,100 | 2 areas — highest Kansas City, MO-KS HUD Metro FMR Area at $130,400 (1-4) / $172,150 (5-8) |
| Kentucky | $122,800 | $162,100 | 1 area — highest Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN HUD Metro FMR Area at $128,600 (1-4) / $169,800 (5-8) |
| Louisiana | $122,800 | $162,100 | None — the national floor applies statewide |
| Maine | $122,800 | $162,100 | 4 areas — highest Portland, ME HUD Metro FMR Area at $153,550 (1-4) / $202,700 (5-8) |
| Maryland | $122,800 | $162,100 | 15 areas — highest Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD MSA at $153,550 (1-4) / $202,700 (5-8) |
| Massachusetts | $122,800 | $162,100 | 16 areas — highest Nantucket County, MA at $209,450 (1-4) / $276,500 (5-8) |
| Michigan | $122,800 | $162,100 | 6 areas — highest Ann Arbor, MI MSA at $153,550 (1-4) / $202,700 (5-8) |
| Minnesota | $122,800 | $162,100 | 73 areas — highest Rochester, MN HUD Metro FMR Area at $153,550 (1-4) / $202,700 (5-8) |
| Mississippi | $122,800 | $162,100 | None — the national floor applies statewide |
| Missouri | $122,800 | $162,100 | 3 areas — highest Columbia, MO HUD Metro FMR Area at $133,750 (1-4) / $176,550 (5-8) |
| Montana | $122,800 | $162,100 | 7 areas — highest Bozeman, MT MSA at $149,700 (1-4) / $197,650 (5-8) |
| Nebraska | $122,800 | $162,100 | 10 areas — highest Saunders County, NE HUD Metro FMR Area at $135,900 (1-4) / $179,400 (5-8) |
| Nevada | $122,800 | $162,100 | 6 areas — highest Reno, NV HUD Metro FMR Area at $134,350 (1-4) / $177,350 (5-8) |
| New Hampshire | $122,800 | $162,100 | 14 areas — highest Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH HUD Metro FMR Area at $197,100 (1-4) / $260,200 (5-8) |
| New Jersey | $122,800 | $162,100 | 11 areas — highest Jersey City, NJ HUD Metro FMR Area at $169,500 (1-4) / $223,750 (5-8) |
| New Mexico | $122,800 | $162,100 | 2 areas — highest Los Alamos County, NM at $153,550 (1-4) / $202,700 (5-8) |
| New York | $122,800 | $162,100 | 11 areas — highest New York, NY HUD Metro FMR Area at $195,050 (1-4) / $257,500 (5-8) |
| North Carolina | $122,800 | $162,100 | 9 areas — highest Raleigh-Cary, NC MSA at $152,600 (1-4) / $201,450 (5-8) |
| North Dakota | $122,800 | $162,100 | 51 areas — highest Dunn County, ND at $153,550 (1-4) / $202,700 (5-8) |
| Ohio | $122,800 | $162,100 | 4 areas — highest Union County, OH HUD Metro FMR Area at $153,550 (1-4) / $202,700 (5-8) |
| Oklahoma | $122,800 | $162,100 | None — the national floor applies statewide |
| Oregon | $122,800 | $162,100 | 4 areas — highest Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA MSA at $147,550 (1-4) / $194,800 (5-8) |
| Pennsylvania | $122,800 | $162,100 | 6 areas — highest Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA at $141,100 (1-4) / $186,300 (5-8) |
| Rhode Island | $122,800 | $162,100 | 3 areas — highest Newport-Middleton-Portsmouth, RI HUD Metro FMR Area at $155,100 (1-4) / $204,750 (5-8) |
| South Carolina | $122,800 | $162,100 | 3 areas — highest Charleston-North Charleston, SC MSA at $135,150 (1-4) / $178,400 (5-8) |
| South Dakota | $122,800 | $162,100 | 9 areas — highest Stanley County, SD at $137,800 (1-4) / $181,900 (5-8) |
| Tennessee | $122,800 | $162,100 | 1 area — highest Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin, TN HUD Metro FMR at $133,550 (1-4) / $176,300 (5-8) |
| Texas | $122,800 | $162,100 | 11 areas — highest Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX MSA at $153,550 (1-4) / $202,700 (5-8) |
| Utah | $122,800 | $162,100 | 26 areas — highest Summit County, UT at $153,550 (1-4) / $202,700 (5-8) |
| Vermont | $122,800 | $162,100 | 12 areas — highest Burlington-South Burlington, VT MSA at $149,300 (1-4) / $197,100 (5-8) |
| Virginia | $122,800 | $162,100 | 12 areas — highest Charlottesville, VA MSA at $153,550 (1-4) / $202,700 (5-8) |
| Washington | $122,800 | $162,100 | 34 areas — highest Seattle-Bellevue, WA HUD Metro FMR Area at $179,050 (1-4) / $236,350 (5-8) |
| West Virginia | $122,800 | $162,100 | 2 areas — highest Jefferson County, WV HUD Metro FMR Area at $147,650 (1-4) / $194,900 (5-8) |
| Wisconsin | $122,800 | $162,100 | 13 areas — highest Madison, WI HUD Metro FMR Area at $153,550 (1-4) / $202,700 (5-8) |
| Wyoming | $122,800 | $162,100 | 7 areas — highest Teton County, WY at $153,550 (1-4) / $202,700 (5-8) |
USDA publishes one moderate-income limit per Appendix 5 area, and an area covers anything from a single county to several. 569 of those areas — covering 1,172 of the 3,578 published geographies, across 48 states and territories — carry a limit above the $122,800 / $162,100 national floor. Every other published geography sits exactly at the floor. The highest row in the FY 2026 table is Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA MSA at $282,450 (1-4) / $372,850 (5-8), printed on Appendix 5 page 29.
Find the property's county in the county table to see which area it belongs to — USDA's area labels name metros, not counties, and 1,048 of the 3,578 rows resolve through a metro title that names no county at all. If the county is not listed below, the national floor is the figure for it.
Area — 1-4 person limit / 5-8 person limit · geographies covered · printed Appendix 5 page
Page numbers are the PRINTED page of USDA's FY 2026 Appendix 5 PDF (PN 657, effective 2026-07-13), retrieved 2026-07-18. Machine-readable at /usda-income-limits-by-county.json.
USDA does not publish one national income limit. HB-1-3555 Appendix 5 lists a moderate-income limit per state, county, and in some cases metro area, and the row that applies is the one covering the property'scounty — not the buyer's current address. Most counties sit at the national floor shown above; the high-cost exceptions column in the state table is where a county row beats it.
An income limit is not a loan limit. This table caps who may borrow; it says nothing about how much. The Section 502 Guaranteed Loan Program publishes no maximum loan amount and no county cap at all, and the county figures buyers find belong to Section 502 Direct — USDA loan limits by county below sets out which program each figure belongs to and what actually caps the amount.
USDA matches the property's county (or the HUD metro area covering it) to an Appendix 5 row, then applies one of two household-size bands: one to four people use the smaller moderate-income column, five to eight people use the larger one. For households above eight people, Appendix 5 instructs adding 8% of the four-person limit per additional person.
The FY 2026 table, effective 2026-07-13, repeats a moderate-income floor of $122,800 (1-4 people) and $162,100 (5-8 people) across standard-cost counties. A county row can only match or beat that floor, never fall below it, so the floor is a safe conservative planning figure while you confirm the exact row.
Higher-cost areas carry their own rows, and the table below lists every one of them: 569 Appendix 5 areas across 48 states and territories, covering 1,172 counties and New England towns. If a property sits in one of those areas, the higher row applies, not the floor.
Clearing the county income limit only answers whether the household is inside the Guaranteed Loan program's ceiling. The loan amount is a separate lender calculation driven by repayment income, monthly debt, credit, the rate, taxes, and insurance. Keep the two answers apart so an eligibility result is not read as an approval.
Searches for a maximum USDA loan amount, USDA county loan limits or USDA loan limits by county all collide with the same problem: they assume USDA publishes one county loan-limit schedule the way buyers know FHA's. It does not, and the answer depends on which of the two Section 502 programs is meant. The Guaranteed Loan — the one most buyers use, through an approved lender — has no maximum loan amount and no county cap; the size of the loan is set by the appraised value and by what the household's repayment income supports. The Direct Loan, made by USDA itself, is the program with county figures. Neither of these is the household income limit above, which is a third, separate test.
Not for the Section 502 Guaranteed Loan Program. USDA's own Guaranteed Loan Program 101 training deck lists 'No maximum purchase price limits' among the homebuyer benefits and describes the product as '100% financing based on appraised value', with the loan amount required to be supported by appraised value and by the borrower's ability to meet monthly obligations and repay the loan. There is no county schedule to look up, which is why a search for a USDA loan limit by county usually returns either an FHA table or the Direct-loan figures described below.
The Section 502 Direct Home Loan is made and serviced by USDA Rural Development rather than by a lender, and it is the program that carries county figures. USDA's Direct Home Loans program page states that on a complete application RD will determine the applicant's eligibility using verified information and the applicant's maximum loan amount based on their repayment ability and the area loan limit for the county in which the property is located. USDA publishes those figures in its Area Loan Limits document for Single Family Housing Direct, selectable by state and then by county. So `USDA county loan limits` is a real thing — it is a Direct-loan term, and it does not apply to the Guaranteed loan most buyers are prequalified for.
Three things, none of them a county table. First, the appraised value: financing runs to 100% of it, and the appraised value may be exceeded only by the financed 1.0% upfront guarantee fee. Second, repayment ability: under HB-1-3555 Chapter 11 an applicant is considered to have repayment ability when the proposed monthly housing expense does not exceed the 29% PITI ratio of repayment income and total debts do not exceed the 41% total-debt ratio, and USDA's automated underwriting may accept higher ratios when the lender documents strong compensating factors. Third, the monthly payment itself, which includes taxes, insurance and the 0.35% annual fee. Note that repayment income — the stable, dependable income of the borrowers on the note — is not the adjusted household income the limit test uses.
Open USDA's Area Loan Limits document for Single Family Housing Direct and select the state, then read the row for the county the property sits in. Two cautions before using that number. It applies to the Direct loan, so if a lender has prequalified the household for a Guaranteed loan the county figure is not the cap on that loan. And an area loan limit says nothing about whether the property is in an eligible rural area or whether the household is under the income ceiling — those are separate screens, and both still have to pass.
Run the address and the household income through the precheck first, then take the result to a USDA-approved lender or the state Rural Development office, which make the actual determination. USDA and your lender determine final eligibility and the final loan amount.