How HUD Defines Annual Income for Housing Aid

HUD’s regulation at 24 CFR 5.609 sets the rule for what counts as “annual income” when a household’s income is measured against HUD-related housing assistance income limits. It counts money “received from all sources by each member of the family who is 18 years of age or older or is the head of household or spouse,” it adds imputed income on top of actual income once net family assets pass $50,000, and it builds in a small tolerance for income-calculation errors before a determination is treated as wrong (eCFR, 24 CFR 5.609). The regulation itself does not contain the dollar income limits used to judge whether a given income qualifies — those figures are published separately and updated every year on two HUD USER dataset pages, both of which currently carry an “Effective May 01, 2026” marker for FY2026 figures (HUD USER Income Limits; HUD USER MTSP/LIHTC Income Limits).

This original record-reading guide is a general reading aid, not cited evidence. It does not depict a source record; the article text and source links provide the facts.

Key points

• Whose income counts: income “received from all sources by each member of the family who is 18 years of age or older or is the head of household or spouse” (24 CFR 5.609).
• Asset income gets added on top of actual income once net family assets exceed $50,000, an amount HUD adjusts annually for inflation (24 CFR 5.609).
• A small calculation-error tolerance exists: up to $30 per month, or $360 per year, in adjusted income per family is treated as a “de minimis error,” not a wrong determination (24 CFR 5.609).
• The dollar income limits themselves live on two separate, currently updated HUD USER pages, not in the regulation — both marked “Effective May 01, 2026” for FY2026 (Income Limits; MTSP/LIHTC Income Limits).

Whose income counts under HUD’s definition

24 CFR 5.609 defines annual income as amounts “received from all sources by each member of the family who is 18 years of age or older or is the head of household or spouse” (eCFR, 24 CFR 5.609). In plain terms, the regulation’s counting rule reaches every adult member of the family age 18 or older, plus the head of household and spouse regardless of age, rather than only the person who applies for assistance.

Imputed income on high assets

The regulation also addresses households with significant assets. It provides that imputed income is added “when the value of net family assets exceeds $50,000 (which amount HUD will adjust annually in accordance with the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers)” (eCFR, 24 CFR 5.609). That means the $50,000 asset threshold itself is not fixed forever — it moves each year with a specific government inflation index named in the regulation’s own text.

Tolerance for calculation errors

The regulation also recognizes that income calculations will not always be perfectly precise, and it sets a threshold below which a mistake does not count as an incorrect determination: “A de minimis error is an error where the PHA or owner determination of family income deviates from the correct income determination by no more than $30 per month in monthly adjusted income ($360 in annual adjusted income) per family” (eCFR, 24 CFR 5.609). The regulatory text in effect carries the citation “[88 FR 9657, Feb. 14, 2023]” (eCFR, 24 CFR 5.609), marking the most recent Federal Register update to this section.

Where current income limits are published

24 CFR 5.609 sets the counting rule, but it does not state the dollar income limits a household’s counted income is measured against — those change every year and are published on HUD USER’s own dataset pages rather than in the Code of Federal Regulations. There are two separate live pages to check, and they currently carry the same effective-date marker for FY2026 figures. The general Income Limits page, which covers Section 8 and related programs, states “Effective May 01, 2026.” (HUD USER, Income Limits). The separate Multifamily Tax Subsidy Projects (MTSP) page, which covers Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) and tax-exempt bond projects, also states “Effective May 01, 2026.” (HUD USER, MTSP Income Limits). Because these are the live, currently updated pages, they are the correct place to look up this year’s actual dollar figures — a figure copied from an older source can go stale as soon as HUD publishes a new effective date.

What this article does not answer

This article explains HUD’s counting rule and where the current dollar figures are published. It does not answer the following:

• Whether any specific household qualifies for any specific HUD-related program, which depends on program rules and figures beyond what is covered here.
• The separate adjusted-income deductions defined elsewhere in the regulation.
• Why the LIHTC-facing income limits on the MTSP page differ from the Section 8 limits on the main Income Limits page, since the two datasets serve different programs with different rules.
• The exact current-year dollar income-limit figures themselves, since those numbers change annually and are best read directly from HUD USER’s live pages linked above rather than from a copy that can go out of date.

Source links

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-24/subtitle-A/part-5/subpart-F/section-5.609 https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/il.html https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/mtsp.html