Porting section 8 to Nashville: who to contact and how it works

Last updated 2026-07-10

Who exactly do you contact to port Section 8 to Nashville?

Nashville's Housing Choice Voucher program is run by the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency, almost universally called MDHA. That is your contact.

MDHA HCV Portability Phone: (615) 252-8400 Address: 712 South Sixth Street, Nashville, TN 37206 Website: mdha.org

Here's what most people get wrong: you do not call MDHA first. The port starts at your current (originating) PHA. You tell your current caseworker you want to move to Nashville, they generate a portability packet, and they send it directly to MDHA. Only after that packet lands in MDHA's hands should you be following up with MDHA yourself.

There is nothing wrong with calling MDHA before you formally port, though, just to ask whether they are currently absorbing incoming vouchers or operating on billing only. That one phone call can save you months if MDHA happens to be closed to absorption. More on that distinction below.

Your originating PHA's portability coordinator is your first call. Get their direct extension. Portability paperwork can sit in a general inbox for weeks if nobody is watching it.

What is the difference between absorption and billing, and why does it matter for Nashville?

Absorption means MDHA takes your voucher onto its own budget and cuts your old PHA loose. Billing means MDHA administers your voucher but sends monthly invoices back to your originating PHA, which keeps paying. This is the single most important concept in any port, and most voucher holders have never heard of it until they are already mid-process.

When you port into Nashville, MDHA has two options under 24 CFR 982.355 ^[1]:

1. Absorb your voucher. MDHA issues you one of their own vouchers, your originating PHA is done, and you become MDHA's tenant going forward. MDHA pays from its own budget. 2. Bill your originating PHA. MDHA administers your voucher but invoices your originating PHA every month. Your original PHA keeps paying, and MDHA collects an admin fee.

Absorption is better for you in most ways. Your relationship with the originating PHA ends cleanly, you get MDHA's full payment standards, and there is no risk of your old PHA pulling the plug. Billing keeps you tethered to your original PHA's budget and rules.

The law lets MDHA choose billing instead of absorption if absorbing you would strain their budget or voucher cap ^[1]. Plenty of high-demand urban PHAs run billing-only for incoming ports during tight budget years. Whether MDHA is absorbing right now is something only a phone call can answer, because it shifts with HUD funding allocations and MDHA's utilization rate.

If MDHA is billing only, read porting section 8 to somewhere that is only doing billing before you proceed. The rules on what your originating PHA can and cannot do change a lot.

For the broader mechanics of moving a voucher across state lines, porting into another state through section 8 covers the regulatory framework in full.

What are MDHA's current payment standards for Nashville?

Payment standards are the maximum monthly subsidy MDHA will pay toward rent and utilities. They are set as a percentage of HUD's Fair Market Rents (FMRs) for the Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, TN HUD Metro FMR Area ^[2].

HUD publishes new FMRs every October. For FY 2025, HUD set the following FMRs for the Nashville metro ^[2]:

Unit Size	FY2025 FMR (Nashville Metro)
SRO	$1,054
0-BR	$1,405
1-BR	$1,450
2-BR	$1,726
3-BR	$2,228
4-BR	$2,504

PHAs can set payment standards anywhere between 90% and 110% of FMR without HUD approval, and up to 120% with HUD approval ^[3]. MDHA's actual payment standards may differ from FMR. Call MDHA or check mdha.org for their current schedule, because they can update it mid-year.

This matters a lot if you are coming from a cheaper market. Say your originating PHA pays $900 for a two-bedroom. Nashville costs far more than that. If MDHA absorbs you, you step up to their payment standards. If MDHA only bills, your subsidy stays pegged to what your originating PHA would pay, which can make finding a Nashville unit nearly impossible at current rents.

How long does the Nashville port process take from start to finish?

The honest answer: it varies a lot, and nobody should promise you a date. A realistic end-to-end timeline, from the day you tell your originating PHA you want to port to the day you move in, is 60 to 120 days, with outliers on both ends.

Under 24 CFR 982.355(c), once MDHA receives a portability packet from your originating PHA, they are supposed to issue you a voucher within a reasonable time ^[1]. HUD's general guidance expects receiving PHAs to process incoming port requests within their normal voucher issuance window, typically 10 to 30 days after the packet arrives.

The real delays happen in three places.

First, your originating PHA may take weeks to prepare and send the packet after you ask. Some PHAs have it out in three days. Others take three weeks. Ask for a turnaround commitment in writing.

Second, if MDHA is on billing, they still need to process your paperwork and issue a local voucher shell, which adds time.

Third, finding a Nashville unit that passes inspection and accepts vouchers is the longest part for most people. The market is competitive, and not every landlord participates.

For a full breakdown of what drives each phase, see how long does it take to port out section 8.

Your voucher expiration date is the clock to watch. If your voucher expires before MDHA issues you a new one or before you find a unit, you could lose the benefit entirely. Ask your originating PHA to confirm exactly when your voucher expires and whether they grant extensions for porting delays.

Are there eligibility requirements to port into Nashville?

HUD's rules under 24 CFR 982.353 set the floor: you can port anywhere in the United States as long as you have been on the program at least 12 months with your originating PHA, or you are porting to reunite with a family member or to take or accept employment ^[4]. If you have not hit 12 months, check whether either exception fits.

Beyond the federal floor, MDHA can apply its own local preferences and screening criteria when it absorbs your voucher. That can include criminal background screening, landlord reference checks, or debt-to-prior-PHA checks. The specifics live in MDHA's Administrative Plan, a public document. Request it from MDHA or look for it on mdha.org.

One thing MDHA cannot do is flat-out refuse a portability packet from a legitimate voucher holder who meets the federal threshold. PHAs are required to accept incoming port requests under HUD regulations ^[1]. What they control is whether they absorb or bill, plus their inspection and screening standards.

If you port right before your annual recertification, that timing can complicate things. Read porting before annual recertification section 8 to see how income verifications and recert deadlines interact with a mid-cycle move.

What paperwork does your originating PHA send to MDHA?

Your originating PHA prepares and transmits the portability packet to MDHA. The standard HUD packet includes four things.

Form HUD-52665 (Family Portability Information), which carries your voucher details, family composition, income, and subsidy amount ^[5]. This is the key document. Without it, MDHA cannot process your port.

Your current Housing Assistance Payments (HAP) contract information, if you are already under lease.

A copy of your most recent HQS inspection results, if applicable.

Documentation of your current TTP (Total Tenant Payment) calculation.

Ask your originating PHA for a copy of everything they send. You are entitled to it. Then follow up with MDHA about five business days after your PHA says they mailed or emailed the packet. Packets get lost. Faxes fail. Email lands in spam. A quick call to MDHA's portability coordinator to confirm receipt is not being a nuisance. It's protecting your timeline.

How do you find a Nashville landlord who accepts Section 8?

Start with the free unit locator at hud.gov ^[6], which lists units open to voucher holders. MDHA also keeps a list of participating landlords and will share it if you ask. Local nonprofits like Affordable Housing Resources (ahnashville.org) sometimes have current Nashville listings too. This is where most ports stall, especially in a market where vacancy has been tight for years.

A few practical points.

Call landlords before you show up. Say you have a Housing Choice Voucher and ask directly whether they work with HCV tenants. Some landlords do not advertise this either way.

Tennessee has no statewide source-of-income protection law as of mid-2025, so private landlords in Nashville can legally decline voucher holders ^[7]. Your search will include rejections. Budget time for that.

Ask your MDHA caseworker whether they run any current landlord incentive programs or have a landlord liaison who can make introductions. MDHA has done landlord recruitment in past years, and staff often know which property managers are actively taking HCV tenants.

VoucherReady's free unit-search tools let you filter listings by voucher-friendly status and bedroom size, which narrows the field before you start dialing.

Once you find a willing landlord, MDHA inspects the unit before you can move in. Nashville inspections run under HUD's Housing Quality Standards (HQS). Budget 1 to 3 weeks from the time MDHA receives your Request for Tenancy Approval (Form HUD-52517) to the inspection date, though this swings with MDHA's current workload ^[5].

What if MDHA has a waitlist or is not accepting incoming ports right now?

A receiving PHA cannot refuse to receive a portability packet. What MDHA can do is place you on a waitlist for voucher issuance if they lack the budget to absorb or administer your voucher right away ^[1]. Those are two different things, and the difference matters.

If MDHA tells you they are not accepting ports, push back gently and ask them to clarify. Are they refusing the packet entirely, which would be a regulatory violation? Or are they accepting the packet but placing you on a waiting list for issuance? Very different situations.

If you genuinely cannot find a unit before your voucher expires, talk to your originating PHA about extensions. PHAs can grant extensions in 30-day increments for good cause, and a documented porting delay usually counts as good cause.

Consider the surrounding metro, too. The Nashville HUD Metro FMR Area covers more than Davidson County. It also includes Wilson, Sumner, Robertson, Rutherford, Williamson, Maury, Dickson, and Cheatham counties ^[2]. A unit in Murfreesboro or Smyrna falls under the same FMR area, and either MDHA or a neighboring PHA might handle it. A neighboring PHA might be more open to absorption.

What should landlords in Nashville know about accepting a ported-in voucher?

The process is essentially the same as accepting a locally-issued voucher, with one extra step: confirm that MDHA has formally issued the tenant a Nashville-area voucher before you sign anything.

A tenant might hand you a voucher document from, say, Chicago or Los Angeles. That is the originating voucher. Until MDHA processes the port and issues its own authorization, that document is not directly usable for a Nashville lease. Ask the tenant to show you the MDHA-issued voucher or written confirmation from MDHA that the port is active.

Once MDHA's voucher is in hand, the rest is standard HCV. You submit a Request for Tenancy Approval, MDHA inspects the unit against HQS, and if the unit passes and the rent sits within MDHA's payment standards, MDHA signs a Housing Assistance Payments contract with you.

Landlords sometimes ask whether ported-in tenants are riskier or come with more hassle. The honest answer: the administrative steps are identical to a locally-issued voucher once MDHA has absorbed or taken on billing. The one extra risk is that billing arrangements, where MDHA invoices the originating PHA, can occasionally create payment delays if the originating PHA has budget problems. If a tenant's voucher is on billing, ask MDHA about HAP payment reliability for billed-in tenants before you sign.

For landlords still deciding whether HCV is worth it, the VoucherReady landlord kit walks through the inspection checklist, rent reasonableness documentation, and HAP contract terms in one place.

How does Nashville compare to other cities for porting in?

This is genuinely hard to quantify, because PHAs do not publish standardized absorption rate data. A few reference points are worth knowing anyway.

HUD's 2023 Picture of Subsidized Households data shows MDHA administered roughly 6,200 Housing Choice Vouchers ^[8]. That makes MDHA a mid-size PHA by national standards, bigger than most rural agencies but far smaller than the housing authorities in Chicago, Los Angeles, or New York.

Nashville's rents have climbed hard over the past several years. The Urban Institute has documented that tight private rental markets correlate with lower voucher success rates, because voucher holders compete with market-rate renters for the same scarce units ^[9]. That dynamic is real here.

On the other side, Tennessee has a lower overall tax burden and cost of living than coastal metros, and payment standards in the Nashville FMR area have been adjusted upward in recent HUD cycles to track rent growth ^[2]. That helps. The gap between FMR and actual asking rents in the most desirable neighborhoods stays wide.

If your situation is flexible geographically, compare MDHA's current posture with neighboring PHAs. The Clarksville Housing Authority and Murfreesboro Housing Authority both cover parts of the broader region and may have shorter processing times or more active absorption.

For how other specific metros handle port-ins, see porting section 8 to Fairfield County Ohio and porting section 8 into West Orange NJ.

What are the most common mistakes people make when porting to Nashville?

A few patterns show up over and over.

Not confirming MDHA's absorption status before starting the port. If MDHA is billing only and your originating PHA's payment standards are low, you may not be able to afford Nashville rents on your current subsidy. Know this before you give notice on your current unit.

Letting the portability packet sit. Your originating PHA prepares it, but nobody automatically chases it down. Call MDHA five business days after your PHA says they sent it. Follow up again at two weeks.

Assuming your voucher size transfers automatically. If your family composition changed, MDHA may issue a different bedroom size than your originating PHA did. Ask both agencies what bedroom size you will get in Nashville.

Missing the voucher expiration date. Vouchers have deadlines. If yours expires during the process and you have not secured a unit, you may have to start over. Request extensions proactively, in writing, before the expiration date, not after.

Signing a lease before the HAP contract is in place. Never sign assuming the voucher will cover it. Wait for MDHA's written approval and the executed HAP contract. A lease signed early is your financial obligation, voucher or not.

Not asking about MDHA's informal hearing rights. If MDHA denies your port or terminates your voucher for any reason, you have the right to request an informal hearing under 24 CFR 982.555 ^[10]. Know the right exists.

Frequently asked questions

What is MDHA's phone number for Section 8 portability?

MDHA's main Housing Choice Voucher line is (615) 252-8400. When you call, ask specifically for the portability coordinator. MDHA's office is at 712 South Sixth Street, Nashville, TN 37206. Have your current PHA's name, your voucher number, and your caseworker's contact information ready before you call.

Can MDHA refuse to accept my port-in request?

MDHA cannot refuse to receive your portability packet if you meet HUD's eligibility criteria under 24 CFR 982.353. What MDHA can do is choose to bill your originating PHA rather than absorb your voucher, or place you on a waiting list for issuance if their budget is tight. A flat refusal to even receive the packet would be a regulatory violation.

Do I need to be on MDHA's waitlist to port into Nashville?

No. Porting bypasses the receiving PHA's waitlist entirely. That is one of the key advantages of portability under the federal rules in 24 CFR 982.353. You port in under your existing eligibility, not as a new applicant. MDHA may still place you in a queue for voucher issuance if they lack immediate budget capacity to absorb.

What form does my PHA send to MDHA for the port?

The primary document is HUD Form 52665, the Family Portability Information form. It carries your voucher details, family composition, income information, and subsidy calculation. MDHA will not process your port without it. Ask your originating PHA for a copy of everything they transmit so you have a record and can confirm MDHA received it.

How long does MDHA have to process my port-in request?

Federal regulations do not set a hard deadline for the receiving PHA, but HUD guidance expects processing within the receiving PHA's normal voucher issuance window, typically 10 to 30 days after the packet is received. Real-world timelines vary. Follow up with MDHA directly if you have not heard anything two weeks after your originating PHA sent the packet.

What if Nashville rents are too high for my current subsidy?

If MDHA bills your originating PHA rather than absorbing you, your subsidy stays tied to your originating PHA's payment standards, which may sit well below Nashville market rents. If MDHA absorbs you, you step up to their payment standards. This is why confirming MDHA's absorption status before you start the port matters so much. If the math does not work, reconsider the timing.

Does Tennessee have source-of-income protection for voucher holders?

No. As of mid-2025, Tennessee has no statewide law prohibiting landlords from refusing to rent to Housing Choice Voucher holders. Nashville landlords can legally decline voucher applicants. Some other states restrict this through local ordinances, but Nashville and Davidson County do not have such an ordinance in place, so expect some rejections during your unit search.

Can I port my voucher to Nashville before my 12 months are up?

Generally no, unless you qualify for one of HUD's exceptions: moving to be closer to a family member, or moving to take or accept employment. Under 24 CFR 982.353(b), PHAs can restrict portability until you have been on the program 12 months. If you are under 12 months, ask your originating PHA whether either exception applies to your situation.

What happens to my voucher if I move to Nashville and then want to move again?

If MDHA absorbed your voucher, you are now MDHA's participant. Future moves follow MDHA's policies, and if you want to port again, MDHA becomes your originating PHA. If you are on billing, your original PHA stays the administering agency, so future port requests still run through them. Clarify which situation applies before you make any additional move plans.

Will MDHA inspect my Nashville unit before I can move in?

Yes. Every unit under the HCV program must pass an inspection under HUD's Housing Quality Standards before a HAP contract is signed and before you move in with your voucher. You submit a Request for Tenancy Approval (HUD Form 52517), MDHA schedules the inspection, and if the unit passes, the process moves forward. Budget 1 to 3 weeks for scheduling, though MDHA's current workload affects this.

What are Nashville's Fair Market Rents for 2025?

HUD set FY2025 Fair Market Rents for the Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin metro at $1,405 for a studio, $1,450 for one bedroom, $1,726 for two bedrooms, $2,228 for three bedrooms, and $2,504 for four bedrooms. MDHA's actual payment standards may sit between 90% and 110% of these figures without HUD approval. Check mdha.org or call MDHA for their current schedule.

Can a Nashville landlord charge me more than MDHA's payment standard?

The landlord can ask for rent above MDHA's payment standard, but you would pay the difference yourself out of pocket, on top of your regular tenant portion. MDHA also runs a rent reasonableness analysis to confirm the requested rent is in line with comparable unassisted units. If the rent fails reasonableness or is above what you can afford, you negotiate with the landlord or find a different unit.

What if I need to move to Nashville quickly because of a safety issue or domestic violence?

VAWA (the Violence Against Women Act) protections apply to HCV tenants and give you the right to move quickly, including through an emergency port, without a lease violation on your record. Notify your originating PHA immediately, document the situation, and ask for expedited portability processing. Both your originating PHA and MDHA have VAWA obligations under 24 CFR 5.2005.

Sources

1. HUD, 24 CFR Part 982, Section 982.355 (Portability procedures): Receiving PHA may absorb or bill the originating PHA; cannot refuse to receive a valid portability packet from an eligible voucher holder
2. HUD, FY2025 Fair Market Rents, Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, TN HUD Metro FMR Area: FY2025 FMRs for Nashville metro: $1,405 (0-BR), $1,450 (1-BR), $1,726 (2-BR), $2,228 (3-BR), $2,504 (4-BR)
3. HUD, 24 CFR Part 982, Section 982.503 (Payment standards): PHAs may set payment standards between 90% and 110% of FMR without HUD approval, and up to 120% with HUD approval
4. HUD, 24 CFR Part 982, Section 982.353 (Portability eligibility): Voucher holders may port after 12 months on the program, or earlier to reunite with family or accept employment
5. HUD, Housing Choice Voucher Program Guidebook (forms HUD-52665 and HUD-52517): Standard portability packet centers on Form HUD-52665; tenancy approval uses Form HUD-52517
6. HUD, Housing Choice Voucher Program and rental unit locator: HUD provides an online resource locator and unit listing tools for voucher holders
7. National Low Income Housing Coalition, Tenant Protections by State (Tennessee): Tennessee does not have a statewide source-of-income protection law prohibiting landlords from refusing Housing Choice Voucher holders
8. HUD, Picture of Subsidized Households 2023, MDHA Nashville: MDHA administered approximately 6,200 Housing Choice Vouchers as reported in HUD's 2023 Picture of Subsidized Households data
9. Urban Institute, 'Reforming Housing Choice Vouchers', 2021: Tight private rental markets correlate with lower voucher success rates as voucher holders compete with market-rate renters for scarce units
10. HUD, 24 CFR Part 982, Section 982.555 (Informal hearing procedures): Voucher holders have the right to request an informal hearing if MDHA denies or terminates their voucher
11. HUD, 24 CFR Part 5, Section 5.2005 (VAWA protections): VAWA protections apply to HCV tenants, including emergency transfer and move rights for survivors
12. Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency (MDHA), Nashville TN, Housing Choice Voucher Program: MDHA is the administering PHA for Housing Choice Vouchers in Nashville/Davidson County; phone (615) 252-8400