HUD fair market rent 2018: what the numbers meant and how to use them

Last updated 2026-07-10

What is HUD's Fair Market Rent and why does 2018 matter?

Fair Market Rent (FMR) is the dollar figure HUD publishes each year to define what a modest, decent rental unit costs in a specific area. ^[1] It is not an average. It sits at the 40th percentile of gross rents paid by recent movers in standard-quality units, meaning 40 percent of comparable renters in the area pay at or below that amount. That definition comes straight from 24 CFR Part 888, the federal rule that governs FMR calculation. ^[2]

The FY2018 figures came out in September 2017 and took effect October 1, 2017. They covered the federal fiscal year that ran through September 30, 2018. That timing trips people up. When HUD says "FY2018 Fair Market Rents," it means the rents in force during the year that started in fall 2017.

So why does 2018 still matter? A few reasons. Landlords and tenants sometimes argue over whether a lease signed in calendar 2018 used the right FMR. PHAs calculating back-payments or retroactive housing assistance payments need the old figures. Researchers tracking rent inflation between 2018, hud fair market rent 2019, and later years need a clean baseline. And voucher holders who ported to a new area during 2018 want to know what the receiving PHA was working from.

FMRs matter because PHAs set their Payment Standards somewhere between 90 and 110 percent of the local FMR, or up to 120 percent with HUD approval. ^[3] The Payment Standard sets the size of the housing assistance payment. A higher FMR usually means a bigger subsidy, which widens the pool of units a voucher holder can actually rent.

How did HUD calculate the FY2018 FMR figures?

HUD builds FMRs on American Community Survey (ACS) microdata, then applies a trend factor to catch up for rent growth between the survey period and the effective date. ^[1] For FY2018, HUD blended one-year and five-year ACS estimates depending on the size of the metro, because small areas produce shaky one-year samples. ^[11]

The trend factor does real work. ACS data lags by roughly two years, so HUD multiplies the survey rent by a local Consumer Price Index (CPI) rent-of-primary-residence factor to pull it forward. ^[12] In markets where rents jumped fast between 2015 and 2017, that adjustment moved the numbers a lot. In flatter markets, it barely nudged them.

For Small Area FMRs (SAFMRs), which apply in some metros and are set at the ZIP code level instead of the metro level, HUD combined ACS estimates with its own administrative data on actual voucher contract rents. ^[4] Starting with FY2018, HUD required SAFMRs in 24 metropolitan areas where voucher holders had piled up in high-poverty neighborhoods. That was a real policy shift. It forced those PHAs onto ZIP-level FMRs that ran higher in high-opportunity areas and lower in cheaper ones than the old metro-wide figure.

FMRs come out for five unit sizes: efficiency (studio), one-bedroom, two-bedroom, three-bedroom, and four-bedroom. The two-bedroom is the reference size, because HUD anchors its ratio math there and quotes the two-bedroom number most often in research.

What were the actual FY2018 FMR numbers by bedroom size?

HUD publishes a full schedule of FMRs for every metropolitan area and non-metropolitan county in the country. ^[1] Listing all of them here is not practical, but the table below shows a sample of metros across the range, plus the national weighted average, drawn from HUD's FY2018 FMR data.

Metropolitan Area	Efficiency	1BR	2BR	3BR	4BR
National weighted avg. (approx.)	$786	$892	$1,054	$1,372	$1,564
New York-Newark, NY-NJ-PA	$1,318	$1,424	$1,666	$2,073	$2,363
San Francisco, CA	$1,822	$2,128	$2,622	$3,522	$4,005
Chicago-Joliet, IL	$826	$926	$1,091	$1,311	$1,449
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	$730	$873	$1,082	$1,441	$1,773
Miami-Fort Lauderdale, FL	$999	$1,130	$1,376	$1,854	$2,197
Rural Mississippi (non-metro)	$446	$499	$627	$816	$924

Note: The national weighted average figures are approximations from HUD's published FY2018 summary tables. The individual metro figures come from HUD's official FY2018 FMR schedule. ^[1] You can look up any specific area with HUD's FMR query tool at huduser.gov.

The spread is enormous. A San Francisco two-bedroom FMR of $2,622 is more than four times the rural Mississippi figure of $627. That gap decides how many units a voucher can reach in each market. In the hottest metros, even the FMR sat below median market rent, which left voucher holders fighting over a thin slice of the available units.

How did FY2018 FMRs compare to FY2019 and FY2020?

Year-over-year FMR changes matter to tenants who moved between fiscal years, landlords watching the trend, and researchers benchmarking rent inflation. Here is how the national weighted two-bedroom FMR moved across three fiscal years:

FY2018: about $1,054 ^[1] HUD fair market rent 2019 (FY2019): about $1,097 ^[5] 2018 fair market rent versus HUD fair market rent 2020 (FY2020): about $1,139 ^[6]

That is roughly a 4 percent bump from FY2018 to FY2019, then another 3.8 percent from FY2019 to FY2020. Both increases were real but mild, close to the national CPI rent index over that stretch. They look tiny next to what came after 2021, when FMRs in many metros jumped 10 to 20 percent in a single year.

For tenants, a rising FMR only helps if the PHA raises its Payment Standard in response. PHAs are not required to do that every time HUD raises FMRs. Some lag a year or two, which strands voucher holders with a subsidy that no longer covers 40th-percentile rents. That gap is well documented. A 2019 Urban Institute analysis found Payment Standards in many large cities had drifted below the local FMR because PHAs skipped their annual updates. ^[7]

For landlords, the 2018-to-2020 trend pointed steadily up, so HAP amounts generally grew a bit each year for continuing tenants whose PHAs kept pace.

How did PHAs use the 2018 FMR to set Payment Standards?

The Payment Standard is the number that shows up on the lease math and decides how much HUD pays. Each year, a PHA sets that standard somewhere between 90 and 110 percent of the local FMR for each bedroom size. ^[3] With HUD approval, it can reach 120 percent. Some PHAs used that exception in high-cost markets during 2018.

The practical math for a voucher holder works like this. The PHA pays the lesser of (a) the actual rent plus utilities or (b) the Payment Standard. The tenant covers the difference between the rent and the HAP, but that tenant share cannot top 40 percent of the household's adjusted monthly income at initial lease-up under the standard rule. ^[3]

Take a household earning $2,000 a month in adjusted income, in an area with a 2018 two-bedroom FMR of $1,054 and a Payment Standard set at 100 percent of FMR:

• Maximum tenant share of income: $800 (40 percent of $2,000)
• If rent is $1,054: HAP = $1,054 minus roughly $300 (30 percent of income) = about $754
• Tenant pays $300

If that tenant wanted a unit renting at $1,200, above the Payment Standard, they could still take it. But they would pay the full extra $146 out of pocket, on top of the 30 percent income share. That is the above-Payment-Standard scenario a lot of voucher holders in tight 2018 markets ran into.

Landlords accepting vouchers in 2018 had to grasp one thing: the HAP was capped at the Payment Standard, not the unit's market rent. If you are a landlord still deciding whether to accept vouchers, our guide on homes for rent with section 8 walks through the full economics.

What were Small Area FMRs and which metros used them in 2018?

Small Area FMRs (SAFMRs) swap a single metro-wide FMR for separate FMRs in each ZIP code within a metro. HUD's argument is that a metro-wide figure quietly under-subsidizes units in high-opportunity, higher-rent ZIP codes and over-subsidizes cheaper ZIP codes, which packs voucher holders into poorer neighborhoods. ^[4]

FY2018 was the first year SAFMRs became mandatory for a defined set of metros. HUD's final rule, published in November 2016 and effective October 2017 for FY2018, forced 24 metropolitan areas onto SAFMRs. ^[10] The rule text set the criteria: metros with at least 2,500 vouchers in use AND more than 25 percent of voucher holders living in census tracts with poverty rates above 25 percent. ^[4]

The 24 mandatory SAFMR metros for FY2018 included, among others, New York (northern New Jersey), Newark, Chicago, Dallas, Fort Worth, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Springfield, and Palm Beach. HUD published the full list with the final rule.

Here is what it looked like in practice. A ZIP code in a high-opportunity suburb might carry an SAFMR 50 percent above the metro FMR, while a low-income inner-city ZIP came in 20 percent below. That changed which units were reachable for voucher holders willing to move toward higher-opportunity areas. Early HUD-commissioned research found SAFMR implementation did raise lease-up rates in higher-opportunity areas, though the effect was modest in the first year or two. ^[4]

How do you look up the exact 2018 FMR for your area?

HUD archives every prior-year FMR at huduser.gov. ^[1] Pick the FMR page, select FY2018 from the fiscal year dropdown, then search by state, metro area, or county. The tool returns all five bedroom-size FMRs and, for SAFMR metros, the ZIP-level breakdown.

Watch two things. First, HUD sometimes issues revised FMRs mid-year for specific areas after public comment, so check whether a "revised" notice came out for your area after the September 2017 final rule. Those revisions land in the Federal Register. Second, the database uses OMB metro definitions, which shift now and then. If your county got reclassified between 2017 and 2018, its FMR may have jumped or dropped for definitional reasons rather than market ones.

For a fast lookup, the fair market rent calculator compiles historical FMR data by area and bedroom size, which beats pulling raw HUD spreadsheets for most people.

If you need the data programmatically, HUD's FMR API on huduser.gov serves historical FMR queries back through FY2017. That is the cleanest way to grab FY2018 figures for many geographies at once.

Did Congress or HUD make any rule changes that affected 2018 FMRs?

The biggest 2018-era FMR change was the SAFMR expansion above, finalized in late 2016 and fully in effect for FY2018. ^[10] That was a structural change to how FMRs got defined in high-concentration metros, more than a number adjustment.

Separately, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2017 directed HUD to build a small-area FMR option for PHAs outside the 24 mandatory metros. Those PHAs could opt in to SAFMRs voluntarily. Some did.

HUD also tweaked its bedroom-size ratio methodology for FY2018, changing how it derived efficiency and other bedroom-size FMRs from the two-bedroom anchor. ^[12] The changes were technical and small in dollar terms, but they matter if you are reconciling FY2017 against FY2018 and seeing little unexplained gaps in non-two-bedroom rents.

One thing HUD did not do in 2018: add any emergency or special pandemic adjustments. Those came later, with the FY2021 and FY2022 rounds, when rent growth took off. The 2018 round was routine by comparison.

For tenants searching for low income housing in 2018, the FMR increases were mild enough that most PHAs with current Payment Standards could still find compliant units without special exceptions.

How did the 2018 FMR affect landlord rents and lease negotiations?

Landlords who accepted Section 8 vouchers in 2018 worked inside the FMR ceiling, and the FMR acted as a soft price anchor in the HAP negotiation. The PHA would not approve a rent above the Payment Standard, full stop. But landlords could and did push rents right up to that ceiling, and plenty of listings priced exactly there.

One practical point. In markets where the 2018 FMR rose from FY2017, landlords with existing HAP contracts could request a rent increase at the lease anniversary, and the PHA had room to approve the new rent if it stayed inside the updated Payment Standard. The gate is a rent reasonableness determination, which compares the requested rent to unassisted units of similar size and quality in the area. ^[8]

Landlords in SAFMR metros faced a patchwork. A two-unit owner with one building in a high-opportunity ZIP and one in a cheaper ZIP saw very different maximum approvable rents inside the same city. HUD did that on purpose, but it made life genuinely messy for multi-property owners.

For landlords weighing whether to enter the voucher market, section 8 rent house covers the full approval process. VoucherReady's one-time landlord kit also includes a rent reasonableness worksheet built on current FMR schedules, the same kind of comparison PHAs run.

If your units sat in a market where the 2018 FMR was close to market rent, accepting vouchers that year carried low risk. In a market like San Francisco, where the FMR already ran well below median market rent, landlords had little money reason to pick a voucher tenant over an unassisted one.

What can tenants do if the 2018 FMR seems too low for their area?

Tenants had two real options in 2018 when the FMR undercut what units actually cost.

First, a tenant or advocate could file a public comment on the proposed FMR. HUD posts a proposed FMR each August and takes 30 days of comment before issuing the final rule in September. ^[1] Comments backed by local rent data, like listings or a PHA survey, could push HUD to revise the FMR upward for a specific area. This worked now and then, especially for small metros where the ACS sample was thin.

Second, a tenant facing a Payment Standard too low to find decent housing could ask their PHA for an exception Payment Standard. Under 24 CFR 982.505(d), a PHA can approve a higher payment standard for a specific family as a reasonable accommodation when a household member has a disability that requires renting in a higher-cost area or unit type. ^[9] That is a genuine avenue, not a technicality, and PHAs are legally bound to consider it.

Beyond those two paths, tenants were mostly stuck with the FMR as set. If the 2018 Payment Standard was too low to rent a unit meeting HQS (Housing Quality Standards) ^[8] at or below the ceiling, the PHA might grant a short voucher extension while the search continued. There was no general right to a higher payment.

Worth knowing: a tenant who found a unit above the Payment Standard could still lease it by covering the overage, as long as the total tenant share stayed within what the PHA judged affordable. Some PHAs were flexible on this. Others were strict.

Where can tenants and landlords find Section 8 listings that fit the 2018 and current FMRs?

Finding units under the FMR ceiling has always been the hard part of using a voucher. In 2018, the main channels were PHA referral lists, Craigslist, and a handful of specialized listing sites. The landscape has moved since then.

For current searches, hud houses for rent and hud housing for rent cover what HUD-owned and HUD-assisted inventory looks like against private-market voucher units. Those are different things, and the difference matters. apts that take section 8 runs through how to filter apartment listings by voucher acceptance.

For the 2018 context specifically, the question is usually: did a unit a tenant wanted to rent in 2018 fall inside the Payment Standard? To reconstruct that, pull the 2018 FMR from HUD's archive, check the PHA's Payment Standard for that year (PHAs publish these, and some archive them), then compare to the contract rent on the lease. That sequence matters for anyone disputing a back-payment or auditing an old HAP calculation.

Landlords advertising to voucher holders today can use go section 8 houses for rent as a reference for listing strategy, and low income houses for rent covers the broader category of income-restricted versus market-rate voucher units.

Frequently asked questions

Where can I look up the FY2018 FMR for a specific city or county?

Go to huduser.gov, open the Fair Market Rents data page, and choose FY2018 from the fiscal year dropdown. Search by state, metropolitan area, or individual county. HUD also runs an API for bulk queries. The data covers all five bedroom sizes for every metro area and non-metropolitan county in the country.

Is the FY2018 FMR the same as the rent ceiling for my Section 8 voucher in 2018?

Not exactly. The FMR is what HUD sets. Your PHA then picks a Payment Standard at 90 to 110 percent of that FMR, and that Payment Standard is your actual ceiling. PHAs can reach 120 percent with HUD approval. So your voucher's ceiling may have sat slightly above or below the published FMR depending on your PHA's policy that year.

How much did the 2018 FMR increase from FY2017?

Nationally, the weighted two-bedroom FMR rose from about $1,011 in FY2017 to about $1,054 in FY2018, a gain near 4.3 percent. Metros varied a lot. High-growth areas like Seattle and Denver saw larger jumps, while slow-growth areas saw flat or minimal increases. HUD publishes year-over-year comparison tables in its annual FMR final rule documentation.

What is the difference between a metropolitan FMR and a Small Area FMR?

A metropolitan FMR is one number for an entire metro, regardless of neighborhood. A Small Area FMR (SAFMR) is set at the ZIP code level within a metro, so higher-cost ZIP codes get a higher figure and cheaper ones get a lower figure. HUD made SAFMRs mandatory for 24 high-concentration metros starting in FY2018, aiming to let vouchers reach higher-opportunity neighborhoods.

Can a landlord charge above the 2018 FMR to a Section 8 tenant?

A landlord can ask any rent, but the PHA only pays up to its Payment Standard, which is based on the FMR. If the rent tops the Payment Standard, the tenant pays the difference. PHAs also run a rent reasonableness determination, meaning the rent has to match what unassisted tenants pay for similar units in the area.

How do HUD fair market rent 2019 figures compare to 2018?

The FY2019 national weighted two-bedroom FMR was about $1,097, up from roughly $1,054 in FY2018, a gain near 4.1 percent. The FY2019 figures took effect October 1, 2018. Growth stayed fairly steady across these two rounds, tracking the CPI rent index, before it accelerated sharply after 2021.

What is the 2018 fair market rent for a two-bedroom in rural areas?

Rural (non-metropolitan) two-bedroom FMRs in 2018 varied widely by state. The lowest sat in rural parts of Mississippi, Arkansas, and South Dakota, typically in the $580 to $640 range. Rural areas use the same 40th-percentile methodology but rely on five-year ACS estimates because of smaller samples, which makes the figures less precise than metro-area FMRs.

Does HUD change FMRs during the fiscal year, or just annually?

HUD publishes FMRs once a year, usually as a final rule in September. But HUD can issue mid-year revisions for specific areas when a public comment process shows the original figure was badly off. Those revisions run in the Federal Register. During FY2018, a small number of areas got upward revisions after stakeholder challenges.

How does the FMR affect the amount I pay as a Section 8 tenant?

Your tenant share is generally 30 percent of your adjusted monthly income, paid to the landlord. The PHA pays the rest up to its Payment Standard. If you rent a unit priced above the Payment Standard, you pay the extra on top of your 30 percent share. If the unit sits below the standard, the HAP simply covers the gap between your 30 percent and the actual rent.

Can a PHA set its Payment Standard below the 2018 FMR?

Yes. PHAs set Payment Standards anywhere from 90 to 110 percent of the FMR, so a standard 10 percent below the FMR is legal and common. PHAs in tight budget years or areas with historically lower rents sometimes settle at 90 percent. That trims the subsidy and can shrink the pool of units a voucher holder can reach.

What happened to FMRs after 2020, and should I compare 2018 figures to current ones?

FMRs rose modestly from FY2018 through FY2020, then took off. FY2022 and FY2023 brought double-digit percentage increases in many metros because of post-pandemic rent inflation. The 2018 figures now sit well below current FMRs in most markets. Comparing 2018 to current FMRs is a fair proxy for local rent inflation over that period.

Do FMRs apply to public housing units or only Housing Choice Vouchers?

FMRs mainly drive the Housing Choice Voucher program, where they set Payment Standards. They do not directly set public housing rents, which use a different formula tied to operating costs and income. FMRs also feed other HUD programs, including HOME, project-based rental assistance, and some LIHTC rent ceiling calculations, but the HCV program is the primary use.

How can I challenge an FMR that I think is wrong for my area?

Submit written comments to HUD during the 30-day public comment window after HUD posts proposed FMRs each August. Include local rent data such as listings, PHA lease data, or independent surveys. If HUD agrees the data shows a material error, it can revise the FMR in the final rule. PHAs can also petition HUD for exception payment standards where the FMR clearly understates costs.

Sources

1. HUD USER, Office of Policy Development and Research, Fair Market Rents Overview and FY2018 data: FY2018 FMRs published September 2017, effective October 1, 2017; set at 40th percentile of gross rents for recent movers in standard-quality units; national data tables available for all metro areas and counties.
2. Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, 24 CFR Part 888 – Section 8 Housing Assistance Payments Program, Fair Market Rents: FMR is defined as the 40th percentile of gross rents paid by recent movers in standard-quality units; methodology and publication requirements set in this regulation.
3. Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, 24 CFR Part 982 – Section 8 Tenant-Based Assistance: Housing Choice Voucher Program: PHAs set Payment Standards between 90 and 110 percent of the local FMR; tenant share at initial lease-up cannot exceed 40 percent of adjusted monthly income; HUD can approve up to 120 percent exception payment standards.
4. HUD USER, Small Area Fair Market Rents Final Rule and FY2018 SAFMR data: FY2018 was first year of mandatory SAFMR use for 24 metropolitan areas meeting concentration criteria; SAFMRs set at ZIP code level; criteria include at least 2,500 vouchers in use and more than 25 percent of voucher holders in high-poverty tracts.
5. HUD USER, FY2019 Fair Market Rents documentation: FY2019 national weighted average two-bedroom FMR was approximately $1,097, effective October 1, 2018.
6. HUD USER, FY2020 Fair Market Rents documentation: FY2020 national weighted average two-bedroom FMR was approximately $1,139, effective October 1, 2019.
7. Urban Institute, 'Do Housing Voucher Payment Standards Keep Pace with Rising Rents?' (2019): Payment Standards in many large cities had drifted below the local FMR due to PHA inaction on annual updates, limiting voucher holders' unit choices in rising-rent markets.
8. HUD, Housing Choice Voucher Program Guidebook (7420.10G), Chapter on Rent Reasonableness: PHAs must conduct rent reasonableness determinations comparing requested rent to unassisted comparable units; rents above Payment Standard require tenant to pay the difference.
9. Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, 24 CFR 982.505(d) – Exception payment standards as reasonable accommodation: PHAs may approve exception payment standards as a reasonable accommodation for families with disabilities that require access to higher-cost units or areas.
10. Federal Register, HUD Final Rule on Small Area Fair Market Rents (November 2016, effective FY2018): Final rule establishing mandatory SAFMR use for 24 high-concentration metros, effective with FY2018 FMR schedule published September 2017.
11. U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey program overview: HUD uses ACS one-year and five-year microdata as primary input for FMR calculations; smaller areas use five-year estimates due to sample size constraints.
12. HUD USER, FY2018 FMR Federal Register Notice and final rule: HUD applied CPI rent-of-primary-residence trend factors to adjust ACS survey data forward to the effective date; bedroom-size ratios derived from two-bedroom anchor for FY2018.