The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development calculates income limits to determine whether households are eligible for federally-funded housing assistance programs, including public housing, Section 8 project-based, Housing Choice Vouchers, and others. These limits are created using American Community Survey data on household incomes from the Census Bureau.
Using the median family income as the “Area Median Income” (AMI), HUD produces income limits for 30, 50, and 80 percent of AMI, further broken down by number of persons within a household. These levels correspond to common terms to describe these income ranges:
- Between 80 and 50 percent AMI is low-income,
- Between 50 and 30 percent AMI is very low-income, and
- Below 30 percent AMI is extremely low-income.
Income limits for localities in metropolitan areas are provided at
that regional level, so a central city and adjacent suburban county will
often share AMI values. Non-metropolitan localities have their AMI
limits calculated separately.
HUD AMI limits
This dashboard shows HUD AMI limits by income category and household
size for every locality in Virginia. If a locality is in an area where
AMI values are set regionally, the chart title will display that
geography’s name. Prior year AMI limits are shown back to 2017.
