Conforming Loan Limits in 2026: Baseline, High-Cost Ceiling, and Your County

What is the conforming loan limit in 2026?

For 2026, the baseline conforming loan limit is $832,750 for a one-unit property in most U.S. counties, set by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and effective for loans originated on or after Jan 1, 2026.

Here's why that number matters more than most buyers realize. A conventional conforming loan is one that Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac can buy, and the loan amount is the first gate: at or under your county's limit, the loan can conform; over it, it can't, no matter how strong the rest of your file is. FHFA recalculates the limit every year using its house price index, so the line moves with national home values. The limit applies to the loan amount, not the purchase price. You can buy a home priced above the limit with a conventional loan as long as your down payment brings the loan itself under the line. What it takes to qualify once you're under that line lives in the conventional loan requirements guide.

What is the limit in high-cost areas or in my county?

It depends on the county, and that's the part most articles skip. FHFA assigns designated high-cost counties a one-unit limit above the $832,750 baseline, up to a ceiling of $1,249,125, which is 150% of the baseline.

So there is no single national cap. A high-cost county's limit is set from its local median home value, which means plenty of counties land somewhere between the baseline and the ceiling rather than at either end. The county that matters is the one where the property sits, not where you live now. The clean way to get your number is the FHFA conforming loan limit lookup, which lists every county's values for the year. I check it at the start of any file near the line, because the answer changes the product, the down payment math, and sometimes the house-hunting budget itself. If you're shopping near your county's limit, the conventional down payment guide shows how the down payment side of that math works.

How did the conforming limit change from 2025 to 2026?

The one-unit baseline rose from $806,500 in 2025 to $832,750 in 2026, an increase of $26,250, or about 3.3%, per the FHFA.

The annual reset isn't arbitrary. Federal law ties the baseline to FHFA's house price index, so when national home values rise, the limit rises with them the following January. The practical effect: a loan amount that was jumbo in 2025 may be conforming in 2026 without anything about the borrower changing. If you were quoted jumbo terms late last year, or you put a purchase on hold because the numbers ran past the line, it's worth re-checking against the new limit. The high-cost ceiling moves in lockstep, since it's defined as 150% of whatever the baseline becomes.

• 2025 one-unit baseline: $806,500
• 2026 one-unit baseline: $832,750
• Change: +$26,250 (about 3.3%)

What are the limits for multi-unit (2-4 unit) properties?

Higher. FHFA publishes separate, larger conforming limits for two-, three-, and four-unit properties, in both baseline and high-cost counties. The figures on this page are the one-unit limits only.

I'm not going to print the multi-unit numbers here and let them go stale; the FHFA lookup has the current values for every unit count and every county, straight from the source. The takeaway for buyers is simpler: a duplex, triplex, or fourplex gets meaningfully more conforming room than a single-family home in the same county, which is one reason house-hacking buyers often stay conventional at price points that would push a one-unit purchase into jumbo territory. If the multi-unit plan is an investment rather than your residence, that's its own conversation with its own rules, and the upcoming conventional investment-property guide in the conventional loan guide covers it.

What happens above the conforming limit?

A loan above your county's limit is non-conforming, better known as a jumbo loan: a separate product, not part of these conventional conforming guides. It's not a worse loan; it's a different one, with its own underwriting standards because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can't buy it.

Buyers near the line usually have three honest paths. First, go jumbo and qualify under jumbo standards; that product lives at the jumbo loan guide, and the jumbo loan limits page covers exactly where conforming ends and jumbo begins (a high-balance loan in a high-cost county is still conforming, not jumbo). I won't duplicate it here. Second, bring a larger down payment so the loan amount itself stays at or under the conforming limit, even on a higher-priced home. Third, on a multi-unit purchase, remember the higher unit-count limits above may already cover you. Which path wins depends on your cash, your county, and the rest of your file, and it's exactly the kind of both-options-side-by-side math I like to run with clients before they write an offer.

One adjacent note for veterans: VA loans interact with the conforming limit differently. The VA doesn't cap how much you can borrow, but for veterans with reduced entitlement, the conforming limit feeds the entitlement math that decides whether a down payment is needed. That's a different system from the conventional cutoff on this page, and I've covered it in the VA entitlement and loan limits guide.