FHA Loan Limits in 2026 What Your County Allows

What is the FHA loan limit in 2026?

Two anchor numbers, per HUD ML 2025-23: a floor of $541,287 and a high-cost ceiling of $1,249,125 for one-unit homes, effective for case numbers assigned on or after January 1, 2026.

How are FHA loan limits set?

By formula, per HUD: the floor is 65% of the national conforming loan limit that FHFA publishes ($832,750 for 2026), the ceiling is 150% of it, and counties in between get 115% of their area median home price.

That's why FHA limits move every year: when FHFA raises the conforming limit with national home prices, the FHA floor and ceiling ride along automatically, and HUD publishes the new county table each December in a Mortgagee Letter. It's also why the high-cost FHA ceiling happens to be a familiar number: 150% of conforming is the same arithmetic other programs use for their high-cost tiers. Knowing the formula means you never have to memorize the numbers; you just need this year's inputs, which live in this site's data file and refresh each January.

What is the FHA loan limit in my county?

Check HUD's FHA mortgage limits lookup: pick your state and county and it returns the exact figure, per HUD. Most counties nationwide sit at the floor of $541,287.

Across the twelve states I'm licensed in, most markets are floor counties, with high-cost pockets, parts of coastal California among them, running above it toward the ceiling. The lookup takes thirty seconds, or send me the ZIP code and I'll pull it with the rest of your numbers. One nuance worth knowing: the limit that applies is the one in effect when your FHA case number is assigned, not when you started shopping, which matters mostly around the January changeover.

Do FHA limits differ for multi-unit properties?

Yes. Duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes carry higher limits than one-unit homes, scaled by unit count, county by county, per HUD's limit table.

That pairs nicely with an FHA feature buyers forget: you can buy a 2-4 unit property with FHA's low down payment as long as you live in one unit. The owner-occupied fourplex is one of the most accessible ways into real estate, and the higher multi-unit limit is what makes it financeable in real markets. The exact multi-unit figures are county-specific, so they come from the same HUD lookup, not from a national table.

What if the home costs more than the FHA limit?

The limit caps the loan, not the purchase. In a floor county, a $600,000 home with a maximum FHA loan of $541,287 means roughly $58,713 has to come from your down payment, computed from the 2026 floor, before the usual 3.5% minimum and financed-UFMIP details refine the math.

Sometimes that's the right structure; more often, a price that far above the FHA limit is the signal to compare programs, since conventional limits run higher and jumbo sits above those (the jumbo loan limits page shows where the conforming line falls and how a high-balance loan differs from a jumbo). That comparison belongs on paper, with the mortgage-insurance math included, and it's exactly the kind of side-by-side I build. This example is an estimate for illustration, not a quote.