HUD Handbook 4350.3: Eligibility, Rent, and Recertification

HUD Handbook 4350.3 is the federal rulebook that governs subsidized multifamily housing: it sets who qualifies, how your rent is calculated from your income, what your lease must include, and the deadlines that protect (or end) your assistance. If you live in or are applying to a property with project-based Section 8, Section 202 housing for the elderly, Section 811 housing for people with disabilities, or a handful of older HUD programs, this is the handbook your property manager is following.¹ The rules are written for owners and managers, but they define your day-to-day experience as a resident.

Which Properties the Handbook Covers

The handbook applies to a specific list of federally assisted multifamily programs. The active ones you’re most likely to encounter are Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance, Section 202 (elderly), and Section 811 (persons with disabilities). It also still governs older programs like Section 236, Section 221(d)(3) Below Market Interest Rate, Rent Supplement, and Rental Assistance Payment properties.¹

If your assistance is a Housing Choice Voucher (tenant-based Section 8) or you live in public housing operated by a housing authority, this handbook is not the one that controls your tenancy. Different HUD guidance applies. Ask your property manager which program yours is if you’re not sure.

Who Qualifies

Eligibility starts with income. Your household’s income cannot exceed the limits HUD sets for your area and family size. Those limits are tied to area median family income: “very low-income” is at or below 50% of the area median, and “low-income” is at or below 80%.² Different programs target different tiers, and HUD updates the numbers annually.

Every household member must be either a U.S. citizen or a noncitizen with eligible immigration status. The property manager verifies status for each family member regardless of age before you move in. You must also provide Social Security Numbers for everyone in the household, except for noncitizens who are not claiming eligible status.³

Every adult, plus the head of household, spouse, or co-head of any age, must sign HUD consent forms (HUD-9887 and HUD-9887-A) authorizing the owner and HUD to verify income and other personal information. Refusing to sign, or failing to produce the required documents, results in denial of the application or termination of assistance if you’re already housed.⁴

Screening

Before approving you, the property manager reviews your past tenancy history for lease violations, runs a criminal background check, and checks lifetime sex offender registration records in every state where household members have lived.⁵ Every property must keep a written tenant selection plan that explains how its waiting list works, what preferences apply, and how applications are processed. You can ask to see it.

Students

College and university students face extra hurdles for Section 8 project-based assistance. You’re ineligible only if all of these apply: you’re enrolled in higher education, under 24, unmarried, not a veteran, without a dependent child, not disabled and receiving Section 8 as of November 30, 2005, not living with parents who receive Section 8, and neither you nor your parents independently qualify for Section 8 on income.⁵ Any one of those not applying to you breaks the restriction. Marriage alone, a dependent child alone, or veteran status alone exempts you.

For the non-Section-8 programs the handbook covers, the student test is different: you must be of legal contract age, or have run your own household separate from your parents for at least a year, or meet the Department of Education’s independent student definition, and you cannot be claimed as a dependent on your parents’ taxes.⁵ Noncitizen students on F-1 or M-1 visas are ineligible for any form of assistance under the handbook, and so are their noncitizen family members.

How the Waiting List Ranks You

Waiting lists aren’t strictly first-come, first-served. Federal preferences come first: for certain property types, applicants displaced by government action or a presidentially declared disaster must be offered housing ahead of others. Below federal preferences, properties can apply preferences required by state or local law, including preferences for military veterans (which need prior HUD approval).⁵

Owners can then adopt their own preferences, subordinate to the others, if they’re written into the tenant selection plan. Common ones include residency in a local area, working families, families that include a person with a disability, and survivors of domestic violence, dating violence, or stalking. Every preference has to be consistent with fair housing law. If you want to know exactly how your property ranks applicants, ask to see the tenant selection plan.

How Your Rent Is Calculated

Your rent isn’t a market number. It’s calculated from your income using the Total Tenant Payment (TTP) formula. Your TTP is the highest of:

30% of monthly adjusted income
10% of monthly gross income
The minimum rent

For most families, 30% of adjusted income is the highest of the three and becomes the TTP.⁶

Annual Income Versus Adjusted Income

Annual income covers nearly everything household members 18 and over expect to receive over the coming 12 months, plus unearned income received on behalf of minors. Wages, Social Security, pensions, and public assistance all count. Excluded from annual income: earned income of children under 18, foster care payments, insurance settlements for personal or property losses, medical cost reimbursements, and certain student financial aid.⁷

Adjusted income is annual income minus specific deductions: a per-dependent allowance, an allowance for elderly or disabled families, unreimbursed medical and attendant care expenses (for elderly and disabled families) above a threshold, and reasonable childcare costs that let a household member work or attend school.⁸ The dependent and elderly/disabled amounts adjust each year for inflation, so your manager should use the current figures.

The medical deduction threshold changed under the Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act (HOTMA). Medical expenses used to be deductible above 3% of annual income. That threshold is now 10%, with a hardship phase-in for families who were already claiming the deduction before January 2024.⁸

Assets Under HOTMA

If your household has savings or investments, whether they add to your income depends on how much you have. Under HOTMA, if your net family assets total $52,787 or less (the 2026 inflation-adjusted threshold), only the actual income those assets produce counts; nothing extra gets imputed. If assets exceed that threshold and the actual return can’t be calculated, HUD allows imputed income based on a passbook savings rate.⁹ Before HOTMA, imputed income kicked in at just $5,000 in assets, which penalized families for building modest savings.

Minimum Rent and the Hardship Exemption

For Section 8 project-based and similar programs, the minimum rent is $25 a month. Even at zero income you owe at least that.¹⁰ But there’s a hardship exemption many tenants don’t know to ask for. You can request it if you’re facing:

Loss of eligibility for, or a pending determination on, a federal, state, or local assistance program
Risk of eviction because you can’t pay the minimum rent
A decrease in income from job loss or changed circumstances
A death in the family

Once you request the exemption, the property must suspend the minimum rent starting the following month while it determines whether you qualify, and it cannot evict you for nonpayment of minimum rent during the review.¹⁰

Utility Allowance

If you pay utilities directly, a utility allowance gets subtracted from your TTP to arrive at what you actually pay the property. If the allowance is larger than your TTP, you receive a utility reimbursement instead of paying rent.⁵ Allowances are set by the property and reviewed periodically, so if local utility costs jump, ask when the next update is scheduled.

Income Verification and What Happens If You Underreport

Property owners must use HUD’s Enterprise Income Verification (EIV) system to cross-check what you report against Social Security Administration data and the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Directory of New Hires.¹¹ Discrepancies between your paperwork and those databases show up during recertification.

You’re required to report income and household changes promptly. When you do, the property may run an interim recertification and adjust your rent. Your specific reporting deadline should be in your lease or house rules.

If a recertification uncovers income you didn’t report, the property calculates the difference between what you paid and what you should have paid. HUD limits the lookback to five years. The owner then decides whether the underreporting was accidental or intentional.⁵ Consequences run from a repayment agreement, to termination of assistance, to criminal prosecution in flagrant cases. If you realize you missed reporting something, raising it yourself at your next recertification is far better than letting EIV flag it.

Your Lease and What It Must Protect

The lease at a subsidized property isn’t a standard rental agreement. It has to include specific HUD-required provisions, and the handbook publishes model forms for each program. Owners must keep units and common areas decent, safe, and sanitary.

Security Deposits

For Section 8 project-based properties, the security deposit is capped at one month’s Total Tenant Payment (the family’s gross contribution in the regulation).¹² Because your rent is income-based, so is the deposit.

VAWA

Every applicant and tenant must receive a written notice of rights under the Violence Against Women Act. You cannot be denied housing, denied assistance, terminated from the program, or evicted because you are or have been a victim of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking, if you otherwise qualify.¹³ VAWA also gives you a framework to break a lease or transfer units for safety reasons without losing your assistance.

Assistance Animals

Assistance animals aren’t pets under HUD rules. If you have a disability and need an animal for support, the property must allow it as a reasonable accommodation, and pet policies, pet deposits, and monthly pet fees can’t be applied to it.¹⁴ That covers animals that live in the unit and those that visit. The property can ask for documentation of the disability-related need when it isn’t obvious, but not for your diagnosis, treatment details, or medical records beyond establishing the link.

Guests and Unauthorized Occupants

Guest rules defer to state and local law and the property’s own house rules. An unauthorized occupant is someone staying in your unit with your permission who isn’t on the lease or approved by management, and every property is required to have a consistent written policy.¹⁵ How many days a guest can stay before becoming unauthorized varies. Letting someone live with you off-lease is one of the most common lease violations. If a family member or friend needs to stay longer than a short visit, talk to management about adding them.

Reasonable Accommodations

The handbook requires property owners to adjust rules, policies, practices, and procedures so residents and applicants with disabilities have equal opportunity to use and enjoy their housing.⁵ You can request an accommodation yourself, or a family member or someone acting on your behalf can. Requests can be oral or written, though writing creates a record. If you need help drafting the request, the property is expected to help.

When verifying a disability for eligibility or for a deduction, the property can ask only for the minimum information needed to confirm you meet the applicable definition. Diagnosis, treatment plan, and medical history are off limits.¹⁶

If a property calls your request unreasonable, it can’t just close the file. HUD requires an “interactive dialogue” to see whether some alternative would meet your need.⁵ If you believe a denial was wrong, you can file a fair housing complaint with HUD alongside using the property’s internal process.

Annual Recertification

Every year you have to go through recertification to keep your assistance. You update income, assets, and household composition, and you sit for an interview. The property must send you a first reminder at least 120 days before your recertification anniversary, so you have real time to gather documents.

Missing your recertification has a steep consequence: your assistance ends and you owe the full unsubsidized market rent for the unit. For most subsidized households, that’s unaffordable overnight. If you’re having trouble getting documents together or scheduling the interview, contact the property well before the deadline. Owners generally prefer to work with you than to process a termination.

Termination and Eviction

Ending a tenancy in subsidized housing takes more than it does in the private market. An owner can only terminate your tenancy for a material lease violation, repeated minor violations, nonpayment of rent, or other good cause. The termination notice must be in writing, state the reason with enough detail for you to prepare a response, and tell you that the owner can only enforce the termination by filing a court action where you can present a defense.¹⁷

Nonpayment and “other good cause” terminations require at least 30 days’ notice. Material lease violations follow your lease and state law, which may be shorter.¹⁷ Not responding to the termination notice does not waive your right to contest the eviction. The owner still has to go to court, and you can raise your defense there.

Deadlines to Challenge a Denial or Termination

The handbook gives you narrow windows to push back, and they matter.

If your application is denied, the property must send a written rejection notice. You have 14 days to respond in writing or request a meeting with the owner. For denials based on immigration status after a failed verification, you get 30 days to request a hearing.⁵

If you’re a current tenant and the property is terminating your assistance (not evicting you from the unit, but ending the subsidy), you have 10 calendar days from the date of the termination notice to request a meeting with the owner.⁵ Count the days from the moment any notice arrives and respond in writing. That single step protects more housing than any other action a resident can take under this handbook.

1
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Occupancy Requirements of Subsidized Multifamily Housing Programs 4350.3
2
HUD User. Methodology for Determining Section 8 Income Limits
3
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Owner-Agent Letter – Citizenship and Immigration Status Verification – January 2026
4
HUD.gov. HUD Forms 9887 and 9887-A Fact Sheet and Consent Forms
5
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD Handbook 4350.3 – Occupancy Requirements of Subsidized Programs
6
eCFR. 24 CFR 5.628 – Total Tenant Payment
7
eCFR. 24 CFR 5.609 – Annual Income
8
GovInfo. 24 CFR 5.611 – Adjusted Income
9
HUD User. 2026 HUD Inflation-Adjusted Values
10
eCFR. 24 CFR 5.630 – Minimum Rent
11
eCFR. 24 CFR 5.233 – Mandated Use of HUD’s Enterprise Income Verification System
12
eCFR. 24 CFR 886.116 – Security and Utility Deposits
13
eCFR. 24 CFR 5.2005 – VAWA Protections
14
eCFR. 24 CFR 5.303 – Exclusion for Animals That Assist, Support, or Provide Service to Persons with Disabilities
15
HUD.gov. Glossary – HUD Occupancy Handbook 4350.3 REV-1
16
HUD. Appendix 6-B – Verification of Disability Instructions to Owners and Sample Formats
17
eCFR. 24 CFR 247.4 – Termination Notice