Don't Include Approved Rent Subsidies When Calculating Household Income and Rent

Don’t include the value of any approved federal or state rent subsidies the owner gets for a household when you calculate the household’s income and rent. If you do, you may charge the household too much rent. Or you may lose out on renting to a qualified household because you incorrectly determined that it wasn’t qualified.

A subsidy is considered “approved” only if the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury has approved it. The most common examples of approved subsidies are payment under RD Section 515 and Section 8. If a subsidy isn’t approved, such as private rental assistance, you must count it in your income and rent calculations.