Fair Market Rent (FMR) is one of the most important — and most misunderstood — numbers in US housing policy. It is the federal rent benchmark, published every year by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and it quietly determines how much rent the Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) program will cover for millions of households.
FMR is a benchmark, not a rent cap or a market average. Verify the current figure on huduser.gov before relying on it.
The definition
FMR is HUD’s estimate of the 40th-percentile gross rent for a modest, non-luxury unit in a given FMR area. Two details matter:
- Gross rent means contract rent plus the tenant-paid utilities (electricity, gas, water). It is the all-in cost of renting, not just the base rent.
- 40th percentile means 40% of standard-quality units in the area rent for less than the FMR. HUD uses the 40th percentile (not the median) by default, which is one reason FMR sits below typical advertised rents.
How HUD calculates it
Each federal fiscal year (which starts October 1), HUD:
- Starts from American Community Survey (ACS) gross-rent data for each area, focusing on recent movers so the figure reflects current conditions.
- Applies a recent-mover factor and a current-year inflation factor to trend the estimate forward.
- Anchors on the 2-bedroom FMR, then derives studio, 1-, 3- and 4-bedroom figures using national bedroom-ratio adjustments.
The result is one value per bedroom size for every metro area and non-metro county.
The FY2026 national picture
| Unit size | National median FMR / mo |
|---|---|
| Studio | $752 |
| 1-bedroom | $801 |
| 2-bedroom | $975 |
| 3-bedroom | $1,303 |
| 4-bedroom | $1,493 |
The 2-bedroom FMR ranges from about $776 in the lowest-rent areas to $4,214 in the highest. See the most expensive metros and cheapest metros for the extremes, or look up FMR by state and by metro area.
What FMR is used for
The big one is the Housing Choice Voucher program: public housing agencies set payment standards at roughly 90–110% of the local FMR (see how Section 8 uses FMR). FMR also feeds the Moderate Rehabilitation program and several rent-reasonableness and emergency-assistance rules.
To check how your own rent compares with the local FMR, use the free rent-vs-FMR calculator.