Housing agencies across the country are working against a deadline that lands in the first half of October. It was set on August 10, when HUD issued a four-page notice to every public housing agency that runs a voucher program, giving them 60 days to bring two special voucher programs back inside a rent ceiling they had been allowed to exceed since 2021. The programs are the Emergency Housing Voucher and the Stability Voucher, and the change is not a funding cut. It is a change to the maximum rent the subsidy will be calculated against.
How a payment standard sets the ceiling on a voucher
A payment standard is the number a housing agency plugs into the subsidy formula for each bedroom size in its area. It is not the maximum rent a landlord may charge and it is not what a family pays. It is the cap on the rent figure the agency will use when it works out the monthly housing assistance payment, and anything a unit costs above that cap is carried entirely by the household.
Agencies set that number as a percentage of the Fair Market Rent that HUD publishes for the area. Under 24 CFR 982.503, the basic range runs from 90 percent up to 110 percent of the published Fair Market Rent, and an agency may pick any figure inside that band without asking HUD first. Going above 110 percent is possible, but it requires the separate exception process in the same regulation, which involves notifying HUD, meeting specific criteria, or in most cases submitting rental market data and obtaining approval.
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The 120 percent waiver HUD struck from PIH 2021-15 and 2022-24
Two older notices had carved out an exception. Notice PIH 2021-15, published in May 2021, set the operating rules for the Emergency Housing Voucher program. Notice PIH 2022-24, published in August 2022, did the same for the Stability Voucher program. Both contained identical language waiving the basic range and letting an agency set a payment standard anywhere between 90 percent and 120 percent of the published Fair Market Rent without HUD approval.
That language is now gone. Notice PIH 2026-20 quotes the waiver in full and then strikes it from both program notices. The authority for the original flexibility came from Section 3202 of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 on the emergency voucher side and from the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022 on the stability voucher side. HUD’s stated reason for pulling it is short: the department has determined the waiver “is no longer necessary and may be causing undue financial strain on public housing agency HCV budgets.” The notice was signed by Benjamin Hobbs, Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing, and it states plainly that this is the only change it makes.
Which families the 60-day clock reaches
Section IV of the notice is specific about who is affected first. Within 60 days of the August 10 issue date, which puts the deadline at roughly October 9, agencies must be in compliance for two groups: new admissions to the Stability Voucher program, and current Emergency Housing Voucher or Stability Voucher families who move to a new unit.
For a household in that second group, the practical effect is a lower ceiling on the next lease. A family that has been searching in a market where the agency had set the standard near 120 percent of Fair Market Rent will find the same agency working from a number no higher than 110 percent unless an exception standard applies. The subsidy is calculated against the lower figure, and the difference between that figure and the actual rent falls to the household. Families who stay in their current unit are in a different position, which the notice addresses separately.
The two-year rule in 24 CFR 982.505(c)(3)
The notice reminds agencies that the regulation at 24 CFR 982.505(c)(3) still governs decreases in payment standards during the term of a housing assistance payment contract. Under that provision, a decreased payment standard may not be used to recalculate a family’s assistance payment any earlier than two years after the effective date of the decrease.
That is the buffer for households already under contract and staying put. It does not apply to a family that moves, because a move starts a new contract and the new payment standard governs from the outset. So the same rescission produces two very different timelines depending on a single decision: renew in place, or relocate.
Closed emergency voucher admissions and untouched exception standards
Two clarifications in the notice keep the scope narrow. The first is that there are no new admissions to the Emergency Housing Voucher program at all, a status HUD attributes to its earlier Notice PIH 2025-07 and restates here as a reminder rather than a new decision. The second is that any exception payment standards an agency has already adopted for its regular Housing Choice Voucher program under existing regulatory requirements are not affected by this rescission.
Everything else in the two program notices remains in force, and the current versions sit alongside the rest of HUD’s voucher guidance for housing agencies. HUD directs questions to its EHV and Stability Voucher mailboxes and states that the notice stays in effect until amended, superseded, or rescinded, which means the 90 to 110 percent band is the operative rule for these two programs indefinitely and not for a defined trial period.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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