HUD Notice PIH 2026-20: HCV Payment Standards Back to 110%

HUD Notice PIH 2026-20, issued August 10, 2026, rescinds the waiver that let Emergency Housing Voucher and Stability Voucher administrators set an HCV payment standard as high as 120 percent of Fair Market Rent. The basic range for both programs goes back to the ordinary 90 percent floor and 110 percent ceiling, and PHAs have 60 days from the issue date to comply. This is what the notice actually changes, who the deadline reaches, and what the two-year HAP rule does to the files that move.

What changed in the HCV payment standard under Notice PIH 2026-20?

HUD issued Notice PIH 2026-20 on August 10, 2026. It makes one change, and it is a rescission rather than a new requirement.

Emergency Housing Voucher (EHV) administrators have operated since Notice PIH 2021-15, and Stability Voucher (SV) administrators since Notice PIH 2022-24, under a waiver of 24 CFR 982.503(c)(1). That waiver let a PHA set a payment standard anywhere from 90 to 120 percent of the published Fair Market Rent for a unit size, instead of the usual 90 to 110 percent, and no HUD approval was required to establish one inside that range. The authority came from Section 3202 of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 for EHV and from the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022 for SV.

That 120 percent ceiling is now gone. In the text of the notice, HUD states:

"HUD has determined that this waiver and alternative requirement is no longer necessary and may be causing undue financial strain on public housing agency (PHA) HCV budgets."

What the PHA must do instead

The notice is explicit about the replacement rule:

"PHAs must follow the regulations at 24 CFR 982.503(c) regarding the payment standard basic range of 90 to 110 percent of the Fair Market Rent (FMR) and 24 CFR 982.503(d) for any exception payment standard amounts above 110 percent of the FMR."

So the basic range for EHV and SV reverts to the ordinary HCV range. Anything above 110 percent of FMR now has to go through the exception payment standard process in 982.503(d), the same way it does for a regular voucher. The blanket 120 percent authority is not available for these two voucher types any more.

This is the only change the notice makes. HUD says all other areas of Notices PIH 2021-15 and PIH 2022-24 remain in effect.

Who is bound by the 60-day compliance deadline?

The notice sets a 60-day compliance deadline running from its August 10, 2026 issue date. Counting 60 days forward puts that at October 9, 2026.

The deadline does not sweep in every assisted family. It reaches two populations:

New SV admissions

New admissions are an SV-only concern. Per Notice PIH 2025-07, there are no new admissions to the EHV program at all, so the new-admissions half of this deadline applies exclusively to the Stability Voucher program.

Current EHV and SV families who move

For families already under a HAP contract, the trigger is a move to a new unit. A current EHV or SV family that stays put is not forced into an immediate recalculation by this notice. The rule applies prospectively, at the next new unit.

You can see how these PIH updates fit into the broader regulatory landscape by reviewing our March 2026 PIH Rescissions: Affordable Housing Impact analysis, which covers similar shifts in program requirements.

What happens to current families under the HAP contract?

When a current family moves to a new unit after the deadline, the PHA sets the payment standard from the 90 to 110 percent basic range. That new standard may well be lower than the one the family had under the waiver. At that point a second rule takes over.

The two-year hold on a decreased payment standard

The notice reminds readers that 24 CFR 982.505(c)(3) still applies to current EHV and SV families. Under that rule, a decreased payment standard may not be used to recalculate the family's Housing Assistance Payment any earlier than two years after the effective date of the decrease.

That creates two numbers in one file. The tenant rent share is calculated against the new, lower payment standard immediately at the move-in. The HAP subsidy stays on the calculation derived from the old, higher standard for a full 24 months. The PHA has to carry both figures and has to know the effective date of the decrease precisely, because the recalculation is not due until that date plus two years.

What this means at the next HAP recalculation

The notice does not say this next part. It is ExactEstate's reading of how the 60-day deadline and the two-year rule interact, and it should be checked against your own HUD field office guidance.

Suppose a PHA lowers a payment standard for a current family moving to a new unit in September 2026. The file carries the decreased standard from that date. The HAP recalculation, though, would not come due until September 2028. For 24 months the file holds two payment standard figures: the tenant share tracked against the new one, the subsidy against the old one. At the 24-month mark the file needs a precise recalculation event to bring the subsidy onto the current standard. Miss that window and the miscalculation surfaces in the next HAP submission, not at the moment it was made.

That is a two-year-deep tickler on a file that will have changed hands at least once by then. It is worth deciding now where that date lives and what raises it.

For a deeper dive into maintaining compliance across complex voucher portfolios, our Affordable Housing Compliance Simplified: A 2026 Guide outlines the core tracking requirements.

What exception payment standards remain available?

Rescinding the 120 percent waiver does not strip the PHA of every route above 110 percent. The notice is direct about this: any exception payment standards a PHA has already adopted for its HCV program under existing regulatory requirements are not impacted by the rescission.

What changes is the process, not the ceiling. A payment standard above 110 percent of FMR for an EHV or SV family now requires the exception payment standard process in 24 CFR 982.503(d) rather than the blanket authority the waiver granted.

PHA compliance checklist for the October 9 deadline

Questions on the notice itself go to EHV@hud.gov or StabilityVouchers@hud.gov, as applicable — HUD names both addresses in the notice.