LandlordVoucher assembles and normalizes public Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program data from a handful of federal and state sources. This page lists every source, explains how we use it, and documents the attribution and licensing terms that apply. "As of" dates appear next to every data point on the site; this page explains where that number came from.
1. Source inventory
| Dataset | Publisher | What we use | License |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fair Market Rents (FMR) | U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) | Annual FMRs by bedroom count, 1983–2026 (43 fiscal years), at county and sub-county level. Source: FMR_All_1983_2026.csv bulk file. |
Public domain (17 U.S.C. § 105) |
| Small Area Fair Market Rents (SAFMR) | HUD | ZIP-level SAFMRs for FY2011–FY2026. 2011–2017 are hypothetical research values (pre-rule); 2018–2026 are operational values used by HUD-mandated SAFMR PHAs. | Public domain (17 U.S.C. § 105) |
| HUD Mandatory SAFMR PHA List | HUD | The list of 414 PHAs required by rule to use SAFMRs instead of metro FMRs. | Public domain |
| Income Limits | HUD | Area Median Income (AMI), Low/Very Low/Extremely Low Income limits for every metro and non-metro area, by household size. | Public domain |
| Public Housing Authority (PHA) Profiles | HUD | Authoritative PHA codes, names, addresses, voucher counts, program participation. Source: HUD ArcGIS PHA feature service. | Public domain (HUD open data) |
| PHA Payment Standards | Individual PHAs | Each PHA's published payment standard, usually 100%–110% of FMR or SAFMR. Collected from PHA websites, annual plans, and direct email submissions. Source and "as of" date cited on each ZIP lookup. | Public records (published by government agencies for public use) |
| ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs) | U.S. Census Bureau | ZCTA polygons and centroids for all active U.S. ZIPs, used for the ZIP-boundary maps and geographic calculations. | Public domain |
| HUD USPS ZIP Crosswalk | HUD & USPS (via HUDUser) | ZIP-to-county crosswalk with residential ratios, used to assign ZIPs to their primary county for FMR lookups. | Public |
| ArcGIS Public Housing Authorities layer | HUD (hosted on ArcGIS) | Live PHA office locations used to place pins on payment-standards maps. | Public (HUD open data) |
2. How we process the data
We load each source into our Supabase PostgreSQL database using idempotent, resumable ingestion scripts. Every insert is tagged with a source_url, source_file, and effective_date so individual values can be traced back to the exact source record. The database also retains the safmr_type flag that distinguishes hypothetical SAFMRs (pre-2018) from operational ones, and a uses_safmr flag on each PHA indicating whether HUD has designated it as SAFMR-mandatory.
3. Confidence scoring
Every payment standard shown on the site carries a confidence level:
- High — scraped from the PHA's official website or direct email, verified within 90 days, within 90%–120% of FMR as required by 24 CFR 982.503.
- Medium — scraped or manually entered from secondary source, needs verification.
- Low — derived from SAFMR × typical multiplier, or aged past 180 days without verification.
Confidence appears as a tooltip on every data display.
4. Sub-county FMR precision (New England)
In the six New England states (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT), HUD publishes FMRs at the town (sub-county) level rather than the county level. Our current ZIP-to-county crosswalk resolves only to the county level, so sub-county FMRs within a county are aggregated to the county mean. This affects approximately 20 counties that have intra-county FMR variation. We are building a ZIP-to-COUSUB crosswalk for sub-county resolution in a future release. Until then, the "As of" note on New England lookups includes a sub-county precision caveat.
5. Deep-link attribution on every data point
Wherever we display a specific FMR, SAFMR, income limit, or payment standard, we show the exact HUD publication year, the effective date, and a link back to the source document when we have one. You can reproduce any number we show by following that link.
6. Your rights to the data
For personal use, research, education, and journalism, you are free to cite and reference data displayed on the site. Please credit LandlordVoucher.com and the original publisher (HUD, Census, etc.). For bulk data access or commercial redistribution, see Data Licensing.
7. Report a data issue
If you believe a number on the site is wrong or out of date, email admin@landlordvoucher.com with the URL and the nature of the issue. We review data-correction requests within one business day and typically publish fixes within one week.
8. Contact
VoucherHost LLC · admin@landlordvoucher.com