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Rent Affordability Calculator

With gross annual income 72000 usd, other monthly debt payments 450 usd, rent affordability comes to $1,680.00 — rent you can support. It is reached in 6 steps, the last of which is min(1680, 1710), and each one is printed on the page with its numbers filled in. The formula is the one published by HUD, not an approximation fitted to it.

What rent your income supports under both the 30% rule and the stricter 28/36 debt-to-income test.

Formula and sources checked · How we check

Gross annual income 72000, Other monthly debt payments 450

$1,680.00

Rent you can support for the example below. Editing a field recomputes the calculator below; this figure holds the answer the page was loaded with.

It is written into the HTML rather than drawn by a script, so a search engine reading this page without running JavaScript still finds an answer.

Rent you can support
$1,680.00
Gross monthly income
72000 / 126,000
The 30% rule
6000 * 0.31,800
28% front-end limit
6000 * 0.281,680
36% back-end limit, less your other debts
max(6000 * 0.36 - 450, 0)1,710
Rent you can support
min(1680, 1710)1,680
Landlord 40× monthly rent test allows
72000 / 401,800

General guidance, not a lending decision. Landlord and lender criteria vary.

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Worked example

$72,000 a year is $6,000 a month. The 30% rule allows $1,800, but with $450 of other debt the 28/36 test caps you at $1,680 — the debts, not the income, are the binding constraint. Many landlords also want annual income of at least 40× the rent, which allows $1,800 here.

How to work it out yourself

  1. 1.Use gross annual income, before tax. Landlords and letting agents screen on gross whatever your take-home is.
  2. 2.Enter the monthly debt payments a credit check would show. They come off the back-end limit, which is often the binding one.
  3. 3.The answer is the lower of two limits: 30% of income, and 36% of income less existing debts. Where they disagree, the second is the one an underwriter applies.

The formula

  1. Gross monthly income72000 / 12
  2. The 30% rule6000 * 0.3
  3. 28% front-end limit6000 * 0.28
  4. 36% back-end limit, less your other debtsmax(6000 * 0.36 - 450, 0)
  5. Rent you can supportmin(1680, 1710)
  6. Landlord 40× monthly rent test allows72000 / 40

Source: HUD — affordability and cost-burden definitions, CFPB — debt-to-income ratio guidance

Questions people actually ask

Where does the 30% rule come from?
From US housing policy: HUD counts a household as cost-burdened above 30% of gross income, a threshold that dates to the 1981 change in public-housing rent rules. It is a policy definition, not a budgeting law.
Gross or net income?
The rules are all stated on gross, which is why 30% of gross can feel like 40% of what actually lands in your account. If your effective tax rate is high, budget from take-home and treat the 30% figure as a ceiling rather than a target.
What is the 28/36 rule?
A lending standard: housing costs no more than 28% of gross monthly income, and all debt payments together no more than 36%. Whichever binds first is your real limit, and for anyone carrying a car loan it is usually the 36%.

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