Fair Market Rent is the number underneath every Section 8 payment standard, and it is the most misread figure in rental housing. Here is what HUD actually publishes, using the current Minnesota data: a median 2 bedroom fair market rent of $1,090 for FY2026 across 914 ZIP codes.
Fair Market Rent is HUD's estimate of the 40th percentile of gross rent for standard quality rental units in a market. Gross rent means the rent plus the utilities a tenant pays, so a unit where heat is included and a unit where it is not are compared on the same footing. Small Area Fair Market Rent, the version used across this site, computes that figure for each individual ZIP code instead of one number for a whole metro, which is why a Minneapolis ZIP code and the suburb next to it can carry very different numbers.
The percentile is the part people miss. Forty percent of standard quality units in a ZIP code rent at or below the fair market rent, which means sixty percent rent above it. FMR is deliberately not the middle of the market and it is certainly not the top. Across the 914 Minnesota ZIP codes HUD publishes, the median 2 bedroom fair market rent for FY2026 is $1,090, and the median ZIP code moved +4.1 percent from the prior fiscal year.
| Unit size | Median FMR across MN ZIP codes |
|---|---|
| Studio | $800 |
| 1 bedroom | $880 |
| 2 bedroom | $1,090 |
| 3 bedroom | $1,460 |
| 4 bedroom | $1,730 |
The 2 bedroom figure is the benchmark used everywhere else on this site because it is the most common voucher unit size and the most comparable across ZIP codes. Every ZIP code page carries the full studio through 4 bedroom table for that ZIP code.
FMR is the base for Housing Choice Voucher payment standards. A housing authority takes the published FMR for a ZIP code and sets its own payment standard from it, normally between 90 and 110 percent, which is the maximum subsidy plus tenant share the program will support for that bedroom size. It also sets rent ceilings for several other HUD programs and it is the reference point in a lot of local housing policy.
Investors use it differently. Because FMR sits below the middle of the market by design and is republished every year on the federal fiscal calendar, it works well as a conservative floor when you are underwriting rental income in a ZIP code you do not know. If a deal pencils at fair market rent, it very probably pencils at the actual rent.
It is not a quote, not an appraisal, and not a ceiling on what you may charge a market rate tenant. It knows nothing about the condition of a building, the exact bedroom count of a unit, or which block it sits on. It is published once a year for a fiscal year that starts the previous October, so it lags a fast moving market by design. And it is not the payment standard: that number belongs to the housing authority, and it is the one that decides what a voucher actually pays.
Look up any Minnesota ZIP code in the MN Rent Explorer, compare fair market rent to market asking rent on the Section 8 spread table, or read the methodology for how each figure is built. Data last updated 2026-09-05.
Fair Market Rent is HUD's estimate of the 40th percentile of gross rent, rent plus tenant paid utilities, for standard quality units. Small Area Fair Market Rent computes it per ZIP code. The median across 914 Minnesota ZIP codes is $1,090 for a 2 bedroom in FY2026.
No. It is the 40th percentile, so 60 percent of standard quality units rent above it. An average or a median would sit higher. That is deliberate: the program is meant to reach the more affordable part of the standard quality stock, not the middle of the market.
Once a year. HUD publishes on the federal fiscal year, so FY2026 values took effect on October 1, 2025. The median Minnesota ZIP code moved +4.1 percent in the most recent release.
Pencilwrite turns an address, a price, and these rents into a full underwrite, cap rate, cash-on-cash, DSCR, true ROE, taxes, and an offer you can send. Limited beta access spots open. Sign up for the beta, opening in the next two months. Free.
