A loan limit is the most a program will lend or insure in a given county. It caps the loan, and it leaves the price of the home alone. If the house costs more, a bigger down payment fills the gap. Most of Florida sits at the national FHA floor, while South Florida, the Keys and a few other markets sit higher. The loan limits tool shows the current figure for every Florida county and every unit count. What follows is where those numbers come from, and how buyers handle a home that runs past them.
What a loan limit actually caps
Every program counts the limit against the loan amount. On an FHA loan that means the base loan, which is the amount before the upfront mortgage insurance premium (UFMIP) is added. UFMIP is a one-time 1.75% charge that almost every FHA buyer finances into the loan instead of paying in cash. Because it rides on top of the base loan, your total FHA loan can end up above the county limit by exactly that 1.75%, and the loan is still eligible.
On a Conventional loan, the limit is the conforming limit set by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). A loan at or under it can be sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, which is what gives Conventional loans their standard pricing and their 3% and 5% down options. A loan above it is a jumbo loan.
Your income and debts still decide what you can afford. The limit is a ceiling on top of that, and it only matters when the price gets close to it. Run your numbers on the affordability calculator and it applies your county's limit for you.
FHA limits: the floor, the ceiling and everything between
HUD sets FHA limits county by county using a formula in the National Housing Act. The starting point is 115% of the median home price in the area. Two guardrails sit around that figure:
- The floor is 65% of the national conforming baseline. Any county where 115% of the median comes in below the floor gets the floor.
- The ceiling is 150% of the national conforming baseline. Outside the four special areas below, no county goes higher.
Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands get a higher ceiling to account for construction costs.
| Units | FHA floor (most counties) | FHA ceiling (highest-cost areas) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 unit | $541,287 | $1,249,125 |
| 2 units | $693,050 | $1,599,375 |
| 3 units | $837,700 | $1,933,200 |
| 4 units | $1,041,125 | $2,402,625 |
Why metro areas share one number
When a county belongs to a metropolitan statistical area, HUD sets the limit using the county with the highest median price in that metro. Every county in the metro gets the same figure, so Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach carry one FHA limit even though their median prices differ. The same rule explains why a small, inexpensive county next to a big metro can carry a higher limit than you'd expect.
Conforming limits for Conventional loans
FHFA sets the conforming limits under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA). The national baseline for a single-family home is $832,750 for 2026. In high-cost areas, the limit rises to 115% of the local median home value, capped at 150% of the baseline.
| Units | Conforming baseline | High-cost ceiling |
|---|---|---|
| 1 unit | $832,750 | $1,249,125 |
| 2 units | $1,066,250 | $1,599,375 |
| 3 units | $1,288,800 | $1,933,200 |
| 4 units | $1,601,750 | $2,402,625 |
A loan between the baseline and the high-cost ceiling in a high-cost county is called a high-balance conforming loan. It's still a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loan, with a few extra eligibility rules and slightly different pricing. In Florida, Monroe County is the county with a high-cost conforming limit. Everywhere else in the state, the baseline applies.
How the limits get set each year
The chain starts with house prices. HERA requires FHFA to move the baseline each year by the change in its House Price Index, measured from the third quarter of one year to the third quarter of the next. FHFA announces the new conforming limits in late fall.
HUD then rebuilds the FHA floor and ceiling from the new baseline, because both are fixed percentages of it, and recalculates each county from updated median sale prices. New FHA limits apply to case numbers assigned on or after January 1. A county's limit can rise, hold flat or occasionally drop if local prices fell, though the floor and ceiling move with the national baseline.
The practical effect for a buyer: a price that runs past the limit in the fall can fit in January. If you're shopping right at the line late in the year, that's worth a call to see how the new numbers land.
Buying near and above the FHA limit
Take a made-up county with a median home price of $600,000. 115% of that is $690,000, which sits between the floor and the ceiling, so $690,000 becomes the one-unit FHA limit.
The highest price you can buy there with the minimum 3.5% down is the limit divided by 0.965 (the 96.5% loan-to-value ratio, or LTV, that FHA allows at 580 and up):
| Step | Math | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Highest price at 3.5% down | $690,000 ÷ 0.965 | $715,025.91 |
| Down payment at that price | $715,025.91 × 3.5% | $25,025.91 |
| UFMIP financed on top | $690,000 × 1.75% | $12,075.00 |
| Total FHA loan | $690,000 + $12,075 | $702,075.00 |
Now say you want a home in that county priced at $760,000. FHA still lends a base loan of $690,000 and no more, so your down payment becomes $760,000 minus $690,000, or $70,000. That's 9.21% of the price. Family can gift that money on an FHA loan, and so can a few other donors the program allows.
Before you write the bigger check, compare Conventional. With 5% down on the same $760,000 home, the loan is $722,000. If that's under the county's conforming limit, it's a standard Conventional loan with mortgage insurance until you reach 20% equity. AAA Capital Funding can run both side by side at your real price; the number is 888-601-8344.
2 to 4 unit limits and house hacking
Limits rise with the number of units, for FHA and Conventional alike. That makes a duplex, triplex or fourplex a real option for a buyer who wants the rent from the other units to help carry the payment. FHA lets you buy a 2 to 4 unit home with 3.5% down as long as you live in one of the units, and 75% of the expected rent from the other units counts as income.
At the floor, the FHA limit for a two-unit home is $693,050, and a four-unit home is $1,041,125. Three and four units add a self-sufficiency test, where 75% of the total rent has to cover the full payment. The house hacking calculator runs both tests, and the FHA multifamily guide walks through a duplex purchase.
VA loans and entitlement
VA doesn't have a loan limit for a veteran with full entitlement. Entitlement is the amount VA guarantees to the lender on your behalf. With full entitlement, the lender looks at your income, your residual income (the money left each month after the house, debts and living costs) and the appraisal, and the county limit doesn't enter into it.
The county conforming limit comes back into play when part of your entitlement is still tied up in another VA loan you haven't paid off. VA then works out your remaining entitlement from the county limit. Most lenders want your remaining entitlement plus any down payment to cover at least 25% of the loan.
A quick example: you want a $500,000 loan, and 25% of that is $125,000. If your remaining entitlement comes to $100,000, you'd put $25,000 down to make up the difference. If it comes to $125,000 or more, you'd put nothing down. The VA loan requirements guide covers entitlement, the funding fee and residual income in full.
USDA has no loan limit
USDA guaranteed loans have no dollar cap. The rule in 7 CFR 3555.103 caps the loan at the lower of the appraised value plus the upfront guarantee fee, or the price plus eligible closing costs. What limits a USDA buyer is the household income limit (115% of the area median income) and the 29% housing and 41% total debt ratios, along with the rural location rule.
When the price runs past the limit
You have more room than the limit makes it look. Here are the routes AAA Capital Funding uses:
- Put more down on FHA. The base loan stays at the limit and your down payment covers the rest. Gifts from family count.
- Switch to Conventional. Conforming limits run higher than FHA limits in most counties, and Conventional allows 3% down on a single-family home for first-time buyers and 5% on 2 to 4 units.
- Use a high-balance or jumbo loan. In high-cost counties a high-balance Conventional loan goes up to the county ceiling. Past that, a jumbo loan has no agency limit at all.
- Use VA with full entitlement. There's no county cap to work around.
A co-signer adds income, which can raise the price you qualify for, but the loan limit stays the same no matter who signs. Check your county's figure on the loan limits tool, then run the price on Price Check to see which programs work at it.
With a specific house in a specific county, AAA Capital Funding can tell you which program carries it with the least cash. Call 888-601-8344 and we'll lay out the options on that price so you can choose.