The 2026 chart
In the 48 contiguous states and DC, the 2026 guideline is $15,960 for one person and rises by $5,680 for each additional person, so a family of four is $33,000. There is no cap: a household of ten is $67,080.
Alaska and Hawaii have higher figures, a practice HHS traces to the Office of Economic Opportunity in the late 1960s: $19,950 plus $7,100 a person in Alaska and $18,360 plus $6,530 in Hawaii. The guidelines are not defined for Puerto Rico or the territories; each program decides what to use there.
Worked example
48 states & DC: 1 = $15,960 · 2 = $21,640 · 3 = $27,320 · 4 = $33,000
5 = $38,680 · 6 = $44,360 · 7 = $50,040 · 8 = $55,720
Alaska: 1 = $19,950 · 4 = $41,250 Hawaii: 1 = $18,360 · 4 = $37,950
Guidelines are not the poverty line
The federal government keeps two poverty measures. The Census Bureau's poverty thresholds are the original, statistical measure, used to count how many people are poor, with separate figures for householders aged 65 and older. The HHS guidelines simplify them into one figure per household size for deciding who qualifies for programs.
HHS itself calls “federal poverty level” an ambiguous phrase to avoid where precision matters. Programs that use the guidelines include Head Start, SNAP, school meals, LIHEAP and CHIP; cash assistance such as TANF and SSI generally does not, and neither does the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Which year a program is using
The guidelines are designated by the year they are issued, but programs switch at different times. For 2026 coverage the Marketplace uses the 2025 guidelines, the figures in force when open enrollment began on November 1, 2025, so a family of four's 100% line is $32,150 there, not $33,000.
USDA's school-meal and WIC limits for July 2026 through June 2027 are built from the 2026 guidelines. The same family can therefore sit at 155.5% of the guideline for Marketplace purposes and 151.5% for school meals on the same $50,000 income.
From a percentage to a dollar limit
A program limit is the guideline times its percentage. Medicaid for adults in expansion states is below 133% of the guideline, which works out to 138%: $45,540 for a family of four on the 2026 figure. Marketplace premium tax credits for 2026 run from 100% to 400%, up to $128,600 for that family on the 2025 figure.
USDA rounds up. Free school meals are at 130% and reduced-price meals and WIC at 185% of the 2026 guideline, each rounded up to the next whole dollar: $42,900 and $61,050 for a family of four, and $20,748 and $29,526 for one person.
Worked example
138% × $33,000 = $45,540
130% × $33,000 = $42,900 (free meals)
185% × $33,000 = $61,050 (reduced-price meals, WIC)
400% × $32,150 = $128,600 (2026 Marketplace)
How the guidelines are updated
Each January HHS takes the Census thresholds for the year before last and adjusts them by the change in the CPI-U. The January 2026 figures start from the 2024 thresholds, adjusted for prices between 2024 and 2025, then are rounded and evened out into equal steps between household sizes.
The 2026 update was unusual: the Bureau of Labor Statistics published no October 2025 CPI-U because of the federal government shutdown, so HHS compared the average of the eleven available months of 2025 with all of 2024. For a family of four the result is 2.6% above 2025. Over a decade the single-person figure has risen 32.3%, from $12,060 in 2017 to $15,960.
What a percentage cannot tell you
The same household can have different percentages in different programs, because each program counts income and household members its own way, and some deduct expenses before comparing. SNAP, for example, applies a gross income test at 130% and then a net income test at 100% for most households.
States add their own rules too: a few use a Medicaid limit other than 138%, and CHIP limits vary from state to state. Treat the percentage as the first check, and the program's own application as the answer.
Common mistakes
Using the Census poverty thresholds.Programs use the HHS guidelines, which are simpler and differ from the thresholds for most household types.Using the 2026 guideline for 2026 Marketplace coverage.Plan year 2026 uses the 2025 guidelines, which are $850 lower for a family of four.Forgetting Alaska and Hawaii.Both have their own, higher guidelines for every household size.Mixing monthly and annual income.The guidelines are annual figures; convert monthly income by multiplying by 12 before comparing.