2026 FHA Loan Limits in Harris, Collin, Fulton, Orange and Santa Clara Counties

PUBLISHER NOTE: Apurva — this draft deliberately contains no county-specific FHA limit figures, because per-county numbers were not in the verified fact pack. Before publishing, pull the current 2026 one-unit FHA limits for Harris (TX), Collin (TX), Fulton (GA), Orange (CA) and Santa Clara (CA) from HUD's FHA Mortgage Limits lookup and insert them into the table marked below. The floor ($541,287) and ceiling ($1,249,125) figures used throughout are verified and can stand as written.

A buyer in Santa Clara County and a buyer in Harris County can both use an FHA loan, and the program means something completely different to each of them. In one market the limit is comfortably above what people are actually paying. In the other, the highest number FHA is permitted to lend does not reach the median list price. Same program, same rules, opposite outcome.

Before the mechanics, the gate. Under Mortgagee Letter 2025-09, mandatory for FHA case numbers assigned on or after May 25, 2025, FHA financing is available only to lawful permanent residents and US citizens. HUD's language was blunt: the letter "removes the Non-permanent Residents sections in its entirety, eliminating eligibility for non-permanent resident Borrowers." H-1B, L-1, O-1, TN and EAD holders cannot use FHA in 2026 at any loan amount in any county. That story is here. Green card holders and citizens should start with FHA Loans for Green Card Holders in 2026 and then read on.

How FHA sets a county limit

FHA does not pick county limits out of the air, and it does not set them independently of the conventional market. It calculates them as a percentage of the conforming loan limit that FHFA publishes each November.

That produces a band with two ends. For 2026, the one-unit figures are:

• Floor: $541,287. No county goes below this, however inexpensive the housing.

• Ceiling: $1,249,125. No county goes above this, however expensive the housing.

Most counties in the country sit exactly at the floor. A relatively small number of high-cost metros — coastal California, the DC corridor, parts of the Northeast, a handful of Colorado and Washington counties — sit at or near the ceiling. A modest middle group lands somewhere in between, because their local median price computes to a number inside the band.

Note the symmetry with conventional. The 2026 baseline conforming limit for a one-unit property is $832,750, with a high-cost ceiling of $1,249,125 — the same ceiling FHA uses. FHFA announced those figures on November 25, 2025, an increase of $26,250 over 2025 reflecting 3.26% year-over-year price growth, with limits rising in all but 32 US counties. So in an average county, conventional gives you roughly $291,000 more room than FHA does. At the top of the market, they converge.

Look yours up — don't trust a blog, including this one

County limits change annually and are published by HUD, not by lenders. Use HUD's FHA Mortgage Limits lookup, select the state and county, and read the one-unit column. If you are buying a duplex, triplex or fourplex to live in, the two-, three- and four-unit limits are higher and listed in the same table.

Do not rely on a number a real estate agent quotes from memory, and do not rely on a figure you find in an article without a date on it. Limits reset every January and the stale numbers stay indexed in search results for years.

One more reason to check rather than assume: FHA county limits are tied to metropolitan area boundaries, not to city lines or to how expensive a particular neighborhood feels. Two adjacent suburbs can fall into different counties with different limits, and a county attached to a high-cost metro can carry a limit far above what its own housing stock would suggest. The Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta metros both span large multi-county footprints where buyers routinely cross a limit boundary without realizing it. Pull the number for the county the property sits in, not the county you live in now.

PUBLISHER NOTE (table to complete before publishing): insert current HUD one-unit 2026 FHA limits for the five counties below.

County	Metro	2026 one-unit FHA limit
Harris, TX	Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land	insert from HUD lookup
Collin, TX	Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington	insert from HUD lookup
Fulton, GA	Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell	insert from HUD lookup
Orange, CA	Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim	insert from HUD lookup
Santa Clara, CA	San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara	insert from HUD lookup

The part that actually matters: does the limit reach your price?

A loan limit is not a price limit. FHA caps the loan, not the purchase. With 3.5% down, your maximum purchase price is the limit divided by 0.965.

At the floor, that is $541,287 ÷ 0.965 = $560,919. At the ceiling, $1,249,125 ÷ 0.965 = $1,294,430.

Now hold those two numbers against what houses are listed for. These are median listing prices from Realtor.com for August 2026 — asking prices, not closed sales, and they should not be mixed with sale price data:

Metro	Median listing price, Aug 2026	Floor-based max price at 3.5% down ($560,919)
Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land	$359,000	$201,919 above the median
Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater	$390,000	$170,919 above the median
Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford	$415,000	$145,919 above the median
Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell	$419,900	$141,019 above the median
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington	$425,000	$135,919 above the median
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara	$1,349,000	Not reachable — see below

In Houston, Tampa, Orlando, Atlanta and Dallas-Fort Worth, the floor is not a constraint for a median-priced house. It is a constraint for the buyer stretching to the top of a good school district, which is a different problem and a real one. In San Jose it is a wall, and even the ceiling is a wall: at the maximum FHA ceiling with 3.5% down, the highest purchase price you can reach is $1,294,430 against a median list price of $1,349,000. The median house in that market is out of reach on an FHA loan before you have discussed credit, income or anything else.

What to do when the limit sits below your price point

Three real options, in rough order of how often they work.

Increase the down payment

The limit caps the loan, not the price. Take Meena, a composite of files we see in Fremont and Sunnyvale. She is buying at $1,400,000 in a ceiling county. FHA will lend her $1,249,125, so she needs $150,875 down — 10.8% — to make the numbers meet. That has a second effect worth noticing: she is now above 10% down, so her annual MIP runs 11 years instead of the life of the loan.

Move to conventional

At a 740 score this is usually the better answer anyway, for reasons we work through in FHA vs Conventional at a 740 Credit Score. In a high-cost county the conventional ceiling is the same $1,249,125, so it does not extend your reach — but a jumbo loan does, with no cap at all and, at strong credit, no mortgage insurance. See 2026 Conforming Loan Limits for where that transition happens.

Change the geography of the search

Unromantic and frequently correct. The gap between a $560,919 FHA ceiling and a $1,349,000 median is not a financing problem to be solved. Buyers who move their search one town out, or reset to a townhome, close. Buyers who keep writing offers they cannot finance do not.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is the 2026 FHA loan limit for a single-family home?
A: It depends on the county. The 2026 one-unit floor is $541,287 and the ceiling is $1,249,125. Most counties sit at the floor; high-cost metros sit at or near the ceiling. Look up your specific county on HUD's FHA Mortgage Limits page rather than relying on a national figure.

Q: Is the FHA loan limit the most I can pay for a house?
A: No. It caps the mortgage, not the purchase price. With the 3.5% minimum down payment, your maximum price is the limit divided by 0.965 — about $560,919 at the floor. Put more money down and you can buy above that; the limit constrains the loan amount only.

Q: Why is the FHA limit lower than the conforming limit?
A: FHA limits are calculated as a percentage of the conforming limit, which produces a lower floor. In 2026 the conforming baseline for one unit is $832,750 against an FHA floor of $541,287. At the top of the range they converge — both cap at $1,249,125 in high-cost counties.

Q: Can an H-1B holder use an FHA loan if they are under the county limit?
A: No. Loan limits are irrelevant to the eligibility question. Mortgagee Letter 2025-09 eliminated FHA eligibility for all non-permanent residents for case numbers assigned on or after May 25, 2025, regardless of loan size or location. Conventional financing is the path.

Q: Do FHA limits change every year?
A: Yes. HUD republishes county limits annually, keyed to the conforming limit FHFA announces each November. The 2026 figures took effect for the calendar year. Always check the current HUD table before making an offer, because outdated limits stay in search results long after they expire.

Ready to get started? Masala Loans by Matador Lending specializes in exactly this. Call 713-366-4668 or get your no-haggle rate at masalaloans.com.

Apna Ghar. Your Dream Home. Your Best Rate. No Haggling.