HUD metro area list: every FY2026 metro FMR area
What counts as a HUD metro area
HUD publishes Fair Market Rents per FMR area, its own unit of geography, not per city or Census metro. The FY2026 ZIP-level file in the HUD FMR FY2026 pack carries 51,895 ZIP rows spread across 2,599 distinct area names. Counting the metro column: 649 metro areas hold 27,296 ZIP rows, and 1,950 nonmetro areas hold the other 24,599. A county rollup in the same pack splits 3,229 counties into 1,253 metro and 1,976 nonmetro.
The names are consistent once you see the pattern. Metro names end in HUD Metro FMR Area or MSA, nonmetro names in HUD Nonmetro FMR Area, and each name includes its state suffixes: "Abilene, TX MSA", "Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD HUD Metro FMR Area", "Yauco, PR HUD Metro FMR Area". The area_name column is the human-readable key; the hud_area_code column, METRO or NCNTY plus an area identifier, is the stable ID for joins.
The ten largest metro areas, by ZIP count
Rank, name, state, ZIP rows, and the 2BR picture inside each metro: median across its ZIPs, then the range from cheapest to priciest ZIP. The wide ranges are Small Area FMRs at work; SAFMR vs FMR explains the mechanism.
| # | Metro FMR area | ST | ZIP rows | 2BR median | 2BR low | 2BR high |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD HUD Metro FMR Area | DC | 488 | 2240 | 1130 | 3370 |
| 2 | Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, CA HUD Metro FMR Area | CA | 474 | 3060 | 2070 | 4350 |
| 3 | Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA | PA | 473 | 1940 | 1130 | 2720 |
| 4 | New York, NY HUD Metro FMR Area | NY | 410 | 3150 | 2510 | 4370 |
| 5 | Pittsburgh, PA HUD Metro FMR Area | PA | 393 | 1330 | 970 | 1950 |
| 6 | Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL HUD Metro FMR Area | IL | 370 | 1870 | 1170 | 2670 |
| 7 | Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX HUD Metro FMR Area | TX | 327 | 1590 | 970 | 2360 |
| 8 | Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA HUD Metro FMR Area | GA | 299 | 1750 | 970 | 2730 |
| 9 | St. Louis, MO-IL HUD Metro FMR Area | MO | 268 | 1290 | 990 | 1830 |
| 10 | Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH HUD Metro FMR Area | MA | 261 | 3210 | 2560 | 4410 |
Two things the table shows. Philadelphia, DC, Houston, Atlanta, and Chicago each span a 2BR range wider than their own median, which is what ZIP-level SAFMRs do inside one metro. And size says nothing about rent level: Boston sits 10th by ZIP count with the highest 2BR median of the ten.
Priciest and cheapest FMR areas in FY2026
Ranked by 2BR median across all 649 metro areas: Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA leads at 4,350, ahead of San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara and San Francisco, both at 3,480, then Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine at 3,240. At the other end, three Puerto Rico areas tie for cheapest at 520: Yauco, San Germán, and Guayama. Nonmetro areas stay out of this ranking but sit in the same file under their own names.
For the ZIP-level view inside one metro, HUD FMR by ZIP code walks through a single-ZIP lookup end to end, and FMR lookup: one at a time, or all 51,895 ZIP rows covers when a bulk file beats per-area lookups.
HUD metro area questions
- How many metro areas are in the HUD FMR data?
- The FY2026 ZIP-level file uses 2,599 distinct HUD FMR area names: 649 metro areas holding 27,296 ZIP rows, plus 1,950 nonmetro areas covering the remaining 24,599 ZIPs. Every area name carries the suffix "HUD Metro FMR Area" or "MSA" in the metro case. A separate county rollup in the same pack covers 3,229 counties, 1,253 of them metro.
- Which HUD metro areas cover the most ZIP codes?
- Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD leads FY2026 with 488 ZIP rows, followed by Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, CA (474) and Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD (473). New York, NY covers 410 ZIPs and Pittsburgh, PA covers 393. All ten largest metros are in the table on this page with their 2BR medians and per-ZIP ranges.
- Why do HUD metro area names differ from Census metro names?
- HUD defines its own FMR areas rather than adopting Census or OMB boundaries, so the same city can carry a different name and footprint. In the FY2026 file, New York is "New York, NY HUD Metro FMR Area" while the Census equivalent is the New York-Newark-Jersey City MSA covering parts of NY and NJ. Use the area_name column as the lookup key and the hud_area_code column (METRO or NCNTY plus an area identifier) as the stable ID when joining across tables.
Get the full dataset
The free 22-row sample shows the schema, including the area_name and hud_area_code columns. The full pack carries all 51,895 ZIP rows, the county rollup (3,229 rows), state summary (52 rows), the data dictionary, and source checksums.
Checkout and download run through Getly. Source: US Department of Housing and Urban Development, FY2026 Fair Market Rent release, huduser.gov. US government data, public domain.