WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has finalized a rule requiring verification of U.S. citizenship or eligible immigration status for all applicants and tenants in covered HUD programs, including current tenants in mixed-status households, the department announced Nov. 10.
Secretary Scott Turner announced the finalization of the Verification of Eligible Status rule, according to HUD. The rule was published as a final rule in the Federal Register on Nov. 12, 2026, under Section 214 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1980, and it takes effect Dec. 14, 2026.
HUD said the rule strengthens its enforcement of Section 214, which limits HUD housing assistance to U.S. citizens and a narrow list of eligible noncitizens.
Under the rule, the citizenship or immigration status of every household member in covered programs must be verified, regardless of age. The covered programs include public housing, Section 8 housing choice vouchers and project-based assistance, Section 236 below-market-interest-rate units and Housing Development Grant low-income units. The requirement ends prior exemptions for children and for tenants age 62 and older, and verification runs through the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE system.
For mixed-status families, the prorated assistance arrangement in place since 1995 becomes temporary under the rule, with deferrals of termination available in some cases. Housing authorities and owners must notify affected tenants within 30 days of the rule’s effective date — by Jan. 13, 2027.
HUD said a joint HUD-DHS audit of HUD-assisted households identified nearly 200,000 tenants with incomplete or unknown eligibility verification. In HUD’s own analysis of the rule, 19,810 mixed-status families are eligible for a temporary deferral, and HUD projects that about 990 households — roughly 5 percent — would contest and face formal eviction.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that about 80,000 people in roughly 20,000 families, including about 37,000 children, most of them U.S. citizens, could be affected by the rule. That figure is the center’s estimate of people affected, not a HUD count.
The rule was first proposed in 2019, withdrawn in 2021 and re-proposed on Feb. 20, 2026, drawing more than 11,000 public comments before it was finalized, according to the rule’s published history.
This story is based on HUD Press Release No. 26-091, “HUD Action Ensures All HUD-Assisted Tenants Are Fully Eligible Under the Law,” and the Verification of Eligible Status final rule as published in the Federal Register (91 FR 72978).
