Every year the federal government publishes, for each Chicago ZIP code, a number that says what a modest two-bedroom apartment costs: the Small Area Fair Market Rent, HUD’s estimate of rent plus utilities at the 40th percentile of what recent movers pay. It is a schedule, not a listing site — and in Chicago it is a schedule with force, because HUD has required voucher agencies operating in its designated Chicago-area region to build their Section 8 payment standards from these ZIP-level figures since April 2018. On the current schedule, the median two-bedroom figure across the 60 core ZIP codes we track is $1,750 — up from $1,195 in the 2019 schedule, a rise of 46 percent — and the figures run from $1,290 on the South Side to a $2,670 ceiling that fourteen downtown and North Side ZIP codes share.
HUD Small Area Fair Market Rents, FY2019 vs. FY2026, Chicago ZIP codes · published August 2, 2026What this schedule is — and is not
A Fair Market Rent is not an average of apartment listings and not a measure of what any particular lease costs. HUD builds it from Census survey data on gross rents — rent plus utilities — paid by people who moved recently, set at the 40th percentile — about four in ten recent-mover rents are at or below it. Its job is administrative: FMRs set the payment standards for Housing Choice Vouchers, rent ceilings in several federal programs, and flat rents in public housing. The Chicago-Joliet-Naperville area is one of 65 metro regions HUD has designated as mandatory for the ZIP-level schedule — designated in 2016, in force since April 1, 2018 — meaning voucher agencies operating there must set payment standards from these ZIP figures, so what a voucher can pay genuinely varies ZIP by ZIP. Housing agencies may set their standards between 90 and 110 percent of these figures.
The top and bottom of the schedule
- 60601the Loop and New Eastside$1,820$2,670
- 60602a small Loop ZIP$1,330$2,670
- 60603the central Loop$1,820$2,670
- 60604the south Loop office blocks$1,820$2,670
- 60605the South Loop$1,820$2,670
- 60609much of Back of the Yards and the stockyards district$900$1,290
- 60632Brighton Park and Archer Heights$960$1,300
- 60617South Chicago and the East Side$950$1,310
- 60623Little Village and part of North Lawndale$900$1,320
- 60636West Englewood$1,010$1,320
The five highest and five lowest two-bedroom figures on the FY2026 schedule, with each ZIP’s FY2019 figure alongside. A ZIP code is a postal geography, not a neighborhood boundary — the area descriptions are approximate.
Why fourteen ZIP codes share the same top number
The $2,670 that appears beside fourteen downtown and North Side ZIPs is not a coincidence and not a measurement. HUD’s method caps any ZIP’s figure at 150 percent of the metro-wide Fair Market Rent, rounded to the nearest ten dollars; the FY2026 metro two-bedroom figure is $1,781, and 150 percent of that, rounded, is exactly $2,670. Fourteen Chicago ZIP codes sit at that ceiling — from the Loop to Lincoln Park’s 60614 to Fulton Market’s 60642. Where the cap binds, the schedule stops distinguishing: a voucher’s buying power in those ZIPs is set by the cap, not by how expensive each one actually is relative to the others.
The floor, and where the schedule rose fastest
The lowest two-bedroom figure among the tracked ZIPs belongs to 60609 — covering much of Back of the Yards — at $1,290, up from $900 in the 2019 schedule. That is the same part of the city our New City profile measures from the other direction — an area whose sale prices and business licenses are climbing fast, and still the lowest rent schedule among the tracked ZIPs in Chicago. Between the two schedules, the median tracked ZIP’s figure rose 46 percent; the fastest risers among ZIPs that did not end at the ceiling were 60647, covering much of Logan Square, up 73 percent; 60616, spanning Chinatown and the near South Side, up 71 percent; and 60622, Wicker Park and Ukrainian Village, up 69 percent. One note on the biggest mover of all: tiny Loop ZIP 60602 doubled — but its FY2026 figure sits at the cap, so the schedule cannot say how high HUD’s underlying estimate for that ZIP would have run without it.
How we counted
- Source HUD Small Area Fair Market Rent workbooks: FY2019 (revised) and FY2026 (revised), downloaded from huduser.gov and read in full, August 2, 2026. The cap mechanics come from HUD’s published FY26 SAFMR methodology and its FY26 Fair Market Rents file; the mandatory-use fact comes from HUD’s designated-areas list (updated August 2024), all read the same day.
- Scope ZIP codes beginning 606, plus 60827 — the city of Chicago’s core ZIP codes, a stated editorial choice that leaves out a handful of boundary ZIPs (60707, for example) shared with suburbs, and includes a few 606 ZIPs that reach past the limits. 60 ZIPs appear in both the FY2019 and FY2026 schedules and every comparison here uses only those.
- What the numbers mean All figures are two-bedroom gross rents — rent plus utilities — at the 40th percentile of recent-mover rents, as HUD estimates them. They are a federal schedule used to set assistance levels, not asking rents, and they say nothing about any individual apartment.
- Years FY2019 and FY2026 are federal fiscal years; the FY2026 schedule took effect October 1, 2025 and runs through September 30, 2026. “The 2019 schedule” and “the current schedule” in the text refer to these.
Computed by KCM Desk from HUD’s published schedules, retrieved August 2, 2026. If you spot an error, corrections come first.