2026 Texas loan limits: who actually cares about a 3.26% bump

Two announcements in the last few weeks moved the loan limit numbers for 2026.

On November 25, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced the new conforming limits. On December 11, HUD followed with Mortgagee Letter 2025-23 setting the FHA limits. Both take effect for loans and FHA case numbers on or after January 1, 2026.

Here are the numbers and, more importantly, who they actually affect.

Conforming loan limit, by the numbers

The 2026 baseline conforming loan limit for a single-family home is $832,750. That is up from $806,500 in 2025. The 3.26 percent increase matches the FHFA House Price Index change between Q3 2024 and Q3 2025. By statute, the limit moves with the index every year, not by political choice or industry lobbying. So this is not a windfall, it is a mechanical adjustment.

For multi-unit properties, the 2026 baseline limits are:

• Two-unit: $1,066,250
• Three-unit: $1,288,800
• Four-unit: $1,601,750

The high-cost ceiling for single-family properties is $1,249,125, which is 150 percent of the baseline. Texas has no counties designated as high-cost under the conforming program, so this ceiling does not apply to anyone buying in-state. The baseline $832,750 is the operative number from Brownsville to Amarillo.

FHA limits, county by county

FHA works differently. Limits float between a floor and a ceiling based on local median home prices, set county-by-county by HUD under Mortgagee Letter 2025-23.

The 2026 FHA floor for a one-unit property is $541,287. The ceiling is $1,249,125, same as the conforming high-cost number.

Most Texas counties sit at the floor. Twenty-five counties go higher because their median home prices push them up. Here is the breakdown:

• Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos MSA (Travis, Williamson, Hays, Bastrop, Caldwell counties): $571,550
• Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA (eleven counties): $563,500
• San Antonio-New Braunfels MSA (eight counties): $557,750
• Glasscock County (non-metro, Permian Basin): $813,050

Glasscock is the outlier and a recurring oddity. It is a small rural county whose median home values run high because of oilfield economics. HUD formula puts it just below the high-cost ceiling. There are not many transactions there in a given year, but the math is the math, and if you are financing a Glasscock County purchase with FHA, you have room.

Multi-unit FHA floors for 2026 are $693,050 for two-unit, $837,700 for three-unit, and $1,041,125 for four-unit. These matter for investor and house-hack scenarios where you live in one unit and rent the others.

The full 254-county table is on my Texas FHA loan limits page with the search and sort tools.

VA and Texas VLB

VA loan rules did not change. If you have full VA entitlement, there is no loan limit. That has been true since the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act took effect January 1, 2020. The conforming limit only enters the picture for VA borrowers with partial entitlement or those running two VA loans at the same time. For those scenarios, the new $832,750 is the math anchor.

The Texas Veterans Land Board raised its Home Loan cap to $832,750 in early January to match conforming. Funding fee waivers and other VA program features carry through unchanged. If you are a Texas veteran considering VLB, the Texas VA loan limits page walks through how VA and VLB stack and where each makes sense.

Who this actually matters to

Most borrowers do not bump up against loan limits at all. If you are shopping for a $400,000 house, the 2026 limits change nothing for you. The pricing on a $400K conforming loan is functionally identical between 2025 and 2026.

The numbers matter most for two specific groups.

Borrowers right at the old conforming-to-jumbo edge. If your loan amount lands between roughly $806K (the 2025 limit) and $832,750 (the new one), the calendar moved you from jumbo to conforming without you doing anything.

Jumbo loans price differently. The spread varies by lender, but it is typically meaningful over a 30-year amortization. Underwriting standards are stricter on jumbo. Lender appetite is more variable, especially with non-bank wholesale lenders. Conforming is broadly cheaper to originate and lock.

Can you bring an extra $10K to $40K to closing to push the loan down into conforming territory? Often yes.

Borrowers just above the new limit. If your scenario lands at $840K to $870K against the new $832,750 ceiling, there is a real conversation worth having. Can you bring an extra $10K to $40K to closing to push the loan down into conforming territory? Often yes, and on most files the lifetime savings on conforming versus jumbo pricing pays back the extra cash within the first three to five years.

Run the math: the $1.06M scenario

Concrete example. You are buying a $1,060,000 home with 20 percent down. Loan amount: $848,000. That is $15,250 above the conforming limit, which knocks you into jumbo.

If you bring an additional $15,250 down (so 21.4 percent instead of 20 percent), your loan drops to $832,750. Now you are conforming.

The pricing difference between conforming and jumbo varies week to week and lender to lender. On most files I have seen this year, the monthly cost differential on a conforming-vs-jumbo $832K loan is meaningful enough that the extra $15,250 at closing pays itself back within the first two to four years through lower monthly cost. After that, it is pure savings every month for the remainder of the term.

Worth noting: this math gets less obvious as you go further above the limit. At a $900K loan amount, you would need to bring an extra $67K to convert to conforming. At that point, you are trading $67K in your bank account (which is earning something) against the rate spread on the additional borrowed amount. No universal rule. It comes down to your specific cash position, what your liquid funds are earning, and the live pricing spread that day.