Every Medicaid income limit in the country is a percentage of one number: the federal poverty guideline that the Department of Health and Human Services issues each January. Get that number right and the rest is multiplication.
HHS issued the 2026 guidelines on January 15, 2026, and published them in the Federal Register at 91 FR 1797. This page uses those figures, current as of September 2026, and shows the arithmetic so you can check it against your own household.
One note on the 2026 vintage that most sites skip. ASPE explains that because the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish an October 2025 CPI-U during the federal government shutdown, the 2026 guidelines were calculated by comparing the average CPI-U for the 11 available months of 2025 against all 12 months of 2024. The guidelines are still the operative legal standard, but they were built on a partial year of price data.
The 2026 Federal Poverty Guidelines
These are the base figures for the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia, straight from ASPE:
| Household size | 100% of FPL (2026) |
|---|---|
| 1 | $15,960 |
| 2 | $21,640 |
| 3 | $27,320 |
| 4 | $33,000 |
| 5 | $38,680 |
| 6 | $44,360 |
| 7 | $50,040 |
| 8 | $55,720 |
Add $5,680 for each person beyond eight.
Medicaid Income Limits for Adults in 2026
In the 41 states including DC that adopted the ACA Medicaid expansion, an adult aged 19 to 64 qualifies on income alone. The standard is 138% of the guidelines above. Here is that math worked out:
| Household size | 138% of FPL (annual) | Monthly equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $22,025 | $1,835 |
| 2 | $29,863 | $2,489 |
| 3 | $37,702 | $3,142 |
| 4 | $45,540 | $3,795 |
These are our calculations from the 2026 ASPE guidelines: $15,960 times 1.38 equals $22,024.80, rounded to $22,025. KFF’s July 2026 coverage gap brief independently states the same $22,025 figure for an individual in 2026, which is a useful cross-check on the arithmetic.
Why 138% and not 133%
The Affordable Care Act wrote the standard as 133% of FPL, then added a mandatory income disregard equal to five percentage points of the poverty level. HealthCare.gov puts it directly: “If your household income is below 133% of the federal poverty level (FPL), you qualify. (Because of the way this is calculated, it turns out to be 138% of the federal poverty level.)” Use 138%.
Alaska and Hawaii run higher
ASPE publishes separate, higher guidelines for both states. For a household of one in 2026, Alaska’s guideline is $19,950 and Hawaii’s is $18,360, versus $15,960 in the contiguous states. Applying the same 138% multiplier gives an adult limit of roughly $27,531 in Alaska and $25,337 in Hawaii, both well above the $22,025 figure used everywhere else.
Children, Pregnancy, and CHIP Limits Are Higher
The adult standard is the floor, not the ceiling. Medicaid.gov publishes a state-by-state table of MAGI eligibility standards, and the spread for kids is enormous. In that table, children’s Medicaid limits run from about 139% of FPL in Utah to 375% in Iowa, and separate CHIP programs go as high as 400% of FPL in New York. Pregnancy coverage sits above the adult standard in nearly every state, from 133% in Idaho and Louisiana up to 375% in Iowa.
Applied to 2026 dollars, a state covering children to 250% of FPL is covering a family of four up to $82,500 a year. That is why a family can be over the limit for the parents and well under it for the kids, which is one of the most common and most useful surprises in the program.
One important caveat on vintage: the Medicaid.gov percentage table states its own data are “as of December 1, 2023.” The percentages are stable policy choices that change slowly, but confirm your state’s current number with your state agency before relying on it. The 2026 dollar figures on this page are current; the state percentages are the December 2023 snapshot CMS publishes.
The Ten Non-Expansion States and the Coverage Gap
Ten states have not adopted the expansion, a count confirmed both by KFF’s tracker (updated August 21, 2026) and by Medicaid.gov’s own May 2026 enrollment map, which labels 41 expansion states and 10 non-expansion states.
In those ten states, adults without dependent children generally cannot get Medicaid at any income level, and the parent and caretaker limits are strikingly low. Medicaid.gov’s table puts Texas at 12% of FPL for parents, Alabama at 13%, Mississippi at 19%, and Georgia at 28%. Applied to the 2026 guidelines, Texas’s 12% standard works out to roughly $3,278 a year for a family of three, and Alabama’s 13% to about $3,552.
KFF’s July 27, 2026 analysis estimates 1.2 million uninsured adults in these ten states fall into the coverage gap: earning too much for their state’s Medicaid program but under 100% of FPL, which is the floor Congress set for Marketplace premium subsidies. If you are in that position, our guides to ACA subsidy income limits and free and sliding-scale clinics are the practical next steps.
This Page Covers MAGI Eligibility, Not Long-Term Care
This is the distinction that trips up the most people, so it is worth stating plainly.
Everything above describes the MAGI pathway, short for Modified Adjusted Gross Income. It applies to adults, parents, children, and pregnant people. It looks at income only. There is no asset test, no lookback at past gifts, and your house and savings do not count.
There is a completely separate pathway for seniors and people with disabilities who need nursing home care or home and community-based services. That pathway is asset-tested. It has countable resource limits, a five-year lookback at transfers, spousal impoverishment rules, and in many states a spend-down or a qualified income trust. A person can be far over the MAGI limit and still qualify there, or far under it and still be denied because of assets.
If you are reading this page because of long-term care, you are on the wrong page. Go to Medicaid spend-down for the asset rules and the Medicaid look-back period for the transfer rules.
A third pathway sits between the two. Seniors on Medicare who need help with premiums apply through Medicare Savings Programs, run by state Medicaid agencies. Those use their own 2026 monthly limits: $1,350 for an individual under QMB, $1,616 under SLMB, and $1,816 under QI, with a $9,950 resource limit for an individual. See Medicare Savings Programs and our Medicaid vs. Medicare comparison.
What Actually Counts as Income
MAGI generally starts from your adjusted gross income and adds back tax-exempt interest, non-taxable Social Security benefits, and excluded foreign income. Wages, self-employment profit, unemployment compensation, and most retirement distributions count. Child support received, SSI, veterans’ benefits, and most workers’ compensation do not.
Two mechanics matter more than people expect. Medicaid looks at current monthly income rather than last year’s tax return, so a job loss can qualify you immediately. And household size follows tax filing relationships, not who lives under your roof, which is why household size is the single most common thing applicants get wrong. Getting from a household of three to a household of four moves the limit from $37,702 to $45,540.
The Bottom Line for 2026
If you are an adult in an expansion state, the number to remember is $22,025 for one person and $45,540 for a family of four, both effective for 2026 and both derived from guidelines HHS issued on January 15, 2026. Children and pregnant people qualify well above those levels in most states.
Medicaid has no open enrollment period, so apply the month your income drops rather than waiting. And once you are enrolled, the thing most likely to cost you coverage is a missed renewal notice rather than a raise, so read Medicaid renewal before your redetermination date. If you want to know what the coverage will actually cost you once approved, see how much Medicaid costs.