To fill out the Tenant Income Certification form, get the blank form from your property manager, gather income and asset documents for every person in your household, and work through its eight parts reporting projected gross annual income (not take-home pay) and every household member, no matter their age or whether they earn anything. The property manager fills in a few sections themselves; you handle the household, income, asset, and student-status details, then sign. You will do this at move-in and again every year at recertification.
Get the Form and Pull Your Documents First
You do not need to hunt down the form. Your property manager or the landlord’s compliance office provides it. Most properties use the model form published by the National Council of State Housing Agencies (NCSHA), though some state housing finance agencies have a slightly different version. The current NCSHA form and its instructions are available online if you want a preview.
Before you sit down to fill anything in, collect the following for every household member who earns income or holds assets:
- The six most recent consecutive pay stubs from each employer
- Last year’s federal tax return and all W-2s
- Benefit letters for Social Security, pensions, unemployment, or public assistance
- Six months of statements for every checking, savings, and investment account
- A school letter confirming enrollment for any full-time student in the household
- Court orders or payment histories for child support received
The compliance office verifies every figure you write, so having documents in hand before you start is the difference between a smooth approval and weeks of back-and-forth.
Working Through the Eight Parts
The form has eight parts. The property manager fills in some; you fill in the rest. Here is what each one asks for and where your attention needs to be.
Part I: Development Data
The property manager enters the property name, address, building identification number (BIN), your unit number, and the number of bedrooms. You do not write anything here, but check that your unit number is right before you sign.
Part II: Household Composition
List every person who will live in the unit. That includes adults, children, newborns, elderly relatives, and any live-in caretaker, whether or not they earn income. For each person, give the name, date of birth, relationship to the head of household, and the last four digits of their Social Security or alien registration number. Mark whether each person is a full-time student.
The relationship codes are single letters: H for head of household, S for spouse, A for adult co-tenant, C for child, F for foster child or adult, L for live-in caretaker, and O for other.
Leaving someone off is one of the most common compliance findings. If a family member moves in later, the TIC has to be updated then, too.
Part III: Gross Annual Income
This is where most applicants slip up. You report projected gross annual income: the total you expect to earn over the next twelve months before taxes, insurance, and retirement contributions come out. The number printed as your take-home pay is not the number that goes here. Use the higher, pre-deduction figure.
Income splits into four columns:
- Column A, Employment: wages, salaries, tips, commissions, bonuses, and net income from self-employment
- Column B, Social Security and pensions: Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, military retirement, and private pensions
- Column C, Public assistance: TANF and other government assistance
- Column D, Other income: child support, alimony, unemployment benefits, and any other regular payments
Add all four columns to get Total Income on line E. To project a year’s worth from an hourly job, the property manager typically multiplies your hourly rate by your average weekly hours by 52 weeks.
Two smaller traps in this section. Report child support in the amount you actually receive, not the amount a court order says you should receive, unless your state housing agency tells you otherwise. And if any interest or dividends automatically reinvest instead of paying out, that is still income and belongs on the form.
Part IV: Income From Assets
List every asset every household member holds: checking and savings accounts, stocks, bonds, CDs, accessible retirement accounts, and any real estate you own aside from the unit you are renting. For each one, give the current cash value and the annual income it produces (interest, dividends, or rental income).
Once total household assets cross a threshold, the form runs an extra calculation. It multiplies your total assets by HUD’s passbook savings rate, currently 0.40 percent, to produce an “imputed income” figure. You then report whichever is higher: the actual income the assets earned or the imputed amount. Under the Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act (HOTMA), households with net assets at or below $50,000 can self-certify asset values instead of providing full third-party documentation.
Part V: Determination of Income Eligibility
The property manager runs this math, comparing your total annual household income against the income limit for your area. Those limits are published annually by HUD, based on a percentage of area median income (AMI) and adjusted for household size. The set-aside your property elected determines the percentage, commonly 50 or 60 percent of AMI, with some units under the average income test going up to 80 percent. At recertification, Part V also checks whether your income has risen above 140 percent of your applicable limit, which triggers a separate rule but does not, on its own, put you out of your unit. You are not calculating any of this yourself, but knowing what the numbers mean helps you catch errors.
Part VI: Rent
The property manager fills in your tenant-paid rent, utility allowance, any rental assistance such as a Housing Choice Voucher, and any mandatory fees. Those add up to your gross rent, which must sit at or below the program’s rent ceiling for your income tier. If you get federal rental assistance, the manager identifies the specific program.
Part VII: Student Status
If every person in the household is a full-time student, the unit normally does not count as a low-income unit. Five exemptions let an all-student household still qualify:
- Any household member is enrolled in a federal, state, or local job training program
- Any member receives TANF or foster care assistance under Title IV of the Social Security Act
- The students are a single parent and their children, and none of the children are dependents of a third party (the other parent may still claim them)
- The students are married adults eligible to file a joint tax return; they do not have to be married to each other and do not have to actually file jointly
- Any member was previously in foster care under Title IV of the Social Security Act
If one applies, mark the corresponding number (1 through 5) and attach the supporting documentation. If not everyone in the household is a full-time student, mark “No” and move on.
Part VIII: Program Type
The property manager checks the box for whichever federal program covers the unit: LIHTC, tax-exempt bonds, HOME, or another program. You do not fill this in, but confirm the right program is marked so your file lines up with the correct income and rent limits.
Mistakes That Send the Form Back
A handful of errors show up over and over in compliance reviews. Most start on the tenant’s side of the paperwork.
- Writing down net pay instead of gross pay. The form wants pre-tax, pre-deduction income. Take-home understates what you earn and the verifier will catch it.
- Leaving out a household member. Everyone in the unit belongs on the form, including newborns, elderly relatives, and anyone who moved in after the last certification.
- Skipping reinvested asset income. Interest that rolls back into savings and dividends that reinvest in a brokerage account still count. Report them even though you never saw a check.
- Reporting the ordered child support amount rather than what actually arrives. The two often differ, and the form generally wants what you receive.
- Missing the recertification deadline. Late paperwork puts the unit out of compliance from the day it was due until the day you sign. Respond to the recertification notice as soon as it arrives, even if nothing has changed.
What Happens After You Submit
Handing in the form is the start, not the finish. The compliance office independently verifies what you reported, working from the most reliable sources down. Automated wage databases like The Work Number come first when available, followed by the source documents you supplied (pay stubs, benefit letters, bank statements count as third-party verification because they were generated by your employer, the Social Security Administration, or your bank). Some state agencies still require the traditional route of sending a verification form to the employer or bank directly. If no one responds within about ten business days, the compliance officer can move to a documented phone call. Self-certification is a last resort, used only when other methods fail or when specifically permitted, such as for asset values under the HOTMA threshold.
The full process usually runs two to four weeks. Once everything checks out, the property manager signs the TIC and issues a determination. Your signed form, supporting documents, and verification records go into a compliance file the owner has to keep for at least six years.
You Will Do This Again Every Year
LIHTC properties recertify tenant income annually. Expect a notice 60 to 120 days before the anniversary of your move-in date, asking you to update income, assets, and household composition. The process mirrors your initial certification: new pay stubs, fresh bank statements, and an updated TIC. The effective date is the first day of your anniversary month, and staying on schedule keeps the unit in compliance.
Some buildings, where every unit is occupied by income-qualified tenants, hold an IRS waiver of annual recertification obtained through Form 8877. If your building has one, the property manager should tell you. It does not change anything about your initial move-in paperwork, only the yearly recheck.
One thing worth knowing before you renew: a raise does not, by itself, cost you your unit. LIHTC rules keep your unit classified as low-income as long as you met the limit when you moved in and your rent stays inside the program’s ceiling. If your income crosses 140 percent of the applicable limit at recertification (170 percent in deep rent-skewed projects), the owner has to rent the next comparable unit that opens up to a qualifying household, but you stay put. Exceeding the income limit is not good cause for eviction.