Rent Calculator

The 30% rule says housing should not eat more than 30% of gross monthly income. The figure comes from the 1969 Brooke Amendment, which capped public-housing rent at 25% of a tenant's income, and HUD's 1981 update that raised the ceiling to 30%. HUD still classifies any household spending more than 30% of income on housing as "rent burdened" and more than 50% as "severely rent burdened." About half of US renters cross the 30% line, and roughly a quarter cross the 50% line, according to Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies. The 30% rule is a useful sanity check, not a guarantee: it ignores debt, savings, and the cost of living in your specific metro.

The 50/30/20 rule (popularized by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi in their 2005 book All Your Worth) splits take-home pay three ways: 50% for needs, 30% for wants, 20% for savings and debt payoff. Rent shares the 50% needs bucket with utilities, groceries, transportation, insurance, and minimum debt payments. This calculator carves out an $800 monthly reserve for food and transportation (roughly the BLS Consumer Expenditure average for a single US adult) plus your other monthly debts and fixed expenses before sizing the rent the bucket can carry. The result is usually more conservative than the 30% rule because rent has to share the bucket.

Utilities (electric, gas, water, sewer, trash, and often internet) are part of the true cost of shelter, not a separate category. The US national average for a single-family renter is about $200 a month, but it ranges from $120 in mild-climate, small-unit setups to $400+ in larger apartments with electric heat. If the landlord rolls utilities into the rent (common in older buildings with shared boilers, or in master-metered college housing), the rent number you sign is the full housing cost. If utilities are billed separately, you need to add them on top of the rent before comparing against any affordability rule. This calculator does both via the "landlord includes utilities" toggle.

US security deposits often equal one month's rent, but state and local law controls the maximum. Since July 1, 2024, California caps most residential deposits at one month's rent whether the unit is furnished or unfurnished. A narrow small-landlord exception allows up to two months when a qualifying owner has no more than two rental properties with four total units, unless the tenant is a service member. New York also caps the deposit at one month and does not let a landlord stack last month's rent on top of it. Massachusetts allows a security deposit of up to one month, last month's rent, and the actual cost of a new lock and key. The calculator's 1.5x estimate is only a planning buffer, not a legal cap. Check current state and local rules before you sign.

Standard financial-planning advice is 3-6 months of essential expenses in liquid savings (a high-yield savings account, not invested in stocks). For a renter, "essential expenses" means rent plus utilities, plus food, transportation, insurance, and minimum debt payments. If your rent and utilities run $2,200 a month, a 3-month cushion is about $6,600 for housing alone, and the full all-in 3-month figure is usually closer to $12,000-$15,000. The cushion exists so a job loss, medical event, or family emergency does not force you into eviction or high-cost debt. This calculator shows how many months of housing your current savings would cover so you can see where you stand against the 3-6 month benchmark.