How much income do I need to qualify for an ACA subsidy in 2026?

You need household income of at least 100% of the federal poverty line — $15,650 for one person and $21,150 for a household of two in 2026. In the 41 jurisdictions that expanded Medicaid, income below 138% of the line qualifies you for Medicaid rather than a subsidized marketplace plan, so the premium tax credit effectively starts at $21,597 / $29,187 there. In the 10 states that did not expand, income under 100% of the line falls into the coverage gap with neither Medicaid nor a credit.

Where a 2026 premium tax credit begins

The middle column is the statutory floor for the premium tax credit; the last column is where a credit actually appears for someone in an expansion jurisdiction, because below it the coverage is Medicaid instead. The 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid are AL, FL, GA, KS, MS, SC, TN, TX, WI, WY. Household income here is marketplace MAGI for the coverage year, and household size is everyone on the tax return, not only the people enrolled in the plan.

Retiring early is the common way an otherwise comfortable household lands under the floor: a year lived out of taxable savings can show very little income on the return. Realizing a Roth conversion or some long-term gains lifts marketplace MAGI back over the line deliberately, which is the whole design of a bridge-income plan.

Which poverty guidelines govern 2026

The guidelines published in January of one year govern the next coverage year, so the 2025 HHS poverty guidelines (2025 Federal Register notice at 90 FR 5917) govern the 2026 coverage year — not the 2026 ones. Every dollar figure above therefore comes from the 2025 notice applied to 2026 marketplace eligibility. The other end of the range — the income at which the credit stops — is on the 400% poverty-line cliff answer.

Methodology

Changelog

• v2026.1 — first publication. Figures computed from the 2026 tax-constants mirror and committed datasets.

@misc{quantcalc2026howmuchincomedoineedtoqualifyforanacasub,
  title  = {How much income do I need to qualify for an ACA subsidy in 2026?},
  author = {{QuantCalc Research}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://quantcalc.app/answers/income-needed-to-qualify-for-aca-subsidy/},
  note   = {Accessed <date>}
}