HUD regulatory waivers for the first quarter of 2026: what grantees should know
Housing and Urban Development Department. November 2, 2026. Read the source.
Which HUD regulatory waivers were granted in the first quarter of 2026?
On October 27, 2026, HUD published its list of regulatory waivers granted from January 1 through March 31, 2026. The list has fifty-one entries. The Office of Community Planning and Development granted two, both for disaster recovery: Tennessee may run older CDBG-DR allocations under the Universal Notice, and Hawaii’s Department of Human Services has until December 31, 2026, to spend an Emergency Solutions Grants award for Maui wildfire survivors. The Office of Housing granted four. The Office of Public and Indian Housing granted forty-five, and thirty-eight of those waive waiting-list rules for families in the Emergency Housing Voucher program.
What a HUD waiver is
A waiver is written permission from HUD to set aside a specific regulation for a specific grantee, project, or activity. Section 106 of the HUD Reform Act of 1989 requires every waiver of a regulation to be in writing and to state the grounds for approving it. Only an Assistant Secretary or someone of equivalent rank may grant one, and that person must also have the authority to issue the regulation being waived.
HUD must publish every waiver it approves in the Federal Register at least once a quarter. Each entry names the project, the provision waived, who granted it, the date, and the reason. This notice covers January 1 through March 31, 2026.
Disaster recovery and homelessness grants
CDBG-DR, Tennessee. Tennessee received Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funds for 2020 and 2021 disasters under Public Laws 117-43 and 117-180. Its later allocation for 2023 and 2024 disasters, under Public Law 118-158, follows the Universal Notice published January 8, 2025 (90 FR 1754). On February 3, 2026, HUD let the state apply the Universal Notice to the older funds too, so all four years of disasters run under one set of rules. HUD accepted the state’s case that aligning the allocations would reduce administrative burden.
ESG, Hawaii. The Emergency Solutions Grants rule at 24 CFR 576.203(b) requires a recipient to spend its whole grant within twenty-four months of the grant agreement. Hawaii’s Department of Human Services asked to extend the deadline on its Rapid Unsheltered Survivor Housing grant from November 23, 2025, to December 31, 2026. HUD first granted one month and asked for a spending plan. The department sent a plan with projected monthly spending by subrecipient. On March 17, 2026, HUD granted the full extension to December 31, 2026. The money keeps street outreach going and keeps housed participants from returning to homelessness as Maui recovers from the wildfires.
Public housing agencies and vouchers
Emergency Housing Vouchers. Thirty-eight waivers set aside 24 CFR 982.204 and 982.206, the rules on running a waiting list and giving public notice when it opens. Housing agencies from Philadelphia to Maui County asked so that families already in the Emergency Housing Voucher program could move to the Housing Choice Voucher program as EHV funding winds down. Without the waiver, each family would wait for the list to open and file a new application. Philadelphia alone serves 750 EHV households.
Rental Assistance Demonstration conversions. The Housing Authority of the City of Passaic and the Edgewater Housing Authority received waivers of several project-based voucher rules for properties under RAD. In Passaic, HUD agreed that low RAD contract rents would otherwise keep many eligible families on the waiting list out of the projects because they would not need a subsidy. Two waivers of 24 CFR 983.3 let the New York City Housing Authority consolidate RAD project-based voucher contracts at two redevelopments.
Three other public housing waivers each served one situation. In Ripley County, a tenant may stay in a unit owned by an elected official and start receiving voucher assistance there. In Sheridan, Wyoming, veterans in the HUD-VASH program may lease converted motel studios. In Michigan, a resident whose voucher was terminated after a long medical absence will have assistance resume.
How a grantee asks for a waiver
The request goes to HUD in writing. HUD follows its Statement of Policy on Waiver of Regulations and Directives, issued April 22, 1991 (56 FR 16337), and the Assistant Secretary over that regulation decides. The standard is good cause. The Hawaii approval cites the waiver authority at 24 CFR 5.110.
Each approval in this notice names the section waived and the hardship or burden the rule created for the grantee. Hawaii’s request came with a spending plan showing projected monthly spending by subrecipient. A grantee weighing its own request can contact the HUD official listed after any entry for a copy of the original request and approval.
HUD will add any first-quarter waivers it learns about later to the next quarterly notice.
Keeping HUD deadlines in view
Quillify keeps every grant’s reporting and expenditure dates on one calendar and reminds your team before each one comes due. How the funding calendar and alerts work.
What you can do today
- Search open housing and community development grants
- Federal grant funding in 2027
- Covering costs before grant money arrives
More policy news: NIH webinar notices, October 26 to 28, 2026. The 2026 proposal to trim HHS block grant regulations. The 2026 final rule trimming child support program regulations. USDA SPUR guaranteed loans for FY 2027: who qualifies and how to apply. SBA surety bond guarantee fees: what changes on November 30, 2026.
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