Rent Affordability Calculator
Work out how much rent you can afford on your income. Applies the 30% rule, a debt-aware limit that accounts for your existing monthly payments, and the 40x-annual-income screen most landlords use — then tells you which one is actually capping your budget and what's left over each month.
Input
Income
Before tax. Combine both incomes if you're renting with a partner.
Monthly Costs
Car payments, student loans, credit-card minimums.
Anything you pay on top of rent — power, water, internet, renters insurance.
Affordability Rules
The classic guideline is 30%. Raise it for high-cost cities.
Caps rent and your other debt payments combined. Set to the maximum to ignore this rule.
Most US landlords want annual income of 40x the monthly rent. Set to 0 to skip this check.
Output
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| No data yet | |
Estimates for budgeting purposes only — not financial advice. Landlords also weigh credit score, rental history, savings and deposits, so what you're approved for may differ.
Guides
The Rent Affordability Calculator answers the question every apartment search starts with: how much rent can I actually afford? Enter your gross income, your existing monthly debt payments and what you expect to pay for utilities, and it returns a realistic monthly rent ceiling — plus the reason that ceiling is where it is.
Most rent calculators apply a single rule of thumb. This one applies three, and reports whichever one binds.
How to use it
- Enter your gross income — before tax — and pick whether the figure is per month or per year. Renting with a partner? Add both incomes together.
- Enter your existing monthly debt payments: car loans, student loans, credit-card minimums.
- Enter what you expect to pay in utilities and renters insurance on top of rent.
- Adjust the three rule sliders if you want to model a different standard.
Results update as you type.
The three limits
Budget rule — rent should stay under a fixed share of gross income. The classic guideline is 30%, though people in high-cost cities routinely stretch to 35–40%.
cap = grossMonthlyIncome × rentPercent%Debt-aware limit — rent plus your other monthly obligations should stay under a combined ceiling. Two people on identical incomes can afford very different rents if one has a car payment.
cap = grossMonthlyIncome × combinedLimit% − existingDebtsLandlord income multiple — most US landlords and property managers screen applicants on annual income of at least 40× the monthly rent. It doesn't matter what your budget says if you can't pass the application.
cap = grossAnnualIncome ÷ incomeMultiple
Your affordable rent is the lowest of the three, and the Limiting Factor row names which one it was.
Why does the tool cap me lower than 30% of my income?
Because one of the other two rules bit first. If you carry meaningful debt, the debt-aware limit usually binds; if you're debt-free but on a modest income, the landlord's 40× screen often does. That's the useful part — it tells you whether paying down a car loan or finding a landlord with a looser screen is what would actually raise your budget.
Should utilities count inside the 30%?
The 30% rule is conventionally stated in terms of rent alone, which is how this calculator applies it — utilities sit alongside rent rather than reducing the cap. The Total Housing Cost row adds them back so you can see the real monthly number, and Left Over Each Month subtracts housing and debts from your income.
What if my landlord uses a different multiple?
Set the Landlord Income Multiple slider to whatever they use — 36× and 30× are both common outside the most competitive markets. Set it to 0 to drop the check entirely.
Related tools
Buying instead of renting? The Loan Affordability Calculator applies lender debt-to-income limits to work out the largest mortgage you could carry, and the Mortgage Calculator turns a loan amount into a monthly payment. If you're the one letting the property, the Rental Property ROI Calculator looks at the same rent figure from the landlord's side.
Privacy
The calculator runs entirely in your browser. Your income, debts and rent figures are never uploaded or stored.