Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act

Key Points on the AHCIA:  

• The AHCIA would expand and strengthen the Housing Credit, our nation’s most essential tool for the production and preservation of affordable rental housing.  

• The legislation increases Housing Credit resources by restoring a cut the program suffered in 2022 and expanding authority by another 50 percent. It also lowers the bond financing threshold so states may increase Housing Credit production financed with multifamily bonds using existing bond resources.  

• • A 2023 analysis by Novogradac found the bill’s main production provisions — including the cap increase, lowering the bond threshold, and various basis boosts would finance an additional 1.94 million affordable rental homes over the next 10 years.  

• It would also make the Housing Credit a better tool for preservation; enable it to better serve hard-to-reach communities, including Native Americans, rural areas, high-poverty and high-cost areas, and extremely low-income households; provide protections for veterans and survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking; and streamline program rules to simplify and improve operations.

• The AHCIA has wide bipartisan support in Congress. By all known accounts, the AHCIA has unanimous support across the affordable housing industry, from tenant advocates to private-sector developers and investors.

• Two provisions originating in the AHCIA were enacted into law on July 4, 2025, as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — a 12 percent increase in annual Housing Credit authority and a 25 percent bond financing threshold for 4 percent Housing Credit developments (replacing the previous 50 percent bond financing threshold). While these two aspects of AHCIA are now law, NCSHA continues to advocate for the AHCIA as standalone legislation and supports the approximately two dozen provisions it contains that are yet to be enacted.