Find out how much rent you can afford based on your income, or check if a specific rent fits your budget.
You have a $54,000 salary and need to decide on a $1,450 one-bedroom whose listing says nothing about utilities or parking. Whether it is comfortable depends less on the rent line than on the total housing figure, which here comes to $1,703 a month, or 37.8% of your gross pay. This calculator works in both directions: from income to a rent ceiling, or from a rent you are considering to the share of income it consumes.
Monthly income = annual income ÷ 12, or the monthly figure as typed. By Income mode returns three ceilings: monthly income × 25%, × 28% and × 30%. By Rent mode adds rent, utilities, renter's insurance and parking into one total, then computes total ÷ monthly income × 100, plus an income-needed figure of total ÷ 0.30 × 12.
What changes if one input moves? Using the scenario below, add $100 to the rent and the share climbs from 37.8% to 40.1%. Remove the $75 parking space and it falls to 36.2%. On a $4,500 monthly income, every extra $100 a month is worth about 2.2 percentage points, so small recurring costs matter more than they look.
Worked example: $54,000 ÷ 12 = $4,500 a month. Rent $1,450 + utilities $160 + renter's insurance $18 + parking $75 = $1,703. $1,703 ÷ $4,500 = 37.8%, above the 30% line the page treats as affordable. Income needed at 30% is $1,703 ÷ 0.30 × 12 = $68,120 a year. By Income mode on the same $4,500 gives ceilings of $1,125 (25%), $1,260 (28%) and $1,350 (30%).
By Income applies each percentage to rent alone and then adds your extras on top, so the 30% card reads $1,350 rent but $1,603 total housing, which is 35.6% of income. By Rent tests rent plus extras against 30%. To keep total housing at 30%, subtract your extras from the ceiling: $1,350 − $253 = $1,097 for rent.
Gross. The 30% mark is a long-standing rule of thumb; US housing agencies call households paying more than that cost-burdened. If your take-home is much lower than gross because of benefits or retirement deductions, the real strain is higher than the page shows.
Close, not identical. Three times rent means rent is 33.3% of gross income, a bit looser than 30%, and it ignores extras. At $54,000 you clear a landlord's 3× test for $1,450 ($52,200 needed) while still failing the 30% total-housing test here.
A monthly average for electricity, gas, water and internet where the landlord does not cover them. Ask the landlord or the utility for the prior year's average, since winter heating or summer cooling can double a single month.