All cases / Federal / Department of Housing and Urban Development
$4.35 billion HUD can't verify: Rent subsidies HUD can't verify
In fiscal 2025, HUD said it couldn't determine whether $4.35B of its project-based rental assistance — 26.4% of the program — was paid correctly. A year earlier the figure was $45 million.
Department of Housing and Urban Development
- Program payments reviewed, FY2025$16.46B1
- Payments HUD can't verify$4.35B1
- Share of the program26.4%1
- Same measure, FY2024$45M (0.3%)1
- Improper payments it confirmed$01
- Which properties got the unverified money████████████████
What happened
HUD's project-based rental assistance pays private owners to keep apartments affordable for low-income tenants.
In its fiscal 2025 report HUD put $4.35B in the "unknown" column: payments it couldn't prove right or wrong because the documentation wasn't there. In fiscal 2024 the same column held $45 million.
Why nobody caught it
- HUD was one of the agencies out of compliance with the federal payment-integrity law in fiscal 2024.
How sure are we?
The books or the spending can't be verified, so fraud can't be ruled in or out.
HUD's own figures in the official FY2025 dataset. "Unknown" means insufficient documentation, not proven fraud. The jump from fiscal 2024 may partly reflect a change in how HUD tested payments; the dataset doesn't say.
Sources
- FY2025 improper payments dataset: every program's results, root causes, recoveries and compliance (FY2004–FY2025)PaymentAccuracy.gov (OMB and CFO Council); totals summed by FraudBad · Nov 9, 2026
- Agencies & programs: improper payment rates, FY2025PaymentAccuracy.gov · accessed Nov 9, 2026
Spot an error? Send the source and we'll fix it.