The $34,200 Line That Decides Whether Anyone Looks Inside the House

A higher-priced mortgage loan of $34,200 or less does not have to be appraised. That is the rule in force across the United States today, and it has been since 1 January 2026, when the exemption threshold rose from $33,500.

The figure comes from a joint final rule issued by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, published in the Federal Register on 16 December 2025 at 90 FR 58141. It is not a policy judgement and was not argued over. The three agencies recalculate the number once a year against a price index, and this year the arithmetic added $700.

What the exemption switches off

Under Regulation Z, a creditor making a higher-priced mortgage loan must obtain, before the loan closes, a written appraisal performed by a certified or licensed appraiser who has physically visited the interior of the property. The codified text at 12 CFR 1026.35(c)(3) states that "a creditor shall not extend a higher-priced mortgage loan to a consumer without obtaining, prior to consummation, a written appraisal of the property". A loan at or below $34,200 does not have to carry that appraisal at all.

A second protection goes with it. 12 CFR 1026.35(c)(4) otherwise requires an additional appraisal where a property is being resold quickly: where the seller acquired it within the preceding 90 days at a price more than 10 percent below what the borrower is now paying, or within 91 to 180 days at a price more than 20 percent below. Below the threshold, that requirement does not apply either.

The test is applied at consummation. A transaction is exempt if the credit extended when the loan closes is equal to or below the threshold then in force. The exemption does not travel with the loan. A mortgage that was exempt when it was written and is refinanced years later into an amount above the threshold then current must meet the full appraisal requirements, unless some other exemption applies.

Thirteen years of quiet drift

The exemption was created by a supplemental final rule in December 2013, at $25,000, with annual indexation written into it from the start. The official interpretations amended by the current notice set out every step since: $25,000 from 18 January 2014, $25,500 for 2015, 2016 and 2017, $26,000 for 2018, $26,700 for 2019, $27,200 for 2020 and 2021, $28,500 for 2022, $31,000 for 2023, $32,400 for 2024, $33,500 for 2025 and $34,200 for 2026.

The line is $9,200 higher than the one the agencies first drew. Every one of those increases moved loans out of the appraisal requirement rather than into it. The protection is being indexed away from more borrowers each year by the same mechanism that keeps it nominally intact.

The reach is wider than the three issuing agencies. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration and the Federal Housing Finance Agency adopted the Bureau's version of these regulations, so the same figure governs institutions they supervise.

How the number is set

The statutory basis is section 129H of the Truth in Lending Act, added by section 1471 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010. The indexation tracks the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers.

The notice records a 2.1 percent increase in that index from April 2024 to April 2025, using the reading in effect on 1 June 2025, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on 13 May 2025 and which reflects April 2025 conditions. The notice itself prints no index levels. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' own data for the series gives April 2025 at 314.243 and April 2024 at 307.811, a rise of 2.09 percent, consistent with the figure the agencies state.

Increases are rounded to the nearest $100, so a computed increase of $950 becomes $1,000 and one of $949 becomes $900. If the index does not rise, the threshold holds, and the following year's calculation is run against the amount that would have resulted had the decrease and any later increases been counted.

"The amendments in this final rule are technical and non-discretionary, and apply the method previously established in the regulations for determining adjustments to the threshold."

The same reasoning let the agencies take the rule straight to final form without a proposal, treating notice and comment as unnecessary. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs designated it neither a major rule nor a significant regulatory action. The three agencies each added a new official interpretation to their own rulebooks stating the 2026 figure, and the summary is a single line: "Based on the CPI-W in effect as of June 1, 2025, the exemption threshold will increase from $33,500 to $34,200, effective January 1, 2026."

What is not on the record

The notice gives no estimate of how many mortgages fall between $33,500 and $34,200, and no agency figure exists for how many borrowers the change moved out of the appraisal requirement. It is an unsigned joint rulemaking and carries no quotation from any named official at any of the three agencies.

Nor is the next figure known. No adjustment for 2027 has been published or announced. On the pattern of recent years the notice is due before the end of 2026: the notice published in 2024 came on 15 October, the one in 2023 on 29 November, the one in 2022 on 20 October and the current one on 16 December. Until it appears, $34,200 is the number, and every loan written under it closes without anyone being required to walk through the house.