Vermont is a small state with two rental markets that do not resemble each other.
Chittenden County — Burlington — has a two-bedroom fair market rent of $2,140. Rutland County's is $1,345. That is a 59% gap across about seventy miles.
The statewide figure is $1,354, thirteenth-highest in the country — and it sits almost exactly on Rutland, not on Burlington.
A note before you start. This is general education, not housing, legal or financial advice. Rent figures come from HUD's Fair Market Rents for FY2026, published under 24 CFR 888.113. An FMR is the 40th percentile of GROSS rent — rent plus tenant-paid utilities — for standard-quality units in a defined rent area, so roughly 60% of units cost more. Vermont's take-home figures carry a caveat that section 5 states in full, and it affects every burden percentage on this page. Vermont landlord-tenant law is outside this dataset.
1. What HUD says renting costs in Vermont
| Unit size | Statewide fair market rent |
|---|---|
| Studio | $1,030 |
| 1 bedroom | $1,127 |
| 2 bedroom | $1,354 |
| 3 bedroom | $1,759 |
| 4 bedroom | $1,923 |
The three-to-four-bedroom step is $164, or 9.3% — unusually small. In most states that step is 15% to 25%.
Vermont's four-bedroom is the cheapest relative to its three-bedroom of almost any state in this series, which reflects a housing stock of older single-family homes where an extra bedroom is a room, not a different class of property.
The step that costs you is one to two: $227 a month, $2,724 a year.
Work out what rent your own income actually supports in Vermont2. Rent areas are defined by TOWN in Vermont
This is the New England exception and it matters here.
In 46 states HUD defines rent areas by county. In the six New England states — Vermont among them — HUD defines them by town, because New England counties have little administrative meaning and metropolitan areas are built from town-level units.
Two practical consequences:
A county figure in Vermont is an aggregate of towns, not a single measurement. When this page says Chittenden County is $2,140, that is the rent area covering Burlington and the towns HUD groups with it — not a county-wide average in the sense the phrase implies elsewhere.
Two towns in the same county can sit in different rent areas. So the useful question in Vermont is not "which county" but "which town, and which rent area is it in." Check the specific town before assuming a county figure applies to it.
3. Burlington and Rutland
| County | Studio | 2 bedroom | 3 bedroom | Rent area |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chittenden County | $1,497 | $2,140 | $2,745 | Burlington-South Burlington, VT MSA |
| Rutland County | $1,019 | $1,345 | $1,638 | Rutland County, VT |
Chittenden is $795 a month above Rutland on a two-bedroom — $9,540 a year — and $478 above on a studio, a 47% difference.
Income required at 3x: $77,040 for Chittenden's two-bedroom and $48,420 for Rutland's. A $28,620 gap in what a landlord will demand, inside a state of about 650,000 people.
Chittenden's $2,140 is higher than the statewide two-bedroom figure of every state except Hawaii. Burlington is not a cheap place to rent by any national standard, and the rest of Vermont mostly is.
4. The spread
| Measure | Vermont |
|---|---|
| Distinct rent areas | 12 |
| Cheapest 2-bedroom area | $1,007 |
| Dearest 2-bedroom area | $2,140 |
| Internal spread | 113% |
| Statewide median | $1,354 |
Twelve rent areas is the fifth-fewest of any state. Only Delaware and Rhode Island (three each), Hawaii (five) and New Jersey (eleven) have fewer.
And Vermont's cheapest area is $1,007 — above the $973 administered minimum, so like Arizona, Vermont has no area sitting at the floor. There is nothing under $1,007 anywhere in the state.
The dearest is 113% above the cheapest, which is a wide internal spread for a state this small — and it is essentially the Burlington-versus-everywhere-else gap from section 3.
5. The Vermont tax caveat, stated in full
Every burden percentage on this page is an upper bound. Here is why.
Vermont has a standard deduction and a personal exemption, both indexed to inflation. Their 2026 amounts had not been published when this site's dataset was compiled.
Rather than guess at them, this site's engine applies Vermont's brackets with no shelter subtracted. That overstates Vermont tax, understates take-home, and therefore overstates every rent-burden percentage below.
The direction of the error is known and it only runs one way: your real burden is lower than the figures here, never higher.
How much lower? If the amounts have been adjusted broadly in line with inflation, a single filer's shelter in 2026 is somewhere near $13,000 to $14,000. At $85,000, that is roughly $890 of tax — about $74 a month of take-home, which would move the statewide $85,000 burden from 25.1% to around 24.8%.
So the caveat is real and its magnitude is small. It does not change any conclusion on this page. It is stated anyway, because the alternative is publishing an estimate dressed as a fact, and this site's standard is that every number is sourced or it does not ship.
Vermont's brackets themselves run from 3.35% to 8.75%, and 8.75% is a high top rate — but it applies only well above the incomes discussed here.
6. Three things a fair market rent is not
It is the 40th percentile, not the median. Roughly 60% of standard-quality units rent for more than the FMR.
It is GROSS rent, including tenant-paid utilities. A Vermont winter is a heating load, and a great many Vermont rentals heat with oil or propane rather than natural gas. The difference between "heat included" and "heat not included" is worth several hundred dollars a month between December and March — far more than the FMR's monthly figure suggests when read as a rent alone.
It is per rent area, not per county — and in Vermont, per town. See section 2.
7. What the two-bedroom actually requires
| Statewide | Chittenden | Rutland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2-bedroom | $1,354 | $2,140 | $1,345 |
| Gross income a 3x screen demands | $48,744 | $77,040 | $48,420 |
What passing that screen leaves
| Statewide 2-bed | |
|---|---|
| Gross income required | $48,744 |
| Vermont take-home, single filer (upper-bound tax) | About $39,720 |
| Take-home per month | $3,310 |
| Rent | $1,354 |
| Rent as a share of take-home | 40.9% |
What the two-bedroom costs at real salaries
| Annual salary | Statewide | Chittenden | Rutland |
|---|---|---|---|
| $45,000 | 44.1% | 69.7% | 43.8% |
| $60,000 | 33.8% | 53.5% | 33.6% |
| $85,000 | 25.1% | 39.7% | 25.0% |
Rent as a share of take-home pay. All figures are upper bounds — see section 5.
Chittenden at $85,000 is 39.7% — well past HUD's 30% line even at a good professional salary, and the section 5 correction would move it to roughly 39.2%, which changes nothing.
At $45,000 Chittenden is 69.7%. That is not a budget; it is an application a landlord would refuse. The 3x screen on $2,140 demands $77,040 — $32,040 more than the tenant earns.
Rutland at every salary is within a third of a percentage point of the statewide figure, which is the clearest evidence that Vermont's statewide number describes Vermont-minus-Burlington.
8. Rent versus buy in Vermont
Three things decide it, and the rent is not one of them:
Appreciation. Backward-looking, county-specific, and not a forecast.
Selling costs. Around 7% of the sale price, and it never comes back.
Ongoing carrying cost. Vermont's effective property tax rates are among the highest in the country, and that is the single biggest structural argument against buying here rather than renting. A high annual property tax bill is a permanent carrying cost that pushes the break-even year later, and it compounds with the fact that it does not stop when the mortgage does.
Vermont operates a property tax credit that reduces the education portion of the bill for households below an income threshold, which softens this for some owners. The eligibility rules and amounts are outside this dataset and are worth checking against the Vermont Department of Taxes directly before treating the headline rate as your rate.
And an old Vermont house is an old house. Heating systems, insulation, roofs under snow load — an owner carries all of it and a renter carries none of it.
Run the Vermont rent-versus-buy calculator with your own county.
9. What you can actually control
Decide about Burlington first. It is a $795-a-month decision on a two-bedroom, and every other Vermont rent question is small next to it.
Check the town, not the county. Vermont's rent areas are town-defined. A neighbouring town can be in a different rent area with a different figure.
Ask whether heat is included, and ask what fuel. The FMR is a gross-rent figure. Oil and propane heat in a Vermont winter is expensive and its price moves year to year in a way that rent does not.
Get the landlord test and the budget test straight. 3x gross gets you approved. 30% of take-home is what you can carry. On Chittenden's $2,140 those are $77,040 of income and, at that income, $1,489 of rent — $651 less than the rent itself.
Existing debt does not appear in the landlord's test.
A pre-tax 401(k) deferral works harder in Vermont than in a flat-tax state. At a 6.6% marginal rate, deferring $6,000 saves about $396 of Vermont tax on top of the federal saving.
And treat every percentage here as slightly high. Section 5 explains the direction; the real figures are a fraction of a point better than the ones printed.
10. How HUD's cost-burden thresholds actually work
The 30% and 50% figures quoted throughout this article are not rules of thumb. They are regulatory definitions, and knowing where they come from tells you what they are and are not good for.
HUD defines a household as "cost-burdened" when it spends more than 30% of gross income on housing, and "severely cost-burdened" above 50%. The threshold traces back to the National Housing Act, and HUD uses it to measure housing need and to set programme eligibility.
Three things follow from that origin, and all three matter to a renter:
It is measured against gross income because a housing programme can verify gross income. A caseworker can read a W-2. They cannot easily verify what your actual tax withholding, retirement deferrals and health premiums leave you. Gross is administratively tractable, not economically correct.
It counts housing costs, not just rent. HUD's measure includes utilities, which is precisely why the fair market rent is defined as gross rent. If you are comparing your own situation against the 30% threshold, include your utility bills — otherwise you are measuring a smaller number against the same line.
It is a population statistic before it is personal advice. The threshold exists to answer "how many households in this county are struggling," and it does that job well. It was never designed to tell one household what it can afford, and it does not account for household size, debt, childcare, medical costs, or the tax rate where you live.
Which is why this article reports both figures. In Vermont a two-bedroom at $1,354 against a $48,744 income is exactly at HUD's 30% line by HUD's own measure. Against what actually reaches that household's account it is closer to 40%. Both numbers are correct; they answer different questions.
If you want one number to plan around, use 30% of take-home. It is the more conservative of the two, it is the one that reflects what you can actually spend, and it is what this site's calculator reports alongside the conventional figure.
11. What a landlord checks besides your income
The 3x income screen is the most visible test, and it is not the only one. None of the following is a legal requirement — they are common industry practice, and individual landlords differ.
Credit score. Most professionally managed buildings run a credit check, and many publish a minimum. A low score does not automatically disqualify you, but it commonly triggers a larger deposit or a guarantor requirement.
Rental history and references. Previous landlords, length of tenancy, and any eviction filings. An eviction filing can appear on a tenant screening report even where the case was dismissed, which is worth knowing if you have one.
The security deposit. How much a landlord may ask for, when it must be returned, and what may be deducted are all governed by state law, and those rules vary enormously. Check Vermont's own statute — this site's rent dataset covers HUD fair market rents and does not cover landlord-tenant law, so nothing on this page should be read as describing it.
Application fees. Charged per applicant in most markets, and often non-refundable. Applying to several places at once is a real cost.
Guarantors and co-signers. Where an applicant fails the income screen, many landlords will accept a guarantor — commonly at a higher multiple, such as 80x the monthly rent in annual income rather than 36x. That is a much larger number than the tenant's own test, and it is the usual route for students and recent graduates.
Proof of income. Pay stubs, an offer letter, or tax returns for the self-employed. Self-employed applicants are frequently asked for two years of returns, which is a materially higher bar than a salaried applicant faces on the same income.
The practical point: the 3x screen decides whether you clear the first filter. Everything above decides whether you get the apartment, and several of those items cost money to fail.
12. When these figures change
HUD publishes fair market rents annually, effective at the start of the federal fiscal year on 1 October. The figures in this article are FY2026.
Three ways your area's number can move:
Re-measurement. HUD builds FMRs from American Community Survey data with more recent trend adjustments. A rent area whose measured market has moved will see its figure move with it.
Redefinition. HUD occasionally redraws rent areas — splitting a metro, adding a county to one, or creating a small-area FMR where ZIP-level figures replace a single metro figure. When that happens, a county's published rent can change substantially without any change in its actual market. Vermont has 12 rent areas today; that count is not fixed.
The floor. HUD applies a national minimum. In FY2026 the two-bedroom floor is $973, and seventeen states have at least one rent area sitting on it. When the floor rises, every area at the floor rises with it — regardless of what happened locally.
What that means for planning. A fair market rent is a well-sourced annual snapshot, not a forecast. If you are signing a twelve-month lease, the figure that matters is the rent in the lease, and the FMR is context for judging whether that rent is reasonable for the area and the unit size.
Voucher holders should note one thing more. FMRs set the basis for Housing Choice Voucher payment standards, and a public housing agency may set its standard within a range around the FMR rather than exactly at it. Your agency's payment standard is the operative number, not the published FMR.
Frequently asked questions
What is the average rent in Vermont? HUD's statewide fair market rent for a two-bedroom is $1,354 a month for FY2026, thirteenth-highest of the fifty states. Chittenden County is $2,140 and Rutland County is $1,345.
Why are Vermont's take-home figures called an upper bound? Vermont's standard deduction and personal exemption exist but their inflation-adjusted 2026 amounts had not been published when this dataset was compiled. Rather than guess, the engine applies the brackets with no shelter subtracted — so the tax is overstated, take-home understated, and every burden percentage here slightly high.
How much does that caveat change the numbers? At $85,000 it is worth roughly $890 of tax, or about $74 a month — enough to move the statewide burden from 25.1% to about 24.8%. It changes no conclusion on this page.
What income do I need to rent a two-bedroom in Burlington? A 3x landlord screen on Chittenden County's $2,140 needs $77,040 a year. In Rutland County, on $1,345, it needs $48,420.
Why does HUD use towns rather than counties in Vermont? Because New England's metropolitan definitions are built from town-level units rather than counties, HUD defines rent areas by town in all six New England states. Two towns in one Vermont county can fall in different rent areas.
Is 30% of income a realistic rent budget in Vermont? Outside Burlington, close to it — Rutland's $1,345 is 25.0% of take-home at $85,000. In Chittenden County it is not: $2,140 is 39.7% at that same salary.
Does heat come with a Vermont rental? Sometimes, and it is the question worth asking. HUD's figure is gross rent including tenant-paid utilities, and Vermont oil or propane heat between December and March is a large and variable cost.
Should I buy in Vermont instead? Vermont's property tax rates are among the highest in the country, which pushes the break-even year later than in most states. A property tax credit softens this for households below an income threshold — check the current rules directly. Run the calculator.
What to do next
Vermont is two rental markets, and the statewide figure describes only one of them.
- Vermont rent affordability calculator — the landlord's test and the budget test, side by side.
- Vermont take-home pay — including the full upper-bound explanation.
- Vermont rent vs buy — the break-even year, computed rather than assumed.
- The 30% rule is measured against the wrong number — the full argument.
- Renting in the USA in 2026 — all fifty states, county by county.
Every figure on this site is sourced and dated. How we source every number.
Rent figures are HUD Fair Market Rents for FY2026, from HUD User, published under 24 CFR 888.113. An FMR is the 40th percentile of gross rent including tenant-paid utilities for standard-quality units in a defined rent area — not a market median. In New England, including Vermont, rent areas are defined by town rather than county. Statewide figures are the median across Vermont's 12 distinct rent areas, unweighted by population. Take-home figures are computed by this site's own tax engine for tax year 2026 on a single filer with no dependents or pre-tax deferrals, using federal figures from IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32; Vermont's 2026 standard deduction and personal exemption amounts were unpublished, so no state shelter is applied and every Vermont figure here is an upper bound on tax and a lower bound on take-home. The 3x landlord screen is a common industry practice, not a legal standard. Vermont landlord-tenant law, property tax rates and the property tax credit are outside this dataset and are discussed qualitatively. This is general education and not housing, legal or financial advice.