What geographic adjustments (Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S. territories) apply to the 2026 FPL?

1. Alaska and Hawaii: explicit upward adjustments to the HHS poverty guidelines

The HealthCare.gov glossary and HHS materials both make plain that Federal Poverty Level amounts used for many programs are higher in Alaska and Hawaii than for the 48 contiguous states, meaning eligibility cutoffs and benefit calculations use Alaska- and Hawaii-specific figures rather than the mainland baseline ^{[1] [2]}. HHS’s poverty guidelines are the administrative numbers commonly called the FPL for benefit and program rules, and multiple program guidance documents reference the separate Alaska and Hawaii figures when determining eligibility or affordability safe harbors for 2026-related rules (for example, eligibility for premium tax credits in coverage year 2026 is based on the 2025 poverty guidelines) ^{[3] [1]}.

2. Territories and freely associated states: the guidelines are not defined, creating a patchwork

HHS explicitly states that its poverty guidelines are not defined for Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Palau, which means the federal “poverty guidelines” table does not supply official 100% FPL numbers for those jurisdictions and federal programs frequently treat them differently or rely on local rules ^[2]. That absence in HHS guidance forces states, territories and program administrators to adopt alternative standards or program-specific rules — a structural difference that matters for benefits tied to the FPL.

3. Program-by-program application: multiples, add‑ons, and varying “per additional person” amounts

Even within the U.S. states, programs use the HHS guidelines in different ways: many programs apply fixed multiples of the guideline (e.g., 110% or 150% for certain LIHEAP or social programs) and require a per-person add-on for households larger than eight, but the exact add-on and multiplier can vary by program and fiscal year ^{[4] [5]}. Federal and state handbooks and clearinghouses list differing add-on amounts or note optional versus mandatory uses for a given federal fiscal year (for instance, LIHEAP guidance includes specified add-ons for FFY2026 usage) ^[4]. This produces practical variability in how a family of nine in Alaska, Hawaii, a U.S. state, or a U.S. territory will be treated for benefit eligibility.

4. Administrative nuance: poverty thresholds vs. poverty guidelines and the policy implications

HHS cautions that the "poverty thresholds" (the Census Bureau’s original statistical measure) historically never had separate figures for Alaska and Hawaii, whereas the HHS "poverty guidelines" used for administrative eligibility do include Alaska and Hawaii adjustments — a technical distinction that often gets lost in policy discussions but has real effects on how program rules are written and litigated ^[2]. That nuance matters because many program rules, affordability safe harbors, and tax-credit eligibility rely on the administrative poverty guidelines rather than statistical thresholds, and different texts (statutes, federal registers, agency guidance) may invoke one or the other ^{[2] [3]}.

5. What reporting and program documents do not provide here

The provided sources confirm the presence of Alaska/Hawaii adjustments and the absence of HHS-defined guideline values for the listed territories, and they show that program administrators use multiples and add-ons — however, the exact 2026 dollar figures for Alaska and Hawaii, and the definitive per-person add-on numbers adopted across all federal programs for FFY2026, are not present in the given snippets, so precise numeric amounts for 100% FPL in Alaska and Hawaii or a single authoritative add-on are not asserted here because those specific numbers were not included in the reporting excerpts ^{[2] [4] [3]}.