What specific 2025 Federal Poverty Guidelines determine the 2026 MAGI cutoffs for different household sizes?
Executive summary
The Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) cutoffs applied to 2026 Marketplace subsidies and early‑2026 Medicaid/CHIP determinations are anchored to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ 2025 Federal Poverty Guidelines (FPG), published by ASPE; those 2025 FPG dollar amounts are the numeric baseline used to set 2026 eligibility multiples by household size [1] [2]. States begin switching to the 2026 FPG for Medicaid/CHIP later in early 2026, but until that switch many programs use the 2025 figures—so the 2025 guidelines effectively determine the MAGI cutoffs for much of the 2026 coverage year [2].
1. The anchor: HHS/ASPE’s 2025 poverty guidelines are the specific cutoffs
The precise dollar figures that serve as “cutoffs” by household size are those published in the 2025 Poverty Guidelines document from the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE); ASPE’s detailed 2025 PDF contains the official dollar amounts for household sizes in the 48 contiguous states, Alaska, and Hawaii that insurers, marketplaces, and state agencies rely on to compute MAGI thresholds [1].
2. How “cutoff” translates into MAGI rules: multiples of the FPG
Programs and Marketplace rules compare a household’s MAGI to percentages of the FPG—common statutory and regulatory thresholds include 100% (poverty), 138% (Medicaid expansion benchmark in many contexts), and 400% (historical ACA subsidy cap)—and those percentages applied to the 2025 dollar FPGs yield the income lines that determine eligibility and subsidy size for 2026 coverage [2] [3].
3. Which 2025 numbers apply to which 2026 decisions and when
For Marketplace subsidy calculations for plans effective in 2026, the 2025 FPG chart is explicitly used to set eligibility and sliding‑scale subsidy percentages; likewise, many states will use the 2025 FPG to determine Medicaid and CHIP eligibility in the early months of 2026 until they formally adopt the 2026 guidelines—state adoption typically occurs between February and April, so the 2025 numbers govern MAGI cutoffs nationwide for that interim period [2].
4. Technical caveats: program definitions, rounding, and MAGI conversions
ASPE and federal program guidance note that each program (SNAP, Medicaid, CHIP, Marketplace) defines household composition, which income elements count, and how to round multiples of the poverty guidelines—meaning the same 2025 FPG dollar for a given household size can produce slightly different MAGI cutoffs depending on program rules and rounding conventions [1]. In addition, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services guidance on MAGI conversion and the 5% disregard continue to influence how reported income maps to eligibility thresholds for those programs that use MAGI [2].
5. Practical implications and where to find the actual dollar figures
Because the question seeks the “specific 2025 Federal Poverty Guidelines” that determine 2026 MAGI cutoffs, the definitive source for the raw dollar amounts is the ASPE 2025 Poverty Guidelines PDF; consumer‑facing sites such as HealthInsurance.org and state marketplaces (for example Covered California) publish those same figures as tables and apply the percent‑of‑FPL cutoffs to explain MAGI eligibility for 2026 coverage [1] [2] [4]. Analysts and consumers should consult ASPE’s table for exact household‑size dollar amounts and then apply the relevant percentage (e.g., 138%, 400%) used by the program of interest to compute the MAGI cutoff [1] [3].
6. Limits of available reporting and how to proceed
The assembled reporting confirms that the 2025 HHS/ASPE poverty guidelines are the specific, published dollar bases used to set the 2026 MAGI cutoffs and that state timing shifts to 2026 guidelines in early 2026 affect when those cutoffs change [2] [1]; however, this summary does not reproduce individual dollar rows here because readers are pointed to ASPE’s official 2025 PDF for the authoritative, household‑by‑household table that programs apply [1].