TL;DR
Home sharing income does not lower your Social Security retirement check. It can lower benefits that are only for people with lower incomes, like Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Medicaid and SNAP. Answer a few questions to see what could change for you.
Our research has shown what sharing a spare room can be worth to an older homeowner: steady income that helps cover the cost of staying home. We have always added one caution, that home sharing income can change other benefits you get. This page shows what that caution means for you. It follows the rules your state uses for Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Medicaid, help paying for Medicare, SNAP, energy assistance and property tax relief, and shows how much of what a home seeker pays would stay with you after any change. It also explains what to know at tax time. You decide what to charge. This page helps you see what each amount would mean before you do.
This is general information, not tax or benefits advice. Before you decide, talk with a benefits counselor or a tax professional.
Tell us about you
Your answers stay on this page. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
Each state has its own rules.
Choose "My spouse and I" if you are married and live together. Do not count the person who would share your home. If other family members live with you, your results could be different. A benefits counselor can tell you how.
Some benefits let you count part of your mortgage interest as a cost of home sharing.
Principal and interest only. Leave out property taxes and insurance, even if your lender collects them with the payment. Your monthly mortgage statement shows this.
Your monthly statement splits the payment into principal and interest. Or take Box 1 of the Form 1098 your lender sends each January, which is the interest you paid last year, and divide it by 12. Some benefits let you count the shared room's part of your interest, but not of your principal.
Your Social Security check, before anything is taken out for Medicare. Enter 0 if none.
A pension, retirement account withdrawals, or other money that comes in. Do not include SSI. Enter 0 if none.
SSI is a separate payment from your Social Security check.
Check all that apply. We will show you what could change for each one.
Why we ask: some benefits subtract the shared room's part of your home costs, like utilities and insurance, before they count your home sharing income. They figure that part by dividing your costs by the number of rooms.
Count every room except bathrooms: bedrooms, living room, kitchen, dining room. Count a basement or attic only if it is finished living space.
Choose what to charge
With home sharing, you decide how much to charge. HomeShare encourages an amount that helps the person you share with afford a place to live. The amount you pick affects two things:
1. Your benefits
The more you charge, the more income counts for SSI, Medicaid, SNAP and similar benefits. Charging less means less is counted.
2. Your taxes
Charging well below local rents can cost you some tax deductions. For most older adults with modest incomes it changes nothing, because they owe no federal income tax either way. We flag an amount only when it would raise your estimated tax.
Here are four amounts in your state, from lowest to highest, and what you would keep at each one.
Tap an amount to see what it would mean for each of your benefits in step 3.
About the tax estimate Read more
What could change for you
How your state counts home sharing incomeShow the detailsHide the detailsEach program has its own rule. We read each state's own manuals, rules and plans, and checked each one a second time against its source.
Citations, Definitions & SourcesOpen the fine printClose the fine printHow the numbers are figured, and where every rule comes from.
How the numbers are figured
Your home costs come from the Elder Index budget for an older adult homeowner in your state, with or without a mortgage. The shared room's part of those costs is one room's share of the rooms you entered. With a mortgage, the mortgage payment and interest are the ones you enter. If you leave the payment blank, a typical payment for an older homeowner in your state is used, from the Elder Index. If you leave the interest blank, none of it is counted, which shows the most your benefits could change.
SSI counts home sharing income after the room's share of costs and a $20 exclusion, then goes down a dollar for each dollar counted. Medicaid and help paying for Medicare use the same counting in most states, with each state's own limits. SNAP counts the income after the costs of earning it. Energy assistance and property tax relief show whether your income would cross the program's limit.
Federal income tax is an estimate for tax year 2026, federal only, for a room rented with no services in exchange, and without depreciation. Your actual tax depends on your whole tax return.
Fair rental is shown as 80 percent or more of the Market Rate in your state, the 20 percent discount allowed in Bindseil v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1983-411. The IRS test is what similar rooms near you rent for, so the line where you live may be higher or lower. An amount below the line is flagged only when it would raise your estimated tax.
Definitions
Home sharing income. What a home seeker who is not a relative pays you each month for a place to live in your home. The IRS calls it rent. Income from a family member follows stricter tax rules.
Market Rate. The typical room rent: HUD's median rent for a three-bedroom home in your state, divided by three. Half of rents are higher and half are lower.
Sources
Related research. What sharing a room is worth, state by state: The Value of a Match. The financial pressures that move older homeowners, and how home sharing can help them stay: Staying Home.
Federal rules: Social Security POMS SI 00830.505; 7 CFR 273 (SNAP); 42 CFR 435.601 and 435.603 (Medicaid); Medicare.gov 2026 limits; 26 U.S.C. 86, 151(d)(5)(C) and 280A; IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32 (2026 tax figures); IRS Publication 527. Budgets: Elder Index (2025), Gerontology Institute, University of Massachusetts Boston, elderindex.org. Room amounts: HUD FY2026 Fair Market Rents and 50th percentile rents, divided by bedrooms (24 CFR 982.617). Income-restricted rent: HUD FY2026 Multifamily Tax Subsidy Project 60 percent income limits, at 30 percent of income for a three-bedroom home, divided by three (26 U.S.C. 42(g)). State rules: each state's Medicaid, SNAP, energy assistance and property tax manuals, rules and plans.
Cite This Paper
HomeShare Oregon. (2026). Home Sharing and Your Benefits: What Home Sharing Income Changes, State by State. https://homeshareoregon.org/research/home-sharing-and-your-benefits/
About HomeShare Oregon
HomeShare Oregon publishes this paper as students of aging, housing, and community infrastructure. We operate one of many possible interventions in the missing middle. We believe the most useful contribution we can make to the larger field is to add a frame and a research agenda, rather than to argue for our particular role within it.
If you are working on related questions, we would like to hear from you. Email the executive director at executivedirector@homeshareoregon.org.