DC Inclusionary Zoning (IZ): how to register and enter lotteries

DC Inclusionary Zoning (IZ) makes developers set aside some lower-priced homes in new buildings. To get one, you don't apply to a building. You take a two-hour class and register with the city once. Then the city emails you each time a lottery, a random drawing, opens for a home that fits your income and household size.

What is Inclusionary Zoning in DC?

Inclusionary Zoning is a city rule that makes most new residential buildings of 10 or more homes include some lower-priced ones, says the city's fact sheet. Some renovated buildings are covered too. The homes are apartments to rent and condos or townhomes to buy.

The city's Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) keeps one list of everyone registered. When a home opens, DHCD emails the registered households whose income and size fit it, and they enter its lottery. The rent or price listed is what you pay, because IZ gives no money toward rent. If you need a place to stay tonight, call the DC Shelter Hotline.

Step 1: Take the orientation class

Everyone starts with a two-hour class. Most classes are online, run by community groups that DHCD lists on its orientation page. You get a certificate that lasts two years, and you must take the class again before it runs out to stay registered. Keep the certificate number: the city's FAQ says you need it to register and to enter lotteries.

Step 2: Register with your certificate number

After the class, DHCD emails you how to log in to your account on the city's IZ registration site. Log in and fill out the registration form. You need your certificate number for it, says the city's FAQ. You are registered only once that form is done, and from then on the city emails you about homes that fit.

If the login email hasn't come 30 days after your class, go to the site's login page and click "Forgot Password?" If that doesn't work, contact the group that taught your class.

Step 3: If you want to buy, take the homebuyer class

To buy a condo or townhome, also take an approved 8-hour homebuyer class, listed on the city's program page. Renew it every two years too.

Step 4: Check the income levels and the 2026 schedule

IZ homes are set at three levels: 50%, 60% and 80% of the Washington area's median family income, the middle family income there. Half of the families there earn more, and half earn less. DHCD's 2026 schedule uses a median of $163,900 for four people.

The schedule sets an income limit for each level, the most a household can earn and still qualify. For rentals it also sets a minimum income, the least you must earn to show you can pay the rent. The minimum doesn't apply if you have a voucher, which pays part of your rent, or other rent help from a government program.

DHCD's 2026 figures for a 2-person household:

Worked example. Two adults earn $60,000 together. They are under the income limit at all three levels. They meet the minimum for a 1- or 2-bedroom at 50% and 60%. At 80% they meet the minimum for a 1-bedroom ($51,600) but not a 2-bedroom ($61,700). So their emails will be for 50% and 60% homes and for 80% 1-bedrooms.

The schedule has figures for 1 to 8 people, and DHCD updates it every year, so read the current one before you decide.

What are the other rules to qualify?

The city's program page and fact sheet set these rules:

• At least one person per bedroom. A 2-person household can look at studios, 1-bedrooms and 2-bedrooms.
• Housing costs no more than half your income before taxes. That is the most DHCD allows; it recommends staying under 38% for a rental and 41% for a home you buy. Our rent affordability calculator shows what rent fits your income.
• No full-time college or university students.
• You live in the home as your main home.
• No other homes. You and everyone who will live with you can't own other residential property when you rent or buy.
• You live or work in DC, with priority for people who live there now, says the fact sheet. The program page says others may apply, but their odds of being picked are very low.

How does the IZ lottery work, and what are your chances?

Most IZ homes are filled by lottery. DHCD emails you each time a home fits your income and household size, and you click the link in the email to enter. There is no set schedule, so check your email once or twice a week, including the junk and spam folders, as the city asks.

After the random draw, living in DC or working in DC are the only things that change your ranking, says the city's FAQ. No other group, such as veterans, gets moved up. A good number means your application is looked at early: you still have to prove your income and household size before you are offered a home.

Far more households want IZ homes than there are homes. By the end of fiscal year 2024, 27,517 households were registered, and 2,504 IZ homes had been built since the program began, says the city's annual report for that year. Most are rentals: 123 of the 144 homes built that year were to rent. DHCD says you may be picked within months or wait years, and not everyone is picked.

A few homes skip the lottery. They are listed as "non-lottery IZ" on DC Housing Search, the city's housing search site.

What are the rules once you move in?

• No renting it out. You can't rent out or sublet any part of the home, for any length of time.
• Yearly checks for renters. You prove your household size and income every year.
• Yearly checks for owners. You prove every year that the home is your main home.
• Selling or refinancing. Owners must first send DHCD a Resale Price Request, a form asking it to set the most the home can sell for, and wait for its letter.
• Moving out. The fact sheet says the home goes back into a lottery for the next household.

Tell DHCD whenever your income or household changes: email iz.adu@dc.gov or call its IZ team.

How is IZ different from the DC Housing Authority waitlist?

IZ and the DC Housing Authority are separate, and signing up for one doesn't put you on the other. The DC Housing Authority runs public housing, apartments where the housing office is your landlord. It also runs Section 8 vouchers, which pay part of the rent on an apartment you find yourself. Your place on its waitlist, the line of people waiting, depends on when you applied. It also depends on preferences, which give certain groups priority, such as veterans or people with disabilities. IZ homes are in private buildings, with set income levels, rents and prices.

What should you do next?

Sign up for an orientation class on DHCD's orientation page. While you wait for IZ emails, look at our list of DC apartment buildings with lower rents, where you can ask about a waitlist. It has 338 buildings, which you can also see on our map. These are not IZ homes. Our qualify check shows which open listings fit your household. Our guide to how housing lotteries work explains the draw, and our guide to inclusionary housing shows how other cities run the same idea.