The ROAD Act Removed the Chassis Rule: What It Means for Manufactured and Tiny Homes

Published August 18, 2026. This post covers Sections 301 through 304 of Public Law 119-101, enacted July 11, 2026. The amended definition quoted below is the current text of 42 U.S.C. 5402(6) as published by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel.

I spent thirteen months living in a van before I owned anything. So I pay close attention when federal law changes what counts as a house, because the line between a dwelling and a vehicle is the line between a mortgage and a much worse loan.

Why the chassis rule is the least covered part of the law

The ROAD Act moved that line. It is the least covered part of the law and it may be the most consequential for anyone whose route into ownership runs through something other than a conventional house.

The chassis, and why it mattered

A chassis is the steel frame with the axles that federal law required under manufactured homes since 1974, which pushed them toward chattel loans.

A chassis is the steel frame a manufactured home is built on, the part with the axles. Since 1974, federal law defined a manufactured home as a structure built on a permanent chassis. The frame had to stay under the house forever, even after the house was set on a foundation and the wheels came off.

Section 301 of the ROAD Act struck the phrase “on a permanent chassis” and inserted “with or without a permanent chassis.” The definition now reads, in relevant part:

“manufactured home” means a structure, transportable in one or more sections, which, in the traveling mode, is eight body feet or more in width or forty body feet or more in length, or, when erected on site, is three hundred twenty or more square feet, and which is built with or without a permanent chassis and designed to be used as a dwelling…

42 U.S.C. 5402(6), as amended by Public Law 119-101

Where tiny homes sit in this

Most tiny homes fall under the 320 square foot floor, but a builder can voluntarily certify a smaller home to HUD code and it counts.

Does a tiny home qualify as a manufactured home?

This is the question I expect people to arrive with, so let me answer it precisely, because the details decide it.

The definition has a size floor. A manufactured home is normally at least 320 square feet when set up on site, or eight feet wide or forty feet long in traveling mode. Most tiny homes are smaller than that.

Two limits to keep in view:

• Self propelled recreational vehicles are excluded outright. A camper with an engine is never a manufactured home. Note the wording though, because it says self propelled. A towable unit is not excluded by that clause, and what governs it is which code it was built and certified to.
• Certification is the builder’s choice, not the buyer’s. If the manufacturer built to recreational vehicle standards rather than HUD standards, no amount of wanting it to be a house makes it one. Ask a builder for the HUD certification label and the data plate before you assume anything about financing.

The deadline every state now faces

Most states must certify to HUD by July 2027, and states whose legislatures meet every other year by July 2028, that their laws treat chassis free homes the same, or they must prohibit their sale.

Changing the federal definition does nothing on its own if a state still treats these homes as vehicles. Section 301 handles that with a requirement and a penalty.

What each state has to certify by July 2027

Within one year of enactment, so by July 2027, every state must certify to HUD that its own laws treat a manufactured home built without a permanent chassis the same as one built on a chassis. The certification has to cover financing, title, insurance, manufacture, sale, taxes, transportation and installation. States whose legislatures meet every other year get two years. After that, states recertify annually, and HUD publishes a list of who is current.

What happens to a state that does not certify

A state that does not certify must prohibit the manufacture, installation or sale of chassis free manufactured homes inside its borders. That is an unusual design. Rather than punishing the state, the law removes the product from the market until the state acts, which puts every manufacturer and retailer in that state on the same side as the reformers.

The financing that goes with it

Section 303 sets FHA Title I limits of $106,405 for a single-section home and $195,322 for a multi-section home, and lets HUD set terms up to 30 years.

Section 303 raised the FHA Title I loan limits in the law, which are the federal loan program most used for manufactured homes and home improvements. HUD had already raised the home limits in March 2024, to $105,532 and $193,719, so the new figures are under 1% higher. These are the new ones. As of October 6, 2026, HUD has issued no notice putting these figures into effect, and 24 CFR part 201 still shows the old amounts and a 20-year term, so lenders use the limits HUD set in March 2024; confirm with a Title I lender before you plan around them.^[S2]

Two details in that table are worth pausing on. The law lets HUD set terms of up to 30 years, which would matter more than the headline amounts, because term length sets the monthly payment. Accessory dwelling units also become a Title I use for the first time, though HUD has not yet set a loan amount.

Two other parts of the same law matter more to a house hacker than the chassis rule: the ADU financing provisions, which are what make a rented backyard unit financeable, and the investor ban on one- and two-unit homes[S1], which changes who you are bidding against for a duplex.

Buying the land under the homes

Section 304, the PRICE Act, authorizes grants for manufactured housing communities, favoring ones residents own through a cooperative or kept affordable.

The worst outcome in manufactured housing is owning the home and renting the ground beneath it, because the lot rent can rise without limit and moving a home is expensive enough to be theoretical. Section 304, the PRICE Act, authorizes money for the alternative, if Congress appropriates it.

What the PRICE Act grants fund

It authorizes competitive grants for manufactured housing communities, with eligibility written to favor communities that residents own themselves through a cooperative or similar resident controlled entity, or that will be kept affordable to households at or below 120 percent of area median income. Grants can pay for infrastructure and utilities, repair and replacement of homes, land acquisition to expand a community, accessibility and safety work, and resident services that include relocation assistance, eviction prevention and down payment assistance.

One restriction to know: grant money may not rehabilitate homes built before June 15, 1976, the date HUD construction standards took effect. Those units can only be replaced, not repaired, with these funds.

What Section 302 asks HUD to review

Section 302 rounds it out on the modular side, ordering HUD to review why FHA construction financing does not work well for modular builders and to open a rulemaking on construction draw schedules, which are the milestones that release money during a build.

What this does not do

The law does not convert existing titles, fund the grants, create a tiny home loan program, preempt local zoning, or change the size floor.

• It does not make your existing manufactured home real property. Titling is state law. The certification requirement pushes states toward parity, but the conversion process where you live is unchanged today.
• It does not fund the PRICE Act grants. Section 1202 of the Act authorizes no additional money, so these programs depend on appropriations.
• It does not create a tiny home loan program. It removes a structural barrier. A builder still has to certify to HUD code.
• It does not preempt local zoning. Nothing here forces a town to allow manufactured homes where it currently does not.
• It does not change the size floor. The 320 square foot threshold and the voluntary certification exception are both unchanged from prior law.
• It does not yet give builders a code to certify to. Section 301(b) requires HUD to issue revised construction standards for chassis free homes, plus a distinct label and data plate. That rulemaking carries no date by which the standards must exist.

What I would watch

Watch HUD’s state certification list, which by summer 2027 maps where chassis free homes can be financed, and watch the new minimum energy standards.

Why the certification list is the thing to track

The certification list is the thing to track. HUD has to publish which states are current, and by summer 2027 that list becomes a map of where a chassis free factory built home can be bought and financed like a house. A state that misses the deadline effectively bans the product, so the incentive to comply is strong.

State legislatures move at their own pace, and four of them (Montana, Nevada, North Dakota and Texas) meet only every other year.

The second thing to watch

HUD’s minimum energy standards for manufactured homes, which the Act requires within one year and every three years after. Energy rules raise build costs, and for the cheapest homes on the market that tradeoff between upfront price and running cost is the whole argument. On September 18, 2026, the Energy Department said its 2022 manufactured-housing energy rule has no legal effect under the Act, which leaves the job to HUD.

The diagram in this post is free to republish with attribution. Copy-paste embed code is on the charts page.

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