"Do I actually choose 9% or 4% here, or does AHFC choose it for me?"
What you are actually choosing
There is no California-style split between two agencies. Alaska Housing Finance Corporation (AHFC) is the state's sole Section 42 allocating agency, and it processes both the competitive 9% credit and the as-of-right, bond-financed 4% credit through the same annual application — the GOAL program (Greater Opportunities for Affordable Living). GOAL also bundles three other funding sources — HOME, the Senior Citizens Housing Development Fund (SCHDF), and the National Housing Trust Fund (NHTF) — into that one application, one point scale, and one award letter.
| 9% (competitive) | 4% (non-competitive, bond-financed) | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 ceiling / cap | $3,953,600 federal — Alaska's population puts it on the small-state minimum floor of 26 U.S.C. § 42(h)(3)(C), not the $3.416-per-capita formula | $397,625,000 private activity bond volume cap — also the small-state minimum floor under 26 U.S.C. § 146(d) |
| Rationing mechanism | Fixed annual ceiling, ranked on GOAL's 231-point rating scale | As-of-right once more than 50% of project costs are bond-financed — no separate competition, but still screened through the same GOAL threshold and point scale |
| Applicant / administrator | Developer applies directly to AHFC through the GOAL application | Same GOAL application to AHFC; there is no separate bond-allocation agency the way CDLAC sits apart from CTCAC |
| 2026 actual awards | 4 projects, $3,560,630 in credit, 98 units | 2 projects, $1,610,365 in credit, 136 units |
Alaska's per-capita 9% formula ($3.416 × population) and PAB formula ($135 × population) both fall well under their respective small-state minimums for a state Alaska's size — the floor, not the formula, is what governs both ceilings in 2026.
Scale matters here more than in almost any other state guide in this library: Alaska's entire annual LIHTC program in 2026 was six projects statewide, spread across tribal housing authorities, regional nonprofits, and for-profit developers from Ketchikan to Wasilla. Picking a bucket in Alaska is less a scoring contest and more a question of which path your deal physically qualifies for.
Acquisition/rehab deals: AHFC decides your program before you apply
AHFC's Pre-Application Review Process screens every 9% proposal that involves acquisition and renovation, or renovation alone, of an existing property. If AHFC's own opinion is that the property could instead be rehabilitated using 4% credits, the proposal is not invited into the 9% competition at all — it never reaches a full application as a 9% deal. New construction is not subject to this particular screen.
There is no published formula behind that determination — no per-building basis test like California's 25%/50% aggregate-basis rule, just AHFC's discretion at the pre-application stage. The practical driver is scarcity: the entire state's competitive 9% authority for 2026 was $3,953,600, and four of the six 2026 GOAL LIHTC awards already used it. The largest project on the 2026 list by unit count, a 116-unit acquisition/rehab deal (Coho and Chinook, Juneau), went the 4% route — a project that size would have consumed a very large share of the entire annual 9% ceiling had it competed there instead. The other 4% award, a 20-unit acquisition/rehab deal (Baxter Family Housing Phase II), was smaller than three of the four 9% awards that year — a reminder that unit count alone doesn't sort a deal into a bucket; AHFC's discretionary screen does.
Because the screen runs on AHFC's discretion rather than a bright-line test, the only real lever a sponsor has is raising the acquisition/rehab deal with AHFC's Housing Development Programs Manager before the pre-application deadline — not after AHFC has already made the call.
One 231-point scale governs both paths
There is no separate tiebreaker formula for 4% deals the way CDLAC runs one apart from CTCAC. AHFC's QAP states plainly that all requirements of the competitive tax credit program — application, processing and monitoring fees, and the feasibility/viability review — apply to the non-competitive (bond-financed) program too. Every full GOAL application, 9% or 4%, is scored on the same rubric.
| Category | Maximum points |
|---|---|
| Project Location | 21 |
| Project Design (energy efficiency, unit mix, rehab quality, accessibility) | 52 |
| Project Characteristics (income targeting, special needs, project mix) | 38 |
| Market Conditions (opportunity, rental market strength, location trends) | 45 |
| Underwriting (pro forma, developer fee, debt coverage) | 40 |
| Project Leveraging (TDC appropriateness, GOAL funds relative to TDC) | 28 |
| Project Team Characteristics (non-profit participation; penalty points, uncapped) | 1 |
| Job Training Program | 6 |
An application must score at least 8 of the 40 Underwriting points to receive any GOAL funding at all — a hard floor, not just a scoring category.
One consequence worth planning around: AHFC's CEO can fund out of rank order — to maximize the number of financially feasible projects funded, or to spread awards geographically — so a top-ranked application, on either path, is not a guaranteed award.
The cost ceilings and the rehab floor that decide feasibility, not the bucket
| Area | 1BR & smaller | 2BR | 3BR+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moderate (connected by road/rail to Anchorage or Fairbanks) | $338,600 | $374,000 | $400,400 |
| Intermediate (not connected, and not a "Small Community") | $379,200 | $418,400 | $448,100 |
| High (not connected, and meets the "Small Community" definition) | $499,600 | $556,200 | $600,000 |
"Small Community" is a statutory term: population 6,500 or less and not connected by road/rail to Anchorage or Fairbanks, or population 1,600 or less and connected but at least 50 statute miles from Anchorage or 25 from Fairbanks. The same definition drives 20 of the 21 Project Location points and the High-Cost-Area cost ceiling — they aren't independent categories.
| Development type | Max gross developer fee | Contractor fee/overhead | Contingency |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Construction | 5% of acquisition costs + 15% of TDC less acquisition | 10% | 5% of construction costs |
| Acquisition with Rehabilitation / Rehabilitation Only | 5% of acquisition costs + 15% of rehabilitation costs | 10% of rehabilitation cost | 10% of construction costs |
| Acquisition Only (HOME & SCHDF programs only) | 5% of acquisition cost | 0% | — |
| 4% Tax-Exempt Bond LIHTC Projects (Only) | 5% of acquisition costs + 15% of TDC less acquisition | 10% | 10% of construction costs |
The cash portion of the developer fee is capped at $2,000,000 across all four categories. At application, the maximum proposed cash fee is 80% of the allowed fee; the remaining 20% may be deferred. Note the 4% bond row shares its fee formula with New Construction but carries the Acq/Rehab row's higher contingency ceiling — the two buckets aren't priced identically even when the deal type looks the same.
Minimum rehabilitation cost is a real threshold, not just a scoring input: it must be the greater of $25,000 per unit or 10% of the building's adjusted basis, using hard physical work items only — soft costs and financing costs don't count toward it. Missing that floor costs both the rehabilitation classification and the associated Project Design points.
If LIHTC is the only GOAL funding requested and the deal is non-competitive (4%) new construction, total development cost — net of acquisition, demolition, and reserves — cannot exceed the applicable Project Cost Standard by more than 25%. That ceiling doesn't apply the same way to a 9% deal blending in HOME, SCHDF, or NHTF, where AHFC has more discretion to adjust the funding request to close a gap.
Set-asides, sponsor limits, and the tie-break rule
There is one formal set-aside, not California's stack of rural/at-risk/nonprofit/special-needs pools: 10% of the annual LIHTC authority is reserved for projects sponsored by eligible 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations. AHFC's own QAP cites this to 26 U.S.C. § 42(i)(5); the nonprofit set-aside is more commonly cited nationally as § 42(h)(5) — confirm which section AHFC means before citing it externally.
Sponsor and per-development caps are hard limits, not scoring inputs. A project sponsor — including its subsidiaries and parent organizations — is capped at the lesser of 50% of total GOAL program resources or two GOAL projects in a given year's statewide round. No single development can request more than one-third of the annual LIHTC authority — about $1.32 million of the 2026 ceiling — no matter how it scores.
| Order | Rule |
|---|---|
| 1st | Favor the project whose community has gone the longest without a GOAL-funded development |
| 2nd (if still tied) | Favor the development with the lowest total development cost per unit |
Calendar and cost of entry
| Milestone | Timing |
|---|---|
| Pre-application registration opens | Late June to early July 2026 |
| Pre-applications due | Late July 2026 |
| Market studies commissioned / received | Late August 2026 |
| NOFA published + full-application invitations | Late October 2026 |
| Applicant training | Late October 2026 |
| Full application deadline | Mid-December 2026 |
| Notice of Intent to Award | Early January 2027 |
Special GOAL rounds run only if new funding becomes available mid-year — they are not a guaranteed fallback. Missing pre-application registration effectively means waiting for the next annual cycle, on either the 9% or 4% path.
| Fee | Amount |
|---|---|
| LIHTC Project Review and Allocation Fee | $50,000, non-refundable, due before IRS Form 8609 is issued |
| Compliance monitoring fee | Greater of $50 per LIHTC/NHTF/HOME unit or $250 minimum; capped at $3,500 per project |
One citation to check yourself before relying on it: AHFC's own June 2026 QAP cites the appeal regulation for a denied or altered funding decision inconsistently — as "15 AAC 151.830 and 15 AAC 150.220" in two places and as "15 AAC 151.830, 15 AAC 151.220 or 15 AAC 154.060" in a third. That looks like the same kind of internal citation drift California's QAP carries after its own December 2025 renumbering — confirm the live section number with AHFC rather than trusting either instance in isolation.
What "hybrid" means in a one-application state
Nothing in AHFC's QAP describes a phased 9%/4% hybrid structure the way California's does — there's no mechanism to split one project across both credit types within a single competition. The real "hybrid" decision in Alaska is which of GOAL's four funding sources — LIHTC, HOME, SCHDF, NHTF — to stack on a single project, since all four are requested on the same application, scored on the same 231-point scale, and recorded together in the same extended-use agreement or deed restriction.
The 9%-vs-4% choice itself mostly resolves before a sponsor gets a real say: acquisition/rehab deals get pre-screened toward 4% at AHFC's discretion, and new construction competes for 9% by default, opting into the 4% path only if its capital stack can clear the more-than-50%-bond-financed test and its total development cost still fits inside a Project Cost Standard plus a 25% cushion — a narrower band than a 9% deal blending in HOME, SCHDF, or NHTF ever has to satisfy.
Nothing in these sources points to a separate Alaska state tax credit layered on top of the federal 9%/4% credits the way California, Georgia, or several other states run one — every ceiling, set-aside, and ranking calculation in this guide is federal-credit arithmetic. Treat that as an absence in the sources reviewed, not a confirmed no from a state fiscal document.
Where this goes wrong
- Assuming the sponsor chooses 9% vs. 4% for an acquisition/rehabilitation deal. AHFC's own pre-application review can bounce a 9% acq/rehab proposal into the 4% path in AHFC's "sole opinion," with no published formula behind the call — raise it with AHFC's Housing Development Programs Manager before the pre-application deadline, not after.
- Treating a non-competitive (bond-financed) 4% award as exempt from GOAL's rating process. AHFC's QAP explicitly applies all requirements of the competitive tax credit program, including the same 231-point threshold review, to non-competitive credits too.
- Sizing a single 9% request above roughly $1.32 million of annual credit (one-third of the 2026 $3,953,600 ceiling). No bucket election fixes an oversized ask against a per-development cap that small.
- Modeling the 9% ceiling off the $3.416-per-capita formula. Alaska's population puts it on the $3,953,600 small-state minimum floor, not the population-scaled number — the same applies to the $397,625,000 private activity bond volume cap floor.
- Relying on AHFC's own QAP text for which federal bond-financing test applies. The June 24, 2026 version still describes only the traditional "more than 50%" test and does not mention the OBBBA's 25%-aggregate-basis alternative path added to 26 U.S.C. § 42(h)(4)(B) in 2025 — confirm which test AHFC is actually applying before structuring around the newer path.
- Missing the minimum rehabilitation cost floor. It must be the greater of $25,000 per unit or 10% of adjusted basis, hard physical items only — soft costs and financing costs don't count, and missing it costs both threshold eligibility and the associated rehabilitation points.
- Sizing a non-competitive-only new construction deal without checking the 25%-over-Project-Cost-Standard cap. That cap applies specifically when LIHTC is the only GOAL funding source requested, and doesn't apply the same way to a deal blending in HOME, SCHDF, or NHTF.
- Assuming a sponsor can bring more than two GOAL projects, or more than half of total GOAL program resources, into one year's round. Both are hard caps that include subsidiaries and parent organizations.
- Missing that Alaska runs one GOAL round a year. Special rounds happen only if new funding becomes available mid-year; missing pre-application registration in late June/early July effectively means waiting for the next full annual cycle, on either path.
- Underestimating how small the market is. All of Alaska's 2026 GOAL LIHTC activity was six projects and 234 units statewide, split among tribal housing authorities, regional nonprofits, and for-profit developers — closer in scope to a single mid-size California county than a state program.
- Citing AHFC's own QAP numbering for the nonprofit set-aside without a source check. The QAP cites the set-aside to 26 U.S.C. § 42(i)(5); the provision more commonly cited nationally for this set-aside is § 42(h)(5).
- Treating developer fee and cost ceilings as identical across buckets. A 4% Tax-Exempt Bond LIHTC project's maximum contingency (10% of construction cost) differs from the 5% ceiling that applies to a plain new-construction 9% deal, even though the maximum developer fee formula is the same.
- Assuming the rating score alone decides the award. AHFC's CEO can fund out of rank order to maximize the number of financially feasible projects funded or to spread awards geographically — a top-ranked application is not a guaranteed award on either path.
- HUD
- LIHTC
- State QAPs
- IRS § 42
- Housing Finance Agencies