Obamacare eligibility requirements for 2027

By Omar Mendoza, licensed insurance agent · August 28, 2026 · 8 min read

Almost every mix-up about the requirements comes from blending two questions that aren't the same: who can buy a plan y who can get government help paying for it. Plenty of people who can buy think they can't, and others who bought with help will stop receiving it in 2027. Let me separate them.

The distinction that clears everything up

There are two doors, not one. The first is getting into the Marketplace and buying a plan. The second is the government paying part of it. They ask for different things, and from January 1, 2027 the second door narrows dramatically.

Door 1: requirements to buy a plan

To enroll in a Marketplace plan you need to meet these four:

• Live in the United States, in the area the plan covers. That's physical residency, not citizenship.
• Be a U.S. citizen or national, or be lawfully present. This covers far more statuses than people think: permanent residency, asylum, refugee status, TPS, work visas, humanitarian parole and quite a few more.
• Not be incarcerated serving a sentence. If you're held awaiting trial, you can.
• Not have Medicare. If you already have Medicare you can't buy a Marketplace plan.

Notice what not on that list: there's no minimum income requirement to buy, no time-in-the-country requirement, and no need to have a job.

Door 2: requirements for financial help

Here more is asked. To get the subsidy that lowers your monthly payment you need three things:

• Income between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level. Above 400% you lose the entire subsidy, all at once. I explained that math with the table in the article on how much Obamacare costs.
• Not have other affordable coverage available to you. If your job offers a plan and your share for self-only coverage doesn't exceed 10.22% of household income in 2027, that plan counts as affordable and you don't qualify for a subsidy even if you turned it down. Same if you qualify for Medicaid or CHIP.
• File taxes. And if you're married, file jointly except in very specific cases such as domestic violence or abandonment.

The big change: January 1, 2027

This is the most important thing in this article, and almost nobody is flagging it in time. From January 1, 2027, financial help is limited to a very short list of immigration statuses. It isn't a bill or a proposal: it's enacted law.

If you have refugee status, asylum or TPS and pay little for your plan today, that price is going to change in January. Better to know now than when the bill arrives.

DACA: out since 2025

DACA recipients lost access to the Marketplace on August 25, 2025, and their coverage ended on September 30 of that year. This change has already happened; it isn't something still to come.

Mixed-status families

It's the most common situation I see, and the one that causes the most unnecessary fear. If your children are citizens and you have no status, you can apply for coverage for them. And there's a detail almost nobody knows:

Now, something I'd rather tell you straight even though it doesn't help me commercially. For years the official site assured people that immigration information wouldn't be used for immigration purposes. That assurance no longer holds the same way: the policy it rested on was rescinded, and since January 2026 the sharing of certain information with immigration authorities was allowed to resume, with several state lawsuits still ongoing.

I'm not going to tell you it's nothing, because I don't know and I'm not an immigration attorney. What I will tell you is this: if your worry is about immigration rather than insurance, talk to an immigration attorney before you apply. I'll help you with the insurance side; that other side needs someone in that specialty.

If you lose the help in 2027, what's left?

You aren't left without options, but they change. You can still buy on the Marketplace without a subsidy and compare; sometimes a Bronze plan works out reasonably. And there are private plans bought outside the Marketplace, which don't depend on immigration status.

They aren't the same and don't replace a Marketplace plan: they have health questions, they can turn you down and they don't cover pregnancy. But for someone healthy who's left without a subsidy, they can be the difference between having something and having nothing. I explain it in full, fine print and all, in private plans without a subsidy.

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