Flood Zone D

What Zone D means

FEMA assigns Zone D to areas where there are possible but undetermined flood hazards, because no flood hazard analysis has been conducted. The designation is common in sparsely developed or unstudied areas.

Zone D is not part of the Special Flood Hazard Area, so the federal mandatory purchase requirement does not apply. Flood insurance is available in participating communities, and a lender may still require coverage as a condition of a specific loan.

The federal mandatory purchase rule

Zone D lies outside the Special Flood Hazard Area, so the federal mandatory purchase requirement does not apply to it. A lender may still require flood coverage as a condition of a specific loan, and NFIP policies remain available for buildings in this zone in participating communities.

Zones and premiums

Under the NFIP's current pricing methodology (Risk Rating 2.0), a property's flood zone is no longer the primary variable used to set its premium; zones continue to determine whether the mandatory purchase requirement applies. This page describes zone mechanics only and carries no premium statistics.

Verifying a property's zone

Zone boundaries are set by FEMA's flood maps and can change as maps are revised. The authoritative record for any address is FEMA's Flood Map Service Center. For the NFIP policy and claims statistics of a specific ZIP code, use the ZIP lookup tool on this site.