UAD 3.6: what changes and when

UAD 3.6 is the biggest change to residential appraisal reporting in a generation. The Uniform Appraisal Dataset 3.6, published by the GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), replaces the familiar fixed appraisal forms with a single, data-driven Uniform Residential Appraisal Report (URAR) delivered as structured XML. The GSE mandate begins in November 2026, and lenders that wait until then to touch the new format will be converting their appraisal intake, review, and QC workflows under deadline pressure.

When does UAD 3.6 become mandatory?

The GSE mandate begins in November 2026. Ahead of that date, lenders can pilot the new format so that software, appraisal panels, and review processes are proven before submissions are required in UAD 3.6. The practical takeaway: November 2026 is the deadline, not the start date. Every party in the chain, from the appraiser's forms software to the lender's review desk, has to handle the new format, and each link is easiest to test while the legacy format still works as a fallback.

What actually changes

From forms to data

Today's residential appraisal is form-driven: the appraiser fills a fixed form, and the form defines the report. UAD 3.6 inverts that. The report is a dataset with defined data points, and the rendered document adapts to the property: sections appear only when they apply. One dynamic URAR covers single-family homes, condominiums, co-ops, manufactured homes, and 2-to-4-unit properties with their income and per-unit detail, instead of a separate fixed form for each.

MISMO 3.6 XML as the deliverable

A UAD 3.6 appraisal is delivered as a MISMO 3.6 XML message that conforms to the GSEs' published UAD 3.6 specification and XML schema. The PDF becomes a rendering generated from the data rather than the primary artifact. For anyone consuming appraisals downstream, this is the most important change: the numbers no longer have to be scraped or OCR'd out of a PDF, because every data point is a named field in the XML.

Redesigned report content

The URAR redesign also restructures what the report contains. Legacy grids like the neighborhood section are gone, replaced by a data-driven Market section describing market conditions with defined data points. Sales comparison, reconciliation, subject property, and appraiser identification all carry over as structured data, including pending and active comparables.

What lenders and reviewers need to do

• Accept and store XML. Intake pipelines built around PDF uploads need to accept the MISMO 3.6 XML file and treat it as the report of record.
• Update review and QC workflows. Review checklists written against the old form layout no longer map to the report. Reviews should consume the structured data directly, which is also the opportunity: checks that used to require reading a PDF become deterministic field comparisons.
• Pilot before the mandate. Run real UAD 3.6 submissions end to end ahead of November 2026, while volume is optional and the legacy path still exists.

What appraisers need to do

• Confirm software support. Forms software must produce a conforming UAD 3.6 XML deliverable, validated against the GSE schema.
• Learn the new report structure. The dynamic URAR asks for discrete data points where the old forms accepted free text, and sections appear based on property type. The report writes differently even where the appraisal analysis is unchanged.
• Expect data-level review. Because every figure is a named field, lenders will check consistency mechanically. Internal QC should do the same before delivery.

Reviewing UAD 3.6 reports today

Appraisal-AI parses and reviews UAD 3.6 residential reports today, so lenders can pilot the new format ahead of the mandate. Because the submission is structured XML, the platform reads the report deterministically, with no OCR step, and runs its review and cross-checks against the actual data points, producing page-cited findings a human reviewer approves before delivery.

Working with commercial appraisals instead? The commercial side has its own structured data push: see What is BRAVE?