LA Rent Increase Calculator

Statewide, AB 1482 caps the annual increase at 5% plus the regional rate of inflation, or 10%, whichever is lower. The figure is not a standing number: it is set for a window that resets every August, and the one that governs an increase is the one in force on the day the new rent starts. For an increase taking effect between August 1, 2026 and July 31, 2027 the cap for the Los Angeles region is 8.7%, which is the 5% plus a regional CPI of 3.7%.

The percentage is not worked out against the rent you are paying now. Under California Civil Code section 1947.12(a)(1) it is measured against the lowest gross rental rate charged for the unit at any time in the 12 months before the increase takes effect, and any discounts, concessions or credits come out before that lowest figure is found. A landlord who dropped the rent for a few months, or gave a month free, and then measures the cap from the higher figure has worked out a larger increase than the statute allows.

A landlord may raise the rent at most 2 times in any 12 month period, and those increases together still have to fit under the annual cap. Two separate increases of 5% each in the same year is not allowed.

The cap does not reach everywhere, and the AB 1482 exemptions are specific. The new construction exemption is an age test run on the date the increase takes effect rather than a status a building keeps, so it rolls: a building exempt when a tenancy started can be covered later in the same tenancy. A single-family home or condominium is exempt on two conditions rather than one, and both have to hold: the owner is not a corporation, a real estate investment trust or an LLC with a corporate member, and the landlord gave the tenant the written notice the statute prescribes. Where a city has a stricter rule of its own, that local rule governs the rent instead.

Inside the City of Los Angeles the answer splits in two. If the unit is an apartment in a building finished on or before October 1, 1978, it is almost certainly covered by the Rent Stabilization Ordinance, and the increase is limited to the percentage the LA Housing Department sets for the current cycle, with one increase permitted every 12 months.

If the building is newer than that but at least 15 years old, AB 1482 applies instead, and the ceiling is the 5% plus inflation formula above. The two caps are never combined or averaged, and they do not even run on the same calendar: the RSO cycle runs July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027 and the AB 1482 window runs August 1, 2026 to July 31, 2027, so an increase dated in August falls in a new window for one and the middle of a cycle for the other.

For a stabilized unit nothing else is added to that percentage for utilities. A landlord who paid for gas or electricity could add 1% for each on top of the allowable increase. Those utility adders ended on February 2, 2026, and none may be added to an increase dated on or after that day.

An increase for an additional tenant is separate and still allowed: up to 10% for each additional tenant, only once that tenant has lived in the unit for 30 consecutive days, and only if the landlord serves notice within 60 days of learning of them, or the right is lost. A replacement tenant who keeps the household at or below its size at the start of the tenancy brings no increase. Adding a dependent brings none either from February 2, 2026; before that date only the first minor dependent child was exempt.

The ordinance that took effect on February 2, 2026 rewrote how the allowable increase is worked out: 90% of the local inflation figure (CPI, all items) rather than all of it, never below 1% and never above 4%, whatever inflation does in either direction. That formula governs the adjustment of July 1, 2026 and every one after it. The period before it was a transition at 3%. The first year under the formula, July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027, came to 3%.

The same amendment ended the utility adders and the increase for adding a dependent. If a written notice of increase you have been given adds a utility percentage, or charges for a dependent, on an increase dated on or after February 2, 2026, that part of it has no basis. It did not end the increase for an additional tenant who is neither a dependent nor a replacement, which is still allowed on the conditions above.

For the current cycle the allowable increase for a stabilized unit is 3%.

The Los Angeles Housing Department sets the allowable increase for a rent stabilized unit for each period, which normally runs July 1 to June 30, so the figure that applies depends on the date an increase took effect rather than the calendar year. The table lists each period whose figure has been checked against LAHD.

Three answers place almost any unit: the year the building was completed, the type of unit, and who owns it. The year built is on the Los Angeles County Assessor record for the address, searchable by street address, and there is a page on how to find your building's year built when that record and a landlord's claim disagree. Your lease will not usually say, and ownership is what decides whether a single-family home is exempt.

One thing to check first: the property has to be inside the City of Los Angeles. Santa Monica, Long Beach, West Hollywood and the unincorporated parts of the county each run their own rules, and the city ordinance does not reach them.

Written notice is required before a rent increase takes effect on a periodic tenancy, which means month to month and anything shorter. During a fixed term the rent is what the lease says, and it changes mid-term only where the lease itself provides for it. An increase of 10% or less takes 30 days of notice. Anything above that takes 90 days. Work the percentage out against the lowest rent charged in the 12 months before the increase takes effect rather than against what you are paying today, so a second increase inside one year is added to the first when deciding which period applies. The periods track the size of the increase, not the cap, so a lawful increase can still arrive on a defective notice.

Los Angeles does not add a notice period of its own, so a rent stabilized unit takes the same rule. What changes is the arithmetic rather than the rule: the allowable increase for a stabilized unit is capped at a figure well below 10%, so an increase that stays within the cap is always in the 30 day band. A notice on a stabilized unit demanding more than that is a question about the cap before it is a question about the notice.

The rule is California Civil Code section 827(b), which is state law, so it reaches every tenancy in Los Angeles and the same two periods apply in Santa Monica, Long Beach and the unincorporated county.

Serving by mail adds 5 calendar days to the notice period where the tenant's address and the place of mailing are both in California, under California Code of Civil Procedure section 1013(a). Where the tenant's address is outside California the addition is 10 days instead. So a 30 day notice runs 35 days when it is mailed, and a 90 day notice runs 95 days. Personal delivery adds none.

Count backwards from the date the new rent takes effect rather than forwards from the date the notice is written, and check the 12 months behind you before deciding which period applies. An increase that looks like 10% on its own can sit above that once an earlier increase in the same year is added to it, and the longer period is then the one you were owed. What a valid notice has to contain covers the rest of it, including how service by post affects the count.

An increase above the legal ceiling is not enforceable for the amount above it. Raise it with your landlord in writing first, and keep every notice and payment record. For a rent stabilized unit you can also file a complaint with the LA Housing Department. An increase large enough to price you out used to carry relocation assistance as a constructive eviction, and that provision is no longer in effect, so the cap and the notice period are what a tenant facing one has.

The written notice you received is usually the most useful document you have, because it establishes the amount and the date. What a valid notice has to contain is set by statute, and a notice missing any of it is worth keeping for that reason too.