What California Landlords Can Legally Raise Rent in 2026

That 8.7% figure is 5% plus 3.7%, the April 2026 regional CPI, and it holds through July 31, 2027. It resets every year.

Start with jurisdiction, not the percentage

The single most expensive mistake in California rent increases is assuming your mailing address tells you which law governs your property. It does not.

A property with a Glendale mailing address may sit on an unincorporated Los Angeles County parcel. Mail addressed to La Crescenta is routinely delivered to City of Glendale parcels. The postal city and the governing jurisdiction are different facts, and they disagree more often than owners expect.

The swing is not small. State law currently allows 8.7%. Unincorporated Los Angeles County allows 1.919% on a fully covered unit. That is a difference of roughly four and a half times on the same street.

Confirm jurisdiction from the parcel, not the envelope. Pull the Assessor's parcel number and verify incorporated city versus unincorporated county through Los Angeles County GIS or the DCBA coverage tool. Every decision after this one depends on getting it right.

The four regimes, and what each allows right now

AB 1482, the state Tenant Protection Act. The default where no stricter local cap applies. The formula is the lesser of 5% plus regional CPI, or 10%. It generally covers residential property built before January 1, 2005, with exemptions that must be confirmed per property.

Unincorporated Los Angeles County, the RSTPO. The underlying formula is 60% of the change in CPI, capped at 3% for general units, 4% for Small Property Landlords, and 5% for luxury units. The current figures land well below those ceilings.

Small Property Landlord status is not automatic. It requires an annual self certification filed with DCBA and a disclosure inside the increase notice. Do not assume it applies, particularly for an entity owned building. If you have not certified, use the base rate.

City of Los Angeles, the RSO. Reported at 3% through June 30, 2027. Two changes took effect on February 2, 2026 that owners are still missing: the formula is now 90% of average CPI rather than 100%, within a band of 1% to 4%, and the annual increase may no longer include an additional percentage for utilities, nor the additional 10% previously permitted for adding a dependent to the tenancy. If your increase was calculated on the old formula, recheck it. Confirm the current figure with LAHD before serving.

Glendale. No local percentage cap, so AB 1482 governs and the ceiling is 8.7%. But there is a trigger worth knowing about, below.

Registration can be a precondition, not paperwork

In unincorporated Los Angeles County, an unregistered increase is unenforceable. The property must be registered and the increase filed in the County rent registry before or at the time of service.

There is also no banking under the County ordinance. An increase you chose not to take last year is not available to you this year on top of the current allowance. It is gone.

The Glendale 7% trigger

Under Glendale Municipal Code section 9.30.033, if an increase exceeds 7% and that increase causes the tenant to vacate, the owner owes relocation assistance. The tenant has 14 days to elect to vacate and claim it, unless the increase came as part of a written lease renewal offer.

The important word is causes. Relocation assistance is a contingent liability, not an automatic cost. It is owed only if the tenant actually leaves.

So the space between 7% and the 8.7% state cap is a real decision rather than a default. The ordinance reads "more than 7%," which makes a flat 7.0% technically safe, but the margin is thin enough that we hold the increases on the buildings we manage in Glendale just under it.

On a tenant sitting well below market, the extra point and a half compounds permanently into the rent base, which is a genuine cost of staying conservative. We take that trade anyway. Relocation exposure and a vacancy you did not plan for are worse outcomes than a slightly smaller increase, particularly on a building you intend to hold.

Notice mechanics, where good increases go to die

The percentage can be perfectly correct and the notice still void.

• Under 10% requires 30 days written notice. 10% or more requires 90 days. Civil Code section 827
• If you mail it, add 5 calendar days before the effective date. Code of Civil Procedure section 1013
• The notice must state the unit, the current rent, the new rent, and the exact effective date, and it must be signed
• The effective date must fall on or after the 12 month anniversary of the last increase
• Serve by personal delivery or first class mail, and keep a signed proof of service

If you use a tenant portal, serve on paper as well. Portal delivery alone is not a record you want to rely on if the notice is ever challenged.

A notice is commonly defective because of: a stale CPI percentage, a miscounted effective date, a missing statutory disclosure, an unregistered unit, or no proof of service.

One more that catches owners: check whether any recurring fee charged alongside rent is effectively disguised rent. If it is, it may push the total over the cap even when the stated rent increase does not.

Before you serve anything

1. Confirm jurisdiction from the parcel number, not the mailing address
2. Identify which regime governs and pull the current percentage for that regime
3. Check whether registration or certification is required first
4. Confirm 12 months have passed since the last increase
5. Choose 30 or 90 day notice based on the percentage, and add 5 days if mailing
6. Check the lease for any contractual cap, Section 8 status, or fixed term that overrides
7. Serve properly and keep proof

Why this is worth getting right

An over cap increase is not a rounding error you correct later. It can be an unlawful overcharge, and in Los Angeles County the exposure around related conduct such as buyouts can include treble damages.

It also reaches further than the owner. A property manager or broker who serves a defective notice carries independent liability as a licensee. When we serve a notice on a property we manage, our license is on it too. That is why we confirm the parcel before we quote a number, every time.