California Rent Control: Caps, Just Cause Eviction, and Exemptions

California rent control limits annual rent increases on most residential units to 5% plus the regional Consumer Price Index change, or 10%, whichever is lower. That cap comes from the Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (AB 1482), codified at Civil Code sections 1947.12 and 1946.2, which also requires a legally recognized reason to end most tenancies after a tenant has lived in the unit for 12 months. More than 30 California cities layer their own, often stricter, rent ordinances on top of the state rule, and when both apply the more protective rule for the tenant generally governs. The statewide law is scheduled to sunset on January 1, 2030.

Which Rentals the State Rent Cap Covers

The Tenant Protection Act applies broadly to apartments, multi-unit buildings, and many single-family rentals. Coverage is automatic. Your landlord does not opt in and you do not register. If your unit does not fit one of the specific exemptions below, the rent cap and just cause rules apply.

One timing detail matters: the just cause eviction protections in Civil Code 1946.2 do not kick in until you have lived in the unit continuously for at least 12 months. During that first year a landlord can decline to renew a month-to-month tenancy without stating a reason. The rent cap itself, though, applies from day one for covered properties.¹

Exempt Properties

Several categories of housing sit outside the state cap and the just cause rules:

Housing with a certificate of occupancy issued within the previous 15 years. This is a rolling window, so a building completed in 2012 became covered in 2027.²
Single-family homes and condos, but only if the owner is not a corporation, REIT, or an LLC with a corporate member, and only if the landlord gave the tenant written notice of the exemption. For leases starting on or after July 1, 2020, that notice must appear in the lease itself.
Owner-occupied duplexes, if the owner has lived in one unit as a primary residence for the entire tenancy and neither unit is an ADU or junior ADU.
Affordable housing units already subject to deed restrictions on rents.
Certain dormitories and housing where the tenant shares a bathroom or kitchen with an on-site owner.

The single-family exemption is the one that most often fails. A rental house owned through an LLC with any corporate member is covered by the TPA regardless of size. And a landlord who never gave the written exemption notice cannot claim the exemption later; the rent cap applies even if the property would otherwise qualify.

How Much Rent Can Go Up in a Year

For a covered unit, the maximum annual rent increase is 5% plus the percentage change in the regional Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, or 10%, whichever is lower. The starting point for the calculation is the lowest rent charged for the unit at any time during the 12 months before the increase takes effect.²

CPI varies by region. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes figures for metro areas like Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim and San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward. For counties without a dedicated BLS index, the California Department of Industrial Relations publishes a statewide CPI figure. Regional CPI has recently run roughly 3% to 5%, which puts the effective cap for most tenants somewhere between 8% and 10%.

A landlord may split the annual increase into two separate hikes within a 12-month period, but the combined total still cannot exceed the annual cap. If you got a 4% increase in March, no further increase that pushes the 12-month total over the cap can take effect until the following March.³

Notice Before a Rent Increase

Any rent increase in California must be delivered in writing. A phone call, text, or email does not count. Civil Code 827 sets the notice periods, and they apply to all residential tenancies, not just TPA-covered ones:

30 days’ notice for increases of 10% or less of the rent charged at any point during the previous 12 months.
90 days’ notice for increases over 10%.⁴

Because the TPA cap is 10%, the 30-day notice is the standard for covered units. The 90-day rule mostly comes into play when a unit is exempt and the landlord is imposing a larger increase.

What to Do If a Landlord Charges Too Much

A rent increase above the TPA cap is not merely improper; the excess portion is void, and any waiver of your rights under the statute is void as against public policy. You have three years from the overcharge to sue. Available relief includes:

An injunction stopping the overcharge going forward.
Damages equal to the amount you overpaid.
Treble damages (up to three times the overpayment) where the landlord acted willfully or with fraud.
Attorney’s fees and costs at the court’s discretion.

The California Attorney General and local city attorneys can also enforce the cap and seek injunctions.²

Just Cause Eviction After 12 Months

Once you have lived in a covered unit continuously for 12 months, your landlord needs a legally recognized reason to end the tenancy. The TPA sorts those reasons into at-fault and no-fault grounds.

At-Fault Grounds

At-fault grounds involve something the tenant did: failing to pay rent, materially breaching the lease, committing criminal activity on the property, or creating a nuisance. For curable lease violations, the landlord must first serve a written notice identifying the problem and giving the tenant a chance to fix it, following the three-day notice procedure in Code of Civil Procedure 1161. Only if the tenant fails to cure can the landlord then serve a three-day notice to quit without a cure option. Skipping the cure step can get an unlawful detainer case dismissed.¹

No-Fault Grounds and Relocation Assistance

No-fault grounds involve the landlord’s own needs rather than tenant behavior:

Owner or close-family move-in (spouse, domestic partner, child, grandchild, parent, or grandparent) as a primary residence for at least 12 continuous months. For leases entered on or after July 1, 2020, this ground requires either tenant written agreement or a lease provision allowing it.
Permanent withdrawal of the unit from the rental market under the Ellis Act.
Substantial rehabilitation that requires the unit to be vacant for health and safety reasons.
A government agency order to vacate.

With any no-fault termination, the landlord owes relocation assistance equal to one month’s rent at the rate in effect when the notice was served. The landlord can pay directly within 15 calendar days of serving the notice or waive the final month of rent in writing, and the termination notice itself must inform the tenant of the right. Strict compliance matters: failure voids the termination notice.

The owner move-in ground has a built-in check. If the intended occupant does not actually move in within 90 days or does not stay for 12 months, the landlord has to offer the unit back to the displaced tenant at the old rent and reimburse reasonable moving expenses beyond any relocation assistance already paid.¹

Protection Against Retaliation

Separately from the TPA, Civil Code 1942.5 bars a landlord from raising rent, cutting services, or trying to evict within 180 days after a tenant exercises certain rights. Protected activities include complaining to the landlord about habitability, filing a written complaint with a government agency about housing conditions, participating in a lawsuit or arbitration over tenantability, and organizing or joining a tenants’ association. Threatening to report a tenant or the tenant’s associates to immigration authorities is explicitly classified as prohibited retaliation.⁵

A landlord who retaliates is liable for actual damages plus punitive damages between $100 and $2,000 per retaliatory act where the conduct involved fraud, oppression, or malice. A tenant can invoke the 180-day presumption only once in any 12-month period.

Local Rent Control and Costa-Hawkins

The statewide TPA is a floor. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, San Jose, Santa Monica, West Hollywood, and more than two dozen other cities maintain local rent ordinances that often set lower annual caps and add tenant protections. Where both the TPA and a local ordinance apply, the rule more protective of the tenant generally controls.

The Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act (Civil Code 1954.50 through 1954.535) sets the outer limits of what cities can do. It bars local rent control on two categories of housing:

Units with a certificate of occupancy issued after February 1, 1995 (or after a locally established date if that date was already in place before February 1, 1995).
Single-family homes and condominiums that are separately alienable from any other dwelling unit.

These Costa-Hawkins carve-outs apply to local rent control, not to the TPA. A single-family home that is exempt from San Francisco’s rent ordinance under Costa-Hawkins can still be covered by the TPA’s rent cap if it does not meet the TPA’s separate single-family exemption. The two frameworks use different ownership rules and different notice requirements, so exemption under one does not automatically mean exemption under the other. Local ordinances cannot override Costa-Hawkins on rent levels, but they can impose just cause eviction rules that go beyond the state baseline.⁶

Vacancy Decontrol

Costa-Hawkins also lets a landlord reset the rent to market when a tenant voluntarily vacates a rent-controlled unit. Civil Code 1954.53 lets the owner “establish the initial rental rate” for a new tenant, which can wipe out years of below-market rent in a single turnover.⁷

There is an important limit. If the landlord ended the prior tenancy by serving a notice to quit, or by changing lease terms under Civil Code 827 outside of a lawful rent increase, the rent cannot be reset for the next tenant. The same rent carries forward, plus allowable increases. This is where most vacancy decontrol disputes end up in court, because the line between a voluntary move-out and a constructive eviction is often contested.

What Happens in 2030

The Tenant Protection Act is not permanent. It sunsets on January 1, 2030. Unless the legislature extends or replaces it, the statewide rent cap and just cause rules will disappear for properties that are not covered by a local ordinance. Tenants in cities with their own rent control would still have those local protections. Tenants in unincorporated areas and in cities without local ordinances would lose state-level protection entirely. Extension bills are likely to move in the 2028 and 2029 sessions.

1
California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 1946.2
2
California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 1947.12
3
California Legislative Information. California Code CIV 1947.12
4
California Legislative Information. California Code CIV 827
5
California Legislative Information. California Code CIV 1942.5
6
San Francisco Rent Board. California Civil Code 1954.50 – The Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act
7
California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 1954.53