New York City’s rent control and rent stabilization laws are two separate systems that cap how much landlords can charge and limit when they can end a tenancy. Together they cover roughly one million apartments. Rent control is the older and much rarer system, reserved for tenants who have held the same apartment since before July 1971. Rent stabilization is the broader program, covering most regulated units in the city today. Which one applies to your apartment decides how much your rent can rise each year, whether you’re entitled to a renewal lease, and what you can enforce if the landlord falls short.
Which System Covers Your Apartment
Rent control applies only if you (or a predecessor tenant in your household) have lived continuously in the apartment since before July 1, 1971, and the building was constructed before February 1, 1947.1Homes and Community Renewal. Rent Control Because that requires more than fifty years of continuous tenancy, the pool of rent-controlled apartments shrinks every year. When a rent-controlled tenant leaves, the unit generally converts to rent stabilization rather than staying under rent control.
Rent stabilization is far more common. It generally covers apartments in buildings with six or more units built between February 1, 1947, and December 31, 1973. Tenants in pre-1947 buildings who moved in after June 30, 1971, are stabilized rather than rent-controlled. A separate category picks up newer buildings with three or more units built or substantially renovated after January 1, 1974, when the owner received a tax benefit such as 421-a or J-51.2Homes and Community Renewal. Rent Stabilization and Emergency Tenant Protection Act
How to Confirm Your Apartment’s Status
Start with the DHCR building search tool at apps.hcr.ny.gov/BuildingSearch, which shows whether a building has ever been registered with the Office of Rent Administration.3Homes and Community Renewal. Online Services for Owners and Managers For a fuller picture, request your apartment’s rent history from DHCR. You can do this online, in person at a borough rent office by appointment, or by mailing or emailing Form REC-1 to the Records Access Unit.4Homes and Community Renewal. Most Common Rent Regulation Issues for Tenants The rent history is confidential, and DHCR releases it only to the legal tenant, the building owner, or an authorized representative.
How Rent Increases Work
Rent-Controlled Apartments
Rent control uses the Maximum Base Rent system. The city sets a maximum base rent for each apartment and adjusts it every two years to reflect operating costs. A landlord who certifies that required services are being provided and outstanding violations have been cleared can raise the rent each year by the lesser of 7.5% or the average of the five most recent one-year renewal lease increases set by the Rent Guidelines Board.5Rent Guidelines Board. Rent Control FAQs In practice, annual increases for rent-controlled tenants tend to be modest.
Rent-Stabilized Apartments
For stabilized units, the New York City Rent Guidelines Board votes each year on the maximum renewal increase. For leases starting between October 1, 2025, and September 30, 2026, the approved increases are 3.0% for a one-year lease and 4.5% for a two-year lease.6NYC Rent Guidelines Board. Rent Guidelines Board Apartment Orders 1 Through 57 A landlord cannot charge more than the applicable percentage on a standard renewal. The rates change each year, so check the RGB website before signing a renewal to confirm what applies to your lease start date.
Increases Tied to Building or Apartment Improvements
Beyond the annual guidelines increase, landlords can raise stabilized rents through Major Capital Improvements for building-wide work and Individual Apartment Improvements for work inside a specific unit. The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 tightened both.
The MCI increase a tenant actually pays is capped at 2% of the rent per year. MCI increases are no longer permanent either. They must be removed 30 years after the increase first took effect.7Homes and Community Renewal. Apartment IAI and Building MCI Improvements Before HSTPA, they stayed in the rent forever.
For IAIs, the total the landlord can spend and pass along is capped at $15,000 over any 15-year period. The resulting rent bump is calculated at 1/168th of the total cost in buildings with 35 or fewer apartments, or 1/180th in larger buildings.8Homes and Community Renewal. Changes to NYS Housing Laws Enacted in the FY24 Budget If your landlord adds an IAI charge to your rent, you can ask to see the invoices and receipts for the work.
Preferential Rent
Some stabilized tenants pay a “preferential rent” that sits below the legal regulated rent on file with DHCR. Landlords have historically offered a discount in softer markets while keeping the higher legal rent on the registration. Before 2019, they could pull the discount at renewal and jump straight to the legal rent, sometimes producing a sharp increase.
HSTPA closed that door. If you were paying a preferential rent on or after June 14, 2019, that lower rent is locked in for the life of your tenancy. RGB increases apply to the preferential rent, not the higher legal rent. The landlord can only revert to the legal regulated rent after you permanently vacate.9Homes and Community Renewal. Fact Sheet 40 – Preferential Rents Landlords also cannot enforce lease clauses that condition the preferential rent on things like paying by a certain day of the month or paying electronically. Language like that is unenforceable.
Lease Renewal Rights
If you live in a stabilized apartment, your landlord must offer you a renewal lease for either one or two years, at your choice. The written offer must arrive between 150 and 90 days before your current lease expires.10Homes and Community Renewal. Leases – Security Deposits, Roommates, Sublets, and More In New York City, it must come on DHCR Form RTP-8.
Once you receive the offer, you have 60 days to sign and return it. Miss that window and the landlord may refuse to renew and start eviction proceedings after the current lease expires.11NYC Rent Guidelines Board. Leases FAQs If your landlord has not sent a renewal offer within the required window, contact DHCR. You still have the right to a renewal even if the landlord is slow to send one.
Eviction Protections
Regulated tenants cannot be evicted just because a lease has ended. A landlord must have a specific legal ground. The most common are:
- Nonpayment of rent that is due.
- Material violation of the lease after notice and an opportunity to cure.
- Owner occupancy, where the owner has an immediate and compelling need to use the apartment as a primary residence for themselves or an immediate family member.12Division of Housing and Community Renewal. Fact Sheet 10 – Eviction From an Apartment Based on Owner Occupancy
- Non-primary residence, where the tenant is no longer using the apartment as their primary home.
Even with a valid ground, the landlord must serve written notice within the same 150-to-90-day window used for renewal offers. A landlord who skips those steps or invents a reason for non-renewal can face penalties.
Essential Services
Your landlord must maintain every service that was in place when you first moved in. That includes heat and hot water, and it also covers things like elevator service, a working intercom, laundry room access, or lobby staffing. If a service disappears or deteriorates, you can file a complaint with DHCR, and the agency can order your rent reduced to the level in effect before the most recent guidelines increase.13Legal Information Institute. New York Comp Codes R and Regs Tit 9 2523.4 – Failure to Maintain Services The reduction stays in place until the landlord restores the service and DHCR issues an order ending it.
Succession Rights
When a regulated tenant dies or permanently leaves, a qualifying family member who has been living in the apartment can take over the tenancy with the same protections. The regulated status carries to the next generation.
To qualify, the family member must have used the apartment as their primary residence with the tenant of record for at least two years before the tenant’s departure. If the family member is 62 or older or has a disability, the required period drops to one year.14Homes and Community Renewal. Succession
“Family member” is defined broadly. It includes spouses, children, parents, siblings, grandparents, and in-laws. It also reaches people who can show an emotional and financial commitment equivalent to a family relationship, such as unmarried partners. Courts look at the length of the relationship, shared expenses and bank accounts, wills and powers of attorney, and whether the individuals held themselves out as family in public.15NYC Rent Guidelines Board. Succession Rights FAQs Keeping records like joint utility bills, tax returns listing the same address, or a domestic partnership declaration strengthens a claim.
Filing a Rent Overcharge Complaint
If you think your landlord is charging more than the legal regulated rent, you can file an overcharge complaint with DHCR’s Office of Rent Administration. Rent-stabilized tenants use Form RA-89 and rent-controlled tenants use Form RA-89C. Both can also be filed online through DHCR’s Rent Connect portal.16Homes and Community Renewal. Rent Increases and Rent Overcharge
If DHCR finds an overcharge, it will order the landlord to lower the rent and refund the excess collected. When the overcharge was willful, DHCR can impose treble damages, meaning you could recover up to three times what you were overcharged. Pulling your apartment’s rent history before filing is a smart first step, since it shows every registered rent going back years and makes it easier to identify where the numbers went wrong.
Deregulation Under Current Law
Before 2019, landlords had a clear path out of stabilization. Under high-rent vacancy deregulation, once the legal rent crossed a threshold and the tenant moved out, the landlord could permanently deregulate the unit and charge market rate. That mechanism drove decades of losses from the stabilized stock.
HSTPA repealed high-rent vacancy deregulation. A stabilized apartment now stays stabilized regardless of how high the legal rent climbs or how many times the unit turns over.17Homes and Community Renewal. Rent Laws Overview The main scenario where a stabilized apartment still loses its status is when a building’s tax abatement expires and no other basis for regulation applies. For most tenants, deregulation is no longer a realistic threat.