A rent-stabilized apartment in NYC is one where state law caps how much your landlord can raise the rent each year and gives you an automatic right to renew your lease when it expires. Roughly one million apartments across the five boroughs are covered, making stabilization the largest source of below-market housing in the city.1Rent Guidelines Board. 2025 Housing Supply Report The program is run by the Office of Rent Administration, part of New York State Homes and Community Renewal (HCR).2Homes and Community Renewal. Office of Rent Administration If your apartment qualifies, the status carries a bundle of protections that follow the unit, not the person, and that you keep for as long as you live there.
Which Apartments Are Covered
Most stabilized apartments are in buildings with six or more units built between February 1, 1947, and December 31, 1973.3Homes and Community Renewal. Rent Stabilization and Emergency Tenant Protection Act Those cutoffs come from the NYC Rent Stabilization Law of 1969 and the Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1974.
Newer buildings can also be stabilized if the developer received a tax break tied to rent regulation. The two common programs are the 421-a abatement for new construction and the J-51 abatement for rehabilitation. Units in these buildings stay stabilized for as long as the tax benefit lasts, and whether stabilization survives expiration depends on whether the landlord included specific notice language in every lease. An existing tenant keeps protection at least through the end of the lease in effect when the benefit ran out.4Rent Guidelines Board. Tax Abatements and Exemptions FAQs
Before 2019, landlords could remove apartments from stabilization once the rent crossed a high-rent threshold or after showing the tenant earned above $200,000. The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act (HSTPA) of 2019 permanently eliminated both routes. Apartments lawfully deregulated before June 14, 2019, remain deregulated, but no new units can leave the system through those mechanisms.5Homes and Community Renewal. Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 Overview
How Much Your Rent Can Go Up
The New York City Rent Guidelines Board sets the maximum percentage your landlord can add to your rent at renewal. The board votes each spring after public hearings. For leases starting between October 1, 2025, and September 30, 2026, the approved increases are 3% for a one-year renewal and 4.5% for a two-year renewal.6Rent Guidelines Board. 2025-26 Apartment and Loft Order 57 Any amount above the guideline is an illegal overcharge.
A landlord can add two other kinds of increases on top of the guideline, both now tightly limited. A Major Capital Improvement (MCI) increase covers building-wide upgrades like a new boiler or roof. The HSTPA capped MCI increases at 2% of your current rent per year, down from 6%, and overlapping MCIs still cannot exceed 2% in any single year.7Homes and Community Renewal. Apartment IAI and Building MCI Improvements An Individual Apartment Improvement (IAI) increase covers renovations to your specific unit. Landlords are capped at $15,000 in IAI spending over any 15-year period across no more than three projects. Both MCI and IAI increases now sunset after 30 years rather than remaining permanent, and the 20% vacancy bonus that used to apply at turnover was eliminated entirely.5Homes and Community Renewal. Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 Overview
Your Right to Renew the Lease
You have an automatic right to renew for a one-year or two-year term at the current guideline rate. Your landlord must send a written renewal offer on HCR Form RTP-8 between 150 and 90 days before your current lease expires.8Rent Guidelines Board. Leases FAQs If no offer arrives, you can stay at the existing rent until the landlord properly offers one.
Once the offer comes, you have 60 days to sign and return it. Missing that window gives the landlord grounds to refuse renewal and potentially begin eviction after the lease expires. That is one of the few ways a stabilized tenant can lose the apartment through inaction, so treat the 60 days as a hard deadline.
When a Landlord Can Still Refuse to Renew
Non-renewal is allowed only in a narrow set of situations. The most common is owner occupancy, where the landlord shows an immediate need to use the apartment as a primary residence for themselves or an immediate family member. The landlord must serve a written non-renewal notice during the same 90-to-150-day window, and must then actually occupy the unit for at least three years.9Homes and Community Renewal. Eviction From an Apartment Based on Owner Occupancy
Owner-occupancy eviction is blocked outright if any of the following is true, unless the landlord offers you an equivalent or better apartment at the same or lower rent nearby:
- You or your spouse is 62 or older.
- You have lived in the building for 15 years or more.
- You or your spouse has a qualifying disability.
A landlord who owns in a non-eviction co-op building cannot use the owner-occupancy route at all. Other grounds for non-renewal include a claim that the apartment is not your primary residence, or a court-ordered eviction after nonpayment proceedings. Every path requires strict notice and procedure, and courts routinely side with tenants when a step is skipped.
Preferential Rent
Some landlords charge less than the maximum legal regulated rent for a stabilized apartment. The lower amount you actually pay is the preferential rent; the higher ceiling is the legal regulated rent. The distinction matters because it decides which number your guideline increase is applied to.
Under the HSTPA, if you were paying a preferential rent on or after June 14, 2019, that lower rent is locked in for as long as you live there. Guideline increases apply to the preferential rent, not the legal maximum.10Homes and Community Renewal. Preferential Rents Your landlord can only revert to the full legal rent after you permanently move out. A lease clause that tries to end a preferential rent because you paid late or used the wrong payment method is unenforceable.
Passing the Apartment to a Family Member
When the named tenant dies or permanently moves out, a qualifying family member who lived in the apartment can take over the lease. The family member must have used the apartment as a primary residence for at least two years beforehand. If the person claiming succession is 62 or older or has a disability, the required period drops to one year.11Rent Guidelines Board. Succession Rights FAQs
Spouses, children, and other immediate family qualify. A spouse has succession rights even if never added to the lease, and a child can succeed even though the landlord was never required to add their name. Non-traditional family members, including unmarried partners, can qualify by demonstrating emotional and financial commitment, which courts assess from factors like length of the relationship, shared finances, formalized obligations through wills or powers of attorney, and whether the couple holds themselves out publicly as a family.
To claim succession, send a letter to the landlord by certified mail explaining that the primary tenant has left and that you want to sign the next renewal lease. Include a death certificate if the tenant died. You would sign the new lease at the next renewal period. While the current tenant is still in the apartment, they can file HCR Form RA-23.5 to notify the landlord of a family member’s presence in advance. Military service, full-time school, hospitalization, court-ordered relocations, and temporary job relocations do not break the residency clock.
Other Protections That Come With Stabilization
Services and Repairs
Your landlord must maintain every service that was provided when the apartment first became stabilized, including heat, hot water, elevator service, and janitorial upkeep. Heat is required from October 1 through May 31: during the day (6 a.m. to 10 p.m.), if the outside temperature drops below 55°F, the inside must reach at least 68°F; at night (10 p.m. to 6 a.m.), the minimum is 62°F regardless of outdoor temperature. Hot water must be available year-round at a minimum of 120°F.12NYC Housing Preservation and Development. Heat and Hot Water Information
If your landlord fails to maintain required services, you can file a complaint with HCR. The agency can freeze or reduce your rent until the problem is fixed.13Cornell Law School. New York Codes, Rules, and Regulations Title 9 2523.4 – Failure to Maintain Services
Subletting and Roommates
You can sublet a stabilized apartment for up to two years within any four-year period as long as you keep it as your primary residence and intend to return. The request goes to your landlord by certified mail with specific information about the subtenant and the sublet. The landlord has 30 days to respond, and silence counts as consent.14NYC Department of Buildings. Tenants Rights Guide If the apartment is furnished, you may charge the subtenant up to 10% above the legal rent.15Homes and Community Renewal. Sublets, Assignments and Illusory Tenancies
Separately, every tenant has the right to share the apartment with at least one additional occupant and that person’s dependent children, even if the lease names only you. You do not need the landlord’s permission, but you must give the occupant’s name within 30 days of their moving in or of the landlord asking. Your rent does not change, and the roommate gains no independent lease rights.
Security Deposits and Broker Fees
Under the HSTPA, any residential landlord in New York can collect a maximum of one month’s rent as a security deposit, with no last-month’s-rent payment or other advance charge on top.16New York State Attorney General. Changes in New York State Rent Law Since June 11, 2025, the Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses (FARE) Act also bars any broker who represents the landlord from charging a fee to the tenant, whether formally hired by the landlord or simply listing the apartment with permission.17NYC 311. Broker Fees A broker you independently hire to search on your behalf can still charge you.
Harassment
Landlords cannot use tactics designed to push you out, like shutting off utilities, creating construction disruptions, or repeatedly offering buyouts after you have declined. A court that finds harassment can impose civil penalties of $1,000 to $10,000 per violation, with a $2,000 minimum for landlords with a harassment finding in the past five years.18New York State Attorney General. Tenant Harassment NYC
How to Confirm Your Apartment Is Stabilized
The reliable way to confirm status is to request the official rent registration history from HCR. The document shows the legal regulated rent recorded for your apartment each year, along with its regulatory status. You can submit the request electronically or visit a Borough Rent Office.2Homes and Community Renewal. Office of Rent Administration For records on an apartment where you are not the tenant or owner of record, file a Freedom of Information Law request with HCR’s FOIL Unit.19Homes and Community Renewal. Records Access
When the history arrives, check the status column each year and compare the listed legal rent against what you have been paying. Gaps in registration or unexplained jumps between years can indicate an overcharge or improper deregulation.
If You Have Been Overcharged
You can file an overcharge complaint with HCR at any time, but recovery is limited to the six years before the complaint. The penalty for a willful overcharge is three times the amount collected during that window, and the overcharge is presumed willful unless the landlord proves otherwise.20Homes and Community Renewal. Collecting Overcharges in Rent Stabilized Apartments Keep cancelled checks, bank statements, and copies of every lease to document what you actually paid against what the registration history says you owed. If HCR issues a final overcharge order and the landlord does not pay, you can file the order with the County Clerk as a money judgment.