NYC Affordability

A rent-stabilized apartment has a legal regulated rent: the maximum the landlord could lawfully collect. When the landlord agrees to charge less than that, the lower amount is a preferential rent (the RGB also calls it the “actual rent”). The legal rent still has to be written into the vacancy lease and every renewal, so check your lease for both numbers; the Attorney General’s guide notes a preferential rent may appear in the section labeled “Lower rent to be charged, if any.”

Before the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act (HSTPA) took effect on June 14, 2019, a preferential rent could be a temporary courtesy that vanished at renewal. Now, according to the RGB, a preferential rent already being collected must continue to be offered at renewal, and the guideline increase is applied to the preferential rent rather than the legal rent. The landlord generally can’t collect the full legal rent until the apartment turns over to a new tenant, and only if both rents were listed in the leases along the way. Exceptions can apply to preferential rents set by regulatory agreements, so this is a general rule, not a promise about your building.

If you think you’re entitled to keep a preferential rent and are being charged more, the RGB points tenants to an overcharge or lease-violation complaint with the state housing agency (DHCR) or a court. Only DHCR can confirm the apartment’s legal rent, via a rent history request.

Worked example

Say your stabilized apartment has a legal regulated rent of $3,200/month, but you pay a preferential rent of $2,400/month (hypothetical numbers). Your one-year renewal commenced in August 2026, so it falls under RGB Order #57’s 3% cap for one-year leases commencing October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026. Applied to the preferential rent, the new rent is $2,400 × 1.03 = $2,472/month. If the landlord could instead revert to the legal rent, as was possible before 2019, the same 3% on $3,200 would mean $3,296/month: $824 more each month. For a renewal commencing October 1, 2026 or later, the current Rent Guidelines Board order sets 0%, so the preferential rent simply stays at $2,400. To see how a stabilized rent compares with a market-rate one on your income, try the Rent Affordability Calculator, or read the rent stabilization guide.