Rent Stabilization
NYC's rent regulation system covering roughly one million apartments, where annual lease renewal increases are capped by a citywide board rather than set by the landlord.
Last updated: September 13, 2026Rent-stabilized apartments — generally units in buildings with six or more units built before 1974 — aren’t subject to the free-market rent a landlord could otherwise charge. Instead, the NYC Rent Guidelines Board (RGB), a mayoral-appointed panel, votes once a year on the maximum percentage increase landlords can apply at lease renewal. That vote applies citywide to every stabilized unit, regardless of what an individual landlord would prefer to charge.
For leases commencing October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026, the RGB’s Order #57 caps increases at 3% for a one-year renewal and 4.5% for a two-year renewal. These are legal maximums, not minimums or automatic increases — a landlord can renew at the same rent or lower, but can’t legally exceed the board’s cap.
Worked example
A rent-stabilized apartment currently at $2,500/month renews a one-year lease under the 2025-26 order: $2,500 × 1.03 = $2,575/month, a $75 increase. The same apartment on a two-year renewal is capped at $2,500 × 1.045 = $2,612.50/month for the two-year term. Compare that to a market-rate unit, where the 40x rule governs what a landlord will ask for on a new lease rather than a renewal cap — run your own numbers on the Rent Affordability Calculator.