The most you can raise rent on a covered California unit is 5% plus the change in the cost of living for your region, or 10%, whichever is lower, under Civil Code section 1947.12, with at most two increases in any 12 months and the combined total inside that same cap. Exempt properties have no state cap, but the exemption is not automatic: it depends on written notice you gave the resident.
That last sentence is where California differs from a state that simply publishes a number. Unit 12 sits in a 1974 fourplex: covered, and the notice has to say so. The single-family rental two streets over is held through an LLC whose member is a corporation, so it is covered too, whatever the property type suggests. The condo you took on last spring qualifies for the exemption, but only if the exemption language reached the resident at signing. Same portfolio, same afternoon, three answers.
The market-neutral spine of a rent increase, cadence, notice, service, and the file, is covered in How and When to Raise Rent: Scheduling, Notice Periods, and Documentation. This is the California layer: the cap and how it moves, the covered-or-exempt decision, the two statements, the notice periods, and the local ordinances on top. Operator education, not legal advice, with every number named to its official source.
How much you can raise rent in California
AB 1482, the Tenant Protection Act of 2019, is the California statute that caps annual rent increases on covered residential units. Codified at Civil Code section 1947.12, it sets the maximum at 5% plus the percentage change in the cost of living, or 10%, whichever is lower, and allows no more than two increases in a 12-month period with the combined total inside that cap. The section remains in effect until January 1, 2030, per Civil Code section 1947.12 on California Legislative Information, verified July 2026.
The cost-of-living component is regional. Section 1947.12(g) ties it to the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers for the metropolitan area the property sits in, and where no regional index is published for that area, to the California Consumer Price Index from the Department of Industrial Relations, so two buildings in one portfolio can carry different maximums in the same year. This guide publishes no per-region percentage on purpose: the figure is regional, it resets annually, and a number printed on a page ages badly. Take your area's current figure from the index the statute names, and treat 10% as the ceiling it can never pass.
The reset date is what most calendars miss. The comparison runs April to April and switches on August 1: an increase taking effect on or after August 1 uses that calendar year's comparison, and one taking effect before it uses the prior year's. What governs is the effective date, not the day the notice goes out, so a notice prepared in late July for a September increase carries the new period's number rather than the one you have been quoting all summer.
Covered or exempt: the decision California makes you make
Exemption from the AB 1482 cap is a property-by-property determination, and section 1947.12(d) lists the categories: deed-restricted affordable housing, dormitories run by an educational institution, housing already under a stricter local ordinance, housing with a certificate of occupancy issued within the previous 15 years, owner-occupied duplexes, mobilehomes where the tenant is not the homeowner, and single-family homes and condominiums whose owner is not a real estate investment trust, a corporation, or an LLC with a corporate member.
Two of those carry traps. The new-construction exemption is rolling rather than fixed: it runs on a certificate of occupancy issued within the previous 15 years, so a building that was exempt when you took it on stops being exempt on an anniversary nobody diarized. And the single-family and condominium exemption has a second condition beyond ownership structure, in section 1947.12(d)(5): the owner has to have given the tenant the written exemption notice the statute prescribes. Qualify on structure but skip the notice and the unit is treated as covered. That is an exemption lost on paperwork rather than on the merits.
The split decides the ceiling, not the process. Both regimes take written notice, on the same timetable:
| Rule | Covered by AB 1482 | Exempt under section 1947.12(d) |
|---|---|---|
| Maximum increase | 5% plus regional cost of living, or 10%, whichever is lower | No state cap; the lease and any local ordinance decide |
| Increases per 12 months | At most two, combined within the cap | No state limit |
| Statement on the notice | The section 1946.2(f) statement that the limits apply | The section 1947.12(d)(5) declaration that they do not |
| Notice period | 30 days, or 90 days above 10% | 30 days, or 90 days above 10% |
| Just cause on termination | Applies after 12 or 24 months of occupancy, per section 1946.2 | Does not apply under section 1946.2(e)(8) |
The two statements, and why only one of them is yours to make
A California rent increase notice states which regime the property is in, and the two statements are mutually exclusive. The covered statement, prescribed by Civil Code section 1946.2, opens "California law limits the amount your rent can be increased" and goes on to the just cause rule that attaches after 12 months of occupancy by all tenants or 24 months by one. Section 1946.2(f) requires it in no smaller than 12-point type, in the lease or an addendum for tenancies commencing or renewed on or after July 1, 2020.
The exempt statement runs the other way. Prescribed by section 1947.12(d)(5)(B)(i), it opens "This property is not subject to the rent limits imposed by Section 1947.12 of the Civil Code" and then affirmatively declares that the property meets sections 1947.12(d)(5) and 1946.2(e)(8). Read it as what it is: a claim about the property, in writing, to the resident, made by the owner. No system can make that determination for you, because it turns on ownership structure and property facts that live outside any rent record. Software's job is to make sure the statement that prints matches the regime you chose, and that you chose it deliberately.
California's notice periods
California rent increase notice requirements sit in a different statute from the cap, and they bind covered and exempt units alike. Under Civil Code section 827(b), an increase of 10% or less takes at least 30 days' written notice and an increase above 10% takes at least 90. The 10% is not measured against last month's rent: the statute compares the proposed rent to the rent charged at any time during the 12 months before the effective date, so a second increase inside a year is added to the first. Two 6% moves in one year make a 90-day notice.
Delivery changes the arithmetic. Section 827(b) permits service by mail under Code of Civil Procedure section 1013, which extends the period by five calendar days when the place of mailing and the place of address are both in California, 10 days if either is outside California but within the United States, and 20 days if either is outside the country. A mailed 30-day notice is a 35-day notice, and the practical deadline is the effective date minus the notice period minus the mailing days.
The California procedure, start to finish
Run this per lease, counted backward from the intended effective date:
- Settle the regime. Covered or exempt, decided on the property's facts and recorded on the lease, never assumed from the property type.
- Check for a local ordinance. Where one exists it replaces the state cap and can add its own steps.
- Take the governing percentage. Your region's current published figure plus 5%, never above 10%, matched to the period the effective date falls in.
- Pick the notice tier. Compare the proposed rent to the lowest rent charged in the prior 12 months: 10% or less takes 30 days, above 10% takes 90, plus five more for mail.
- Include the right statement. The covered statement or the exemption declaration, never both, in the type size the statute requires.
- Serve it, keep proof, and file it. What was served, to whom, how, and when, against the lease; that record is the baseline for next year's 12-month test.
Local ordinances sit on top of the state rules
A California city or county ordinance restricting annual increases to less than the state cap is the rule that governs, and section 1947.12(d)(3) puts housing subject to one outside the state cap for exactly that reason; the statute is explicit that it is not intended to expand or limit local authority over rents. What an ordinance changes goes past the percentage: it can allow fewer increases per year than the state's two, prescribe its own notice, set its own effective-date windows, and make registration of the unit or a petition to a rent board a precondition of serving anything. Those rules differ street by street inside one metropolitan area, which is why each property has to resolve to its own jurisdiction rather than run on the state rule and hope. Where a market prescribes an official government form outright the process tightens further, and Ontario Rent Increases: The N1 Notice, the Guideline, and the 90-Day Clock is the clearest example of that pattern.
Key questions
How much notice do I have to give for a rent increase in California?
At least 30 days for an increase of 10% or less, and at least 90 days for an increase above 10%, under Civil Code section 827(b). The 10% is measured against the lowest rent charged at any time in the 12 months before the effective date, so two increases in a year are added together for this test. Serving by mail adds five calendar days when both addresses are in California, under Code of Civil Procedure section 1013.
Is my property exempt from AB 1482?
Possibly, but property type alone does not decide it. Civil Code section 1947.12(d) exempts deed-restricted affordable housing, dormitories, housing with a certificate of occupancy issued within the previous 15 years, owner-occupied duplexes, and single-family homes and condominiums where the owner is not a real estate investment trust, a corporation, or an LLC with a corporate member. For that last category the exemption also requires that the tenant was given the written exemption notice the statute prescribes.
How often can I raise rent in California?
On a covered unit, at most two increases in any 12-month period, and the two together cannot exceed the annual cap, under Civil Code section 1947.12(a). An exempt unit has no state frequency limit, though its lease and notice rules still apply. A local ordinance can be stricter than the state on both counts, and where one applies it is the rule that governs.
When does the AB 1482 cap change each year?
On August 1. Civil Code section 1947.12(g) sets the cost-of-living component from an April-to-April comparison, and increases taking effect on or after August 1 use that calendar year's comparison while increases taking effect before August 1 use the prior year's. The percentage that governs follows the effective date of the increase, not the date the notice is served, so a notice prepared in July for a September increase carries the new period's number.
What if my city has its own rent control ordinance?
The local ordinance governs. Civil Code section 1947.12(d)(3) puts housing already restricted by a local ordinance to annual increases below the state cap outside the state cap, and the statute states it is not intended to expand or limit local authority over rents. A city ordinance can set a lower percentage, allow fewer increases per year, prescribe its own notice, and require registration or a petition before an increase can be served.
How Scaalr runs a California schedule
Scaalr treats a California rent increase as a scheduled, validated event on the lease rather than a date in someone's head. Every California property resolves to the covered regime by default, and the AB 1482 exemption is something you select on the lease or the property, deliberately, because that selection is the same determination the exemption statement makes. The matching language then rides the regime: a covered notice carries the section 1946.2 statement, an exempt notice carries the exemption declaration, and neither can print the other's.
The schedule is checked against the market profile, its rate ceiling, its frequency rule, and its notice floor, when you set it and again before anything serves, and a municipal market resolves over the state rules where one applies. Service in California is manual by design, because the state's rules do not carry the electronic path some markets allow: on the due date Scaalr opens a rent-increase case, generates and attaches the notice, and records service as a staff task rather than emailing the resident. Because the notice usually travels by mail, the worklist's send-by date already carries the days section 1013 adds. Nothing goes out unsigned.
Two boundaries are worth stating plainly. Scaalr does not decide whether a unit is covered or exempt, and it does not compute your region's cost-of-living figure; you set the percentage, and each notice records whether it came from the market ceiling, your account policy, or the lease's own rate. And automated notices do not serve in a California market until a manager reviews and acknowledges that regime's current rules, covered and exempt separately. Until then the schedule pauses and sends nothing. Every supported market is listed on the rent increases page, and automated rent-increase notices are included on Growth and up.
The same afternoon, current
Back to unit 12 and its two neighbors. The fourplex carries the covered regime and the statement that goes with it. The LLC-held rental carries the same one, because the ownership structure was recorded when the lease was set up rather than assumed from the front elevation. The condo carries the exemption, selected deliberately and declared on the notice. Three regimes, one worklist, each send-by date counted backward from its own effective date with the mailing days already in it. The attention you used to spend reconstructing which rule applies goes to the decisions that were always yours: the regime, and the number. The record it leaves is the kind the ledger keeps, and for the same reason: it is the version you can produce a year later. That discipline is the subject of Property Management Accounting: The Complete Operational Guide.