Compare 2026 rent-control caps. Ten jurisdictions, one table. Statute-linked. Updated 2026-04-25.

Among the ten RentCeiling covers, Berkeley CA at 1.0% (CY 2026 AGA, 65% × CPI-U San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward MSA July-to-June per Berkeley Rent Board Regulation 1271; CY 2025 AGA was 1.6%) has the lowest cap — covered units only (multi-unit pre-Feb-1-1995 buildings); Costa-Hawkins exempt SFR-with-post-1996-tenancy / condo / post-Feb-1-1995 units fall under AB 1482 at 8.8%. Berkeley's AGA can also be DENIED under BMC §13.76.110(B)(2) for registration / Rent Board order / habitability / deposit-interest deficiencies — dropping the effective cap to 0% on a non-compliant unit. Next: San Francisco 1.6% (RY 2026-27, 60% × CPI March-to-March, 7%/yr ceiling under §37.3(a)(1)(B); RY 2025-26 was 1.4%), DC's elderly/disability tier 2.1%, NYC 2.75% (RGB Order #57, 1-year lease), LA RSO 2026-27 projected 2.8% from July 1. Saint Paul's standard is 3%. Montgomery County MD's RY 2025-2026 VRGA is 5.8% under a hard 6% ceiling. CA (8.8%), OR (9.5%), and Washington State (HB 1217 residential 9.683% for CY 2026, on top of a 10% statutory ceiling) are the highest CPI-indexed statewide caps; Washington's manufactured/MHP path is a flat 5% under RCW 59.20.120. Berkeley's 1.0% is the lowest precisely because the 2026 BLS Bay Area CPI growth (Jul 2024 → Jun 2025) was unusually muted at ~1.5%; 65% of that lands at 0.98%, rounded to 1.0%.

Calendar year-ish: CA (Aug 1), OR (Sep 30), NYC (Oct 1). True calendar-year (January 1 reset): Berkeley (BMC §13.76.110) and Washington State (HB 1217) — the only two catalogue jurisdictions whose new cap takes effect on January 1. Berkeley publishes the next year's AGA in November/December (Rent Board action), formula = 65% × CPI-U San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward MSA July-to-June (Reg. 1271). Washington publishes via the Department of Commerce each July from the BLS Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue MSA CPI June-to-June reading. Fiscal-year-ish: SF Rent Ordinance (March 1 Rent Year — Rent Board publishes Jan-Feb from the BLS San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward MSA CPI March-to-March reading), DC (May 1 Rental Year), LA RSO (July 1 RSO year), Montgomery County MD (July 1 Rent Year — DHCA publishes the next VRGA mid-June from the May-to-May CPI reading). Statutory-fixed (no reset): Saint Paul Chapter 193A. When planning a notice across jurisdictions, always confirm which side of the reset date your effective-date lands on.

Treble damages are available in five statute-driven jurisdictions (CA, LA RSO, DC, NYC, and — via three-months'-rent-plus-fees — OR). San Francisco S.F. Admin. Code §37.8 supports Rent Board petitions for rent rollback, refund, ongoing-overcharge findings that block future allowable increases until cured, and per-unit civil penalties for willful violations; §37.10A escalates repeat or pattern violations to City Attorney referral with civil penalties up to $1,000 per violation per day plus injunctive relief. Saint Paul adds rental-license revocation, which is operationally the worst because it forecloses future rentals, not just the current overcharge refund. Montgomery County MD DHCA orders rollback, refund, and civil penalties under Ch. 29 Art. VII, and the overcharge doubles as an eviction defense in rent court for the unlawful portion. Washington State RCW 59.18.730 imposes the only explicit-dollar civil penalty in the catalogue — up to $7,500 per violation, on top of excess rent, up to three months of unlawful rent paid, attorney fees, and AG parens patriae enforcement authority. Berkeley BMC §13.76.150 also imposes treble damages plus tenant attorney fees on willful overcharges — and the AGA-denial gate at §13.76.110(B)(2) means a non-compliant unit faces compounded exposure: the lawful cap was 0%, so any increase taken is per-se overcharge, treble-damage-eligible, and curable only by remedying the registration / Rent Board order / habitability / deposit-interest deficiency. Assume treble-damage-grade exposure in all ten and plan accordingly.

Three of the ten catalogue jurisdictions permit banking, each with a different mechanic. Oregon allows one-year carryover under ORS §90.323(5). San Francisco permits stacked banking under S.F. Rent Board Rules and Regulations §4.12: a landlord who skipped or under-applied an allowable annual increase in a prior Rent Year may bank it and combine it with a future Rent Year's allowable, subject to TWO HARD CEILINGS — total stacked annual increase ≤ 7% per Rent Year, total cumulative increase ≤ 10% per single notice. SF banking does NOT permit a second rent increase within twelve months. Berkeley uses a different mechanic: rent-ceiling accumulation under BMC §13.76.110(B) and Rent Board Reg. 1271 — every year's AGA increases the unit's lawful rent ceiling regardless of whether the landlord actually noticed an increase. The full unused capacity remains available later as a single corrective notice with NO stacking ceiling (no Berkeley equivalent of SF's 7%/yr or 10%/notice cap), but each prior AGA-eligible year had to be a year in which the landlord was in §13.76.110(B)(2) compliance — denied years drop out of the accumulation. California AB 1482 disallows banking statewide. NYC, DC, LA RSO, Saint Paul, Montgomery County MD, and Washington State all disallow banking — the cap is a per-12-month-period ceiling, and unused room is forfeited at year-end. Washington State goes further: RCW 59.18.700 categorically bars ANY rent increase during the first 12 months of any tenancy — a first-year shut-off unique to Washington in this catalogue, on top of the same one-increase-per-rolling-12-months rule.

CA AB 1482 exempts SFRs only if the landlord is a natural person AND has served the exemption notice. OR SB 611 applies to all residential units. NYC RSL applies only to 6+ unit pre-1974 buildings (plus 421-a). DC exempts owner-occupied 1–4 unit buildings and any building first occupied after Dec 31, 1975. LA RSO exempts detached SFRs and condos. San Francisco's Rent Ordinance does NOT cover single-family homes, condominiums lawfully separable from the residential property, or any multi-unit residential building whose first certificate of occupancy was issued AFTER June 13, 1979 — all are Costa-Hawkins exempt under Cal. Civ. Code §§ 1954.50–1954.535 and instead governed by AB 1482 at 8.8% (2026), unless they meet AB 1482's own SFR-natural-person carve-out or AB 1482's rolling 15-year new-construction exemption. SF's just-cause-eviction rules under §37.9 may still apply to Costa-Hawkins exempt units even when the cap doesn't. Berkeley follows the same Costa-Hawkins pattern with two distinguishers: (a) the multi-unit cutoff is February 1, 1995 (post-Feb-1-1995 multi-unit buildings are price-decontrolled), and (b) for SFRs and condos, decontrol turns on whether the current tenancy began on or after January 1, 1996 — a unit with a continuous pre-1996 tenancy can still fall under BMC Ch. 13.76 price control. Crucially, Berkeley's good-cause-eviction protections (BMC §13.76.130) and rental-housing-safety registration apply more broadly than the price control itself, so a Costa-Hawkins exempt Berkeley unit (paying AB 1482 8.8% for rent) can still owe registration fees and just-cause compliance. Saint Paul exempts post-2004 buildings and owner-occupied 1–4 unit buildings. Montgomery County MD exempts SFRs owned by a natural person holding ≤4 total rental units in the county (flips governing law to Maryland Real Property §8-208 with 60-day notice), plus a rolling 23-year new-construction exemption. Washington State HB 1217 exempts owner-occupied 3–4 unit buildings and ≤2-unit single-family rentals owned by a natural person, plus a rolling 12-year first-Certificate-of-Occupancy exemption that advances each January 1. "SFR" does not automatically mean "exempt."

The tenant gets the stricter (lower) cap. Cal. Civ. Code §1947.12(b)(1)(B) explicitly carves out local ordinances that are stricter than AB 1482. In Los Angeles, LAMC §151 (3% / 2.8%) binds over AB 1482's 8.8% for RSO-covered units. In San Francisco, S.F. Admin. Code Ch. 37 (1.6% RY 2026-27 / 1.4% RY 2025-26) preempts AB 1482's 8.8% for covered multi-unit pre-Jun-13-1979 buildings under the same §1947.12(b)(1)(B) stricter-of clause. In Berkeley, BMC Ch. 13.76 (1.0% CY 2026 AGA / 1.6% CY 2025 AGA) similarly preempts AB 1482's 8.8% for covered multi-unit pre-Feb-1-1995 buildings. Oakland, Santa Monica, and West Hollywood follow comparable municipal-stricter-than-state patterns. The flip side: Costa-Hawkins exempt units in SF or Berkeley (single-family / condo / post-cutoff multi-unit) are NOT covered by the local cap and instead get AB 1482's 8.8% — the higher cap applies because the local law has no jurisdiction to displace state law for Costa-Hawkins units. OR SB 611 is statewide-only — Oregon cities are preempted from going stricter. NYC is the only RSL-covered part of New York State. In Montgomery County MD, the City of Takoma Park maintains its own rent-stabilization scheme alongside the county law — the stricter of the two governs a TP unit. Washington State HB 1217 is statewide with no local-override mechanism inside the rent-cap rule itself, but local just-cause, first-in-time, and rental-licensing rules in Seattle (Just-Cause Eviction Ordinance, Rental Registration Inspection Ordinance), Tacoma (Tenants' Bill of Rights), and Bellingham still operate alongside HB 1217 — verify the local layer when serving in those cities.