Andres Diaz

Managing Director, Multifamily Investments · Kingside Investment Group

How Much Can I Raise Rent in California in 2026?

For the period running August 1, 2026 through July 31, 2027, AB 1482 caps rent increases at 5% plus the local Consumer Price Index, not to exceed 10% in any 12-month period. For the Los Angeles metro CPI region, that works out to 8.7%. But AB 1482 only governs buildings not already covered by a stricter local ordinance. If your building is under the City of LA's Rent Stabilization Ordinance, RSO's own lower cap applies instead, not the 8.7% figure.

The rent cap question is the single most confusing one Kingside hears from apartment owners every year, and it is not really a question about a percentage. It is a question about which of three overlapping Los Angeles rent laws actually applies to your specific building: the City of LA RSO, statewide AB 1482, or, for owners in unincorporated territory, LA County's own ordinance. Get the wrong one and you either underprice a legal increase or serve an unlawful notice.

The sections below walk through exactly how the AB 1482 formula works, the current 2026 Los Angeles-area figure, who is exempt, and the decision framework Kingside uses with clients to determine which rule actually governs a given building. It draws on 169 closed multifamily transactions totaling $336.5M and 1,700+ units across LA County, where confirming the correct rent cap is a standard part of underwriting every deal.

How the AB 1482 Cap Actually Works

AB 1482, the California Tenant Protection Act of 2019, is codified at Civil Code Section 1947.12. It is a statewide rent cap that applies to most residential rental properties in California that are not otherwise exempt and are not already covered by a local rent control ordinance with its own, typically stricter, cap.

The formula itself is simple on paper. A covered unit's rent increase in any 12-month period cannot exceed the lower of two numbers: 5% plus the change in the applicable regional Consumer Price Index, or a flat 10%. Whichever of those two numbers is smaller is the actual legal ceiling. Because CPI has generally run in a range that keeps the 5%-plus-CPI figure below 10% in most California metro regions, that first calculation is usually the binding number, and it is the one that changes every year.

The CPI component is not a single statewide number. California is divided into regional CPI areas, and AB 1482 uses whichever regional CPI applies to the specific metropolitan area where the property sits. That means the applicable percentage for a Los Angeles building is not automatically the same as the percentage for a Sacramento or San Diego building, even though the underlying formula, 5% plus CPI capped at 10%, is identical statewide.

The percentage also resets on a fixed annual schedule. Each year's applicable AB 1482 figure is calculated from April CPI data and takes effect August 1, running through July 31 of the following year. Owners and property managers need to check the updated figure every August, since the number that applied last year does not carry forward automatically.

It also helps to see the mechanism applied to a real number. Take an AB 1482-governed unit currently renting for $2,200 a month. At the 2026 LA metro cap of 8.7%, the maximum lawful increase is $191.40 a month, bringing rent to $2,391.40. That same unit under the RSO's new 4% maximum, by contrast, would top out at an $88 increase, landing at $2,288. The dollar gap between the two frameworks on a single unit, $103.40 a month in this example, is exactly why confirming which rule applies before serving notice is not a minor technicality. Multiply that $103.40-a-month gap across a 20-unit building and the annual income difference between correctly and incorrectly applying the wrong cap comes to roughly $24,816 a year.

What Is the 2026 AB 1482 Cap in Los Angeles? It Is 8.7%

For the period running August 1, 2026 through July 31, 2027, the maximum allowable AB 1482 rent increase for units in the Los Angeles, Long Beach, Anaheim CPI region is 8.7%. That figure comes directly from the statutory formula: a 5.0% base plus a 3.7% regional CPI reading for the LA metro area, which totals 8.7% and sits below the 10% statutory ceiling, so the CPI-based calculation governs.

The 8.7% figure is confirmed by both the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles and the California Apartment Association in their 2026 CPI update bulletins, which track the April CPI data the state uses to calculate each region's applicable percentage. It replaces whatever figure applied for the August 1, 2025 through July 31, 2026 period, which used a different, lower CPI reading. Owners who apply last year's percentage after August 1, 2026 are serving a notice at the wrong number.

The 8.7% figure only matters if AB 1482 is the law that actually governs your building. For a large share of Kingside's LA multifamily clients, it is not, which is why the 8.7% figure effective August 1, 2026 cannot be applied to a building until RSO coverage and every other exemption have been ruled out.

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Which Rule Applies to My Building? The Decision Framework

Los Angeles apartment owners are operating under three separate, non-overlapping rent regulation frameworks, and the single most common mistake Kingside sees is an owner assuming AB 1482's statewide 8.7% figure applies to a building that is actually governed by a lower local cap. Use the table below to determine which framework governs a specific property before applying any percentage.

Two things determine which row applies to your building: the jurisdiction the property sits in, and the certificate of occupancy date. Both are matters of public record. LAHD's rent control property lookup confirms RSO status for a specific City of LA address, and the certificate of occupancy date on file with the county assessor or building department settles the 15-year exemption question for non-RSO buildings.

Why RSO Overrides AB 1482, Not the Other Way Around

Preemption is the mechanism that trips up more owners than any other part of California rent law, and it deserves a direct answer. AB 1482 explicitly does not apply to a unit that is already subject to a local rent control ordinance imposing a rent cap that is more restrictive than the state formula. The statute was written to set a statewide floor of tenant protection, not to loosen protections that already existed at the local level. Where a stricter local ordinance and AB 1482 both technically touch the same property, the stricter rule controls, and in Los Angeles that stricter rule is almost always the RSO.

The practical result is straightforward once you see it stated plainly: RSO-covered buildings in the City of Los Angeles are never subject to the AB 1482 percentage. Not partially, not as a fallback if the RSO number happens to be higher. The RSO's own formula is the entire applicable cap for that building, full stop. The 8.7% AB 1482 figure simply does not exist as a legal option for an RSO-covered unit, because AB 1482 carves that unit out of its own coverage by design.

The preemption rule is why the two laws never stack, and why an owner cannot choose whichever number is more favorable. A building is either RSO-covered, in which case only the RSO formula applies, or it is not RSO-covered and not otherwise exempt, in which case AB 1482's 8.7% is the number that governs. There is no scenario where a City of LA apartment owner gets to pick between the two based on which produces a bigger allowable increase.

For most of the current RSO cycle, this distinction has actually run in the tenant's favor from a percentage standpoint. RSO's new formula, effective July 1, 2026, caps increases at 90% of CPI with a 4% maximum and a 1% floor, meaningfully lower than AB 1482's 8.7%. An owner who mistakenly applies the 8.7% AB 1482 figure to an RSO-covered building is not just making a paperwork error. They are serving a rent increase notice above the legal maximum for that unit, which exposes the owner to a tenant dispute, a City compliance complaint, and potential liability for the overcharged amount.

Which Buildings Are Exempt From AB 1482?

Beyond RSO coverage, several other categories of property are exempt from AB 1482's rent cap and just-cause eviction protections entirely, meaning no percentage cap applies at all rather than a different, lower one.

• New construction, rolling 15-year exemption. A property is exempt if its certificate of occupancy was issued within the previous 15 years. This window rolls forward every year, so a building exempt in 2025 can lose that exemption in 2026 once it crosses the 15-year mark. For the 2026 period, buildings with a certificate of occupancy dated after roughly January 2011 remain exempt.
• Single-family homes and condominiums, with conditions. Exempt only if the owner is a natural person, or an estate, and not a corporation, REIT, or an LLC with a corporate member, and the required statutory notice under Civil Code 1946.2(e)(8)(B) was included in the lease or delivered in writing to the tenant. If that notice is never delivered, the unit is treated as AB 1482-covered by default, including retroactively for just-cause protections.
• Owner-occupied duplexes. Exempt where the owner occupied one of the two units as their principal residence at the start of the tenancy and continues to occupy it, provided neither unit is an accessory dwelling unit or junior accessory dwelling unit.
• Dormitories and certain student, transitional, and restricted housing. Covered by separate statutory carve-outs not addressed in this guide. Confirm any such property's status directly, since these exemptions are narrower and more fact-specific than the categories above.

None of these exemptions are automatic just because a building looks like it should qualify. The single-family and condo exemption in particular is lost entirely if the required notice was never given, which is a documentation failure Kingside sees across Los Angeles more often than owners expect. If you are not certain whether the correct notice was delivered on a single-family rental, treat the property as AB 1482-covered until you confirm otherwise.

Do the Rules Differ in Unincorporated LA County?

Owners of buildings in unincorporated Los Angeles County territory, meaning property outside any incorporated city's boundaries, need to check a third, entirely separate framework: LA County's own rent stabilization ordinance, administered by the Department of Consumer and Business Affairs. This is not the City of LA RSO, and it is not automatically AB 1482 either.

Kingside intentionally does not state a specific county percentage here, because unincorporated county rules, coverage criteria, and caps can differ meaningfully from both City of LA RSO and AB 1482, and the applicable figure is not the same fixed 8.7% discussed above. Owners in unincorporated territory should confirm current coverage and caps directly with DCBA before applying any percentage, rather than assuming either the City RSO formula or the AB 1482 statewide figure applies by default.

The confusion here compounds for owners whose portfolio spans both City of LA and adjacent unincorporated pockets, since two buildings a few blocks apart can sit under entirely different jurisdictions despite looking similar on the street. A building's parcel and jurisdiction status is a matter of public record through the LA County Assessor and DCBA, so confirm jurisdiction through those two sources directly before applying the City RSO formula, the 8.7% AB 1482 figure, or any county-specific percentage to a given address.

How Much Notice Must I Give for a Rent Increase?

AB 1482 limits covered units to no more than two rent increases within any 12-month period, and the combined total of those increases cannot exceed the applicable cap, 8.7% for the current Los Angeles metro period. An owner cannot serve three smaller increases that individually stay under the cap but collectively exceed it.

Standard California notice rules apply on top of the percentage cap. For any increase of 10% or less within a 12-month period, 30 days' written notice is required. For an increase above 10%, 90 days' written notice is required. Because AB 1482's 8.7% figure sits under the 10% threshold, most AB 1482-governed increases fall under the 30-day notice rule. Owners should confirm the exact notice language and delivery method required for their specific situation, since the 30-day notice period must run in full before an 8.7% increase can take effect, and serving it even one day short restarts the clock.

How the Applicable Cap Affects Your Building's Value

The rent cap that governs a building directly shapes the income growth trajectory a buyer underwrites, which flows straight into the price a buyer is willing to pay. A non-RSO building capped at AB 1482's 8.7% has meaningfully more room for organic rent growth on occupied units than an RSO-covered building capped at 4%, and buyers price that difference into their offer, typically through a cap rate or growth-rate assumption adjustment.

Consider two otherwise identical 10-unit Los Angeles buildings, each with $250,000 in current gross rental income and a 5.0% market cap rate. The RSO building, capped at 4% annually on occupied units under the new formula, and the non-RSO AB 1482 building, capped at 8.7%, will diverge in projected income within a few years even if nothing else about the properties differs. A buyer underwriting five years of compounding growth at 4% versus 8.7% on the same starting income arrives at two different terminal NOI figures, and that gap becomes a real dollar difference in the offer once capitalized.

Confirming which framework applies is therefore not just a compliance exercise. It is a direct input into how Kingside prices a listing and how a buyer's underwriting team will evaluate the offering memorandum. On the two 10-unit, $250,000-income buildings modeled above, five years of compounding at 4% versus 8.7% produces terminal income figures roughly $75,000 apart, and capitalized at a 5.0% cap rate that gap becomes a valuation difference of approximately $1.5 million, which is exactly the kind of number a seller leaves on the table by not confirming RSO status before listing.

How Kingside Confirms the Correct Cap Before Every Listing

Before Kingside brings any LA multifamily property to market, confirming RSO status, AB 1482 applicability, and any exemption is a standard underwriting step, not an afterthought. That means pulling the certificate of occupancy date, checking LAHD's rent control property database for City of LA addresses, confirming jurisdiction for county-adjacent properties, and verifying that any claimed exemption, such as the 15-year new construction carve-out or an owner-occupied duplex, actually holds up on paper.

The distinction matters because Kingside represents apartment building sellers across Koreatown, Echo Park, Highland Park, Glassell Park, Eagle Rock, Silver Lake, Inglewood, Pico Union, and South LA, submarkets with a genuine mix of pre-1978 RSO stock, post-1978 AB 1482 buildings, and newer construction still inside the 15-year exemption window. A single owner's small portfolio can easily include buildings governed by two or even three different rent frameworks at once, and pricing every unit correctly for a sale requires getting each building's status right individually rather than applying one assumption across the whole portfolio.

Koreatown and Pico Union, for example, are dominated by older pre-1978 stock, meaning the large majority of multifamily buildings in those submarkets are RSO-covered and never touch the 8.7% AB 1482 figure at all. Eagle Rock and Highland Park carry a more mixed inventory, with a meaningful share of post-1978 construction that falls under AB 1482 instead, alongside pockets of newer development still inside the rolling 15-year exemption window. Inglewood sits outside City of LA boundaries entirely, so its buildings are governed by AB 1482 or Inglewood's own municipal rules rather than the LA RSO discussed throughout this guide. An owner comparing a Koreatown acquisition to an Eagle Rock or Inglewood acquisition needs a certificate-of-occupancy date and jurisdiction check for each individual address, the same two data points Kingside pulls before listing every one of its 169 closed transactions.

For a deeper look at how the RSO's own formula changed for 2026 and what that means for your building's rent increase notice timing, see Kingside's companion guide on how much you can raise rent in Los Angeles in 2026, which covers the RSO side of this question in full detail. For how these same 2026 RSO changes ripple into pricing and underwriting, see Kingside's companion guide on how the 2026 RSO changes affect your apartment building's value. For the underlying just-cause, registration, and relocation obligations that sit behind both frameworks, see Kingside's guide to rent control laws for Los Angeles apartment building owners.

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Andres Diaz

Managing Director, Multifamily Investments • CA DRE #01956479

Andres Diaz has closed 169 multifamily transactions totaling $336.5M and 1,700+ units across LA County. He represents apartment building sellers across Koreatown, Echo Park, Highland Park, Glassell Park, Eagle Rock, Silver Lake, Inglewood, Pico Union, and South LA, and confirms RSO status, AB 1482 applicability, and exemption eligibility as a standard step before every listing.

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