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From Town Tools. For the current version, visit https://www.towntools.org/berkeley-california-us/rent-increase-check
Berkeley's elected Rent Stabilization Board sets one percentage a year. It applies to the rent ceiling on file for your unit, not to the rent you happen to be paying, and a landlord who skipped a year can take it later — so a lawful increase here can come to well over 5%.
Check the increase on your notice
Berkeley's Rent Stabilization and Eviction for Just Cause Ordinance
Four questions, in order. The first decides whether your home has a rent ceiling at all, so start there.
Does your home have a rent ceiling?
Which homes the ordinance covers
The Rent Board publishes this table to show how far the Ordinance reaches for each kind of unit and tenancy. The five columns are the Board's own. Only a fully covered unit has a rent ceiling; a partially covered unit is registered and keeps the eviction and deposit protections without one.
Home or tenancy
Coverage
Registration
Rent ceiling
Just cause for eviction
Deposit interest
Most units in multifamily properties built before 1980
Fully covered
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Single-family homes with current tenancies that began before 1996
Fully covered
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Rooming house — a single-family home with five or more rooms rented out individually under separate leases
Fully covered
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
New construction — units built and granted a Certificate of Occupancy after June 1980
Partially covered
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Single-family home with a tenancy that began on or after January 1, 1996
Partially covered
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Most condominiums
Partially covered
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Units with Section 202 or Section 811 subsidies, whatever the unit type
Partially covered
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Units with Rental Supplement Program, Section 8 Loan Management Set Aside or project-based Section 8 subsidies, in a project with a mortgage insured or held by HUD
Partially covered
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
The adjustment, year by year
The AGA is 65% of the change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers in the Bay Area from July 1 through June 30 of the prior year. If that formula produces more than 5%, the AGA is capped at 5%.
The elected Rent Stabilization Board passes the AGA each October. On January 1 the rent ceilings for most fully covered units increase by it, and a landlord may then raise the rent up to the new ceiling with proper notice.
A single year's adjustment is never more than 5%.
Year
Annual General Adjustment (AGA) · Adjustment
2027
2.5%
2026
1%
2025
2.1%
2024
1.9%
2023
4.4%
2022
2.1%
2021
1%
2020
2.1%
2019
2.5%
2018
2.3%
2017
1.8%
2016
1.5%
2015
2%
2014
1.7%
2013
1.7%
2012
1.6%
2011
0.7%
2010
0.1%
2009
2.7%
2008
2.2%
2007
2.6%
2006
0.7%
2005
0.9%
A landlord who does not take an AGA in a given year does not lose it. Unused AGAs can be banked and taken later, and they must be taken in order — the Board's own example is that the 1988 increase may not be taken before the 1987 one. A banked total can come to more than 5%, because the 5% cap limits one year's percentage and not the stack.
A tenancy that has only just begun
A landlord cannot raise the rent for the rest of the calendar year in which the tenancy started, or for one additional calendar year after that. It is a calendar-year rule, not a count of months, so a tenancy that starts in December waits almost exactly as long as one that starts the following January.
For example: If a tenancy starts on March 1, 2027, the landlord cannot raise the rent for the rest of 2027, or in 2028. The first AGA increase can be taken in 2029, with proper notice to the tenant.
The ceiling, and the rent you pay
The Ordinance regulates the rent ceiling on file for your unit, not the rent you are being charged, and the two are often different. If you have been paying below your ceiling, a landlord may raise the rent up to that ceiling at any time with proper notice. Two things can still delay it: if your tenancy is eligible for the AGA but you have a fixed-term lease, the landlord has to wait until the lease term ends to impose it unless the lease allows the increase; and for a subsidized unit, the owner still has to go through the subsidizing agency's own rent increase approval process, if it has one, before collecting more rent.
This is a floor, not a limit
If you entered the rent you have been paying rather than your ceiling, this figure is a floor on what is lawful and not a limit. Your ceiling may well be higher — that gap is what banking is — so an increase above this figure is not by itself too high. The Rent Registry holds the ceiling on file for your unit.
Berkeley Rent RegistryLook up your unit to see its registration status and the rent ceiling on file for it.
How much notice is required
An increase of 10% or less
30 days of written notice
An increase of more than 10%
90 days of written notice
Served by mail
5 days on top
The service date is the day the notice was handed to you or put in the mail. Five days are added to the notice period when it is served by mail within California, under Code of Civil Procedure section 1013.
When no adjustment may be taken at all
No matter when the tenancy started, and no matter what the arithmetic above comes to, a landlord cannot take the AGA if any of these is true.
Rent Board registration fees have not been fully paid
How to find out: Your unit's record in the Rent Registry shows its registration status.
The Rent Board has issued an order denying AGAs for the unit
These orders are generally issued for a decrease in services or for substandard conditions.
There are serious repair problems or outstanding housing code violations
Interest on the security deposit for the unit has not been paid
Berkeley landlords owe this once a year, by the end of December.
If you think one of these applies
To dispute a landlord's eligibility to apply the AGA, file a Rent Board petition. A hearing examiner then decides whether the landlord may use the AGA to raise the rent. The Rent Board's counselors will tell you which petition form fits and what to bring: (510) 981-7368.
Interest on your deposit
Berkeley landlords owe interest on a security deposit once a year, by the end of December. Not paying it is one of the four things that stops a landlord taking the AGA, which is why it is worth checking before anything else.
The rate for 2025 was 0.9%.
The rate for 2026 had not been published as of October 31, 2026. The Board announces it around November 15, so check with the Rent Board rather than carrying last year's figure forward.
Rent Board counseling is free and open to tenants and landlords alike. Bring your notice of rent increase, and your unit's Rent Registry record if you have been able to look it up.
"Golden Duplex" — a duplex that was owner-occupied on December 31, 1979 and still has an owner living in one of the units
Exempt
No
No
No
No
A unit where the owner shares a kitchen or bathroom with the tenant, if the owner lived on the property when the tenancy started
Exempt
No
No
No
No
Tenancies started after November 7, 2018 on a property where one unit is an ADU and either unit is owner-occupied
Exempt
No
No
No
No
University rental units such as dormitories
Exempt
No
No
No
No
Nonprofit cooperative
Exempt
No
No
No
No
The fully covered rows include units with Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8), Shelter Plus Care, VASH voucher, LIHTC, California Community Housing Agency, HOME, City of Berkeley Housing Trust Fund and Mental Health Safety Act subsidies. They also include Rental Supplement Program, Section 8 Loan Management Set Aside and project-based Section 8 subsidies if the project does not have a mortgage insured or held by HUD.
This table is intended as a guide. Individual circumstances may differ. Please contact a housing counselor for more information.
Rounding to a whole dollar amount has not been allowed since the 1991 AGA. The adjustment is the exact percentage, not a rounded dollar figure.
The AGAs for 1981 through 2004 are not percentages this page can add up. Several were flat dollar amounts — $25.00 a month in 1988, $16.00 a month in 1990 — and several more depended on who paid for heat or on when the tenancy started. If your ceiling was last set before 2005, call the Rent Board and a counselor will work it out with you.