Learn NYC property · Rent regulation and tenant protection

Rent stabilization in New York City

NYC rent stabilization explained: which buildings, the Rent Guidelines Board's 2026 freeze, leases and renewals, the 2019 HSTPA, deregulation history, and how to check an apartment.

Rent stabilization is New York City's main system of rent regulation: about a million apartments whose rents may rise each year only by the percentages a City board sets, whose tenants have a right to renew their leases, and who can be evicted only on grounds the law allows. It covers most apartments in older buildings of six or more units, and newer buildings whose owners took a tax benefit in exchange.

It matters to everyone around a building. A tenant's rent, renewal and succession rights depend on it. For an owner, it caps the rent roll and adds yearly registration; for a buyer or a lender, the share of stabilized apartments is often the single biggest fact about what a building can earn.

New York City has two systems of rent regulation: rent stabilization, and the older rent control, which now covers only about 24,000 apartments. An apartment under either is rent-regulated.

Who runs it

The rules come from the City's Rent Stabilization Law of 1969 and the State's Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1974 (ETPA), with the details in the State's Rent Stabilization Code. The State runs the system: HCR, New York State Homes and Community Renewal, through its Office of Rent Administration — the agency is also called DHCR, its Division of Housing and Community Renewal. HCR registers apartments, issues rent histories, decides overcharge complaints and approves building-wide increases. The City's part is the Rent Guidelines Board, which sets the yearly increases.

The City law survives only while the City declares a housing emergency: a rental vacancy rate below 5%. The Council renews the declaration every three years from the City's Housing and Vacancy Survey. On March 19, 2024 it extended the law to April 1, 2027, on the 2023 survey's vacancy rate of 1.41%, the lowest since 1968; the 2026 survey is under way. The State laws, by contrast, have had no expiry date since 2019.

Which apartments are stabilized

In general an apartment is stabilized if it is in a building of six or more apartments and either:

the building was built between February 1, 1947 and January 1, 1974; or
the building was built before February 1, 1947 and the tenant moved in on or after July 1, 1971 — tenants there since before then are usually rent-controlled, and their apartments become stabilized when they leave.

Buildings finished or gut-renovated after 1973 are exempt — unless the owner took a tax benefit such as 421-a, 485-x or J-51, which comes with stabilization for some or all of the apartments (see stabilization tied to tax benefits). Rooms in older hotels and single-room-occupancy buildings can be stabilized too. Apartments in co-ops and condominiums lived in by their owners are not; a stabilized tenant who stayed when a building converted keeps stabilization. And not every apartment in a stabilized building is stabilized: many left the system before 2019.

How many apartments

No agency publishes a count of stabilized apartments per building — but the City bills each owner a $20 fee a year for each registered stabilized apartment on the property tax account, so the fee shows how many each building registered. By BlockLot Intelligence's count of those bills, 1,038,861 apartments in 43,580 properties were registered as stabilized for tax year 2026/27:

Rent-stabilized units by borough, tax year 2026/27

Units counted from the rent-stabilization fee the Department of Finance bills on each property's tax account — $20 a year for each registered unit — so the fee divided by $20. Registered units only: an owner who did not register is not billed. BlockLot Intelligence, computed October 11, 2026.

That count agrees with HCR's own: its Key Metrics report counts 1,023,964 stabilized apartments registered in the five boroughs for 2025, and our count from the fee is within 2.5% of it in every borough. The City's 2023 Housing and Vacancy Survey, a sample survey, put the number at 996,600 — 41% of the city's rental homes — with a median rent of $1,500 a month, against $2,000 for market-rate rentals.

Most stabilized apartments are in buildings built before 1947, but by BlockLot Intelligence's count 25.8% of them — 267,267 — are in buildings built in 1974 or later, which are stabilized only because of a tax benefit or other government help:

Rent-stabilized units by when the building was built, 2026/27

Units counted from the stabilization fee, by the year built on the City's tax roll. Units in buildings with no year recorded are left out. BlockLot Intelligence, computed October 11, 2026.

Large buildings hold most of them: 54.1% of the stabilized apartments are in the 5,291 properties billed for 50 or more. At the other end, 10,702 properties are billed for fewer than six — usually a building where the other apartments left the system.

Buildings billed the stabilization fee, by stabilized units, 2026/27

Each billed property once, by how many stabilized units its fee counts. A building with fewer than six is usually one where some apartments have left the system. BlockLot Intelligence, computed October 11, 2026.

The Rent Guidelines Board

The Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) is a nine-member City board, all appointed by the Mayor: two tenant members, two owner members and five public members, one of whom chairs it. Each year, after studying owners' costs and tenants' incomes, it votes on the maximum increases for one- and two-year leases beginning in the twelve months from October 1. The same percentages apply to new and renewal leases, and only one guideline increase is allowed a year.

Leases from	1 year	2 years
Oct 2024 to Sep 2025 (Order 56)	2.75%	5.25%
Oct 2025 to Sep 2026 (Order 57)	3%	4.5%
Oct 2026 to Sep 2027 (Order 58)	0%	0%

On June 25, 2026 the Board adopted Order 58: a rent freeze — no increase on one- or two-year leases beginning from October 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027. The Mayor's office called it the first freeze on two-year leases in the city's history. Increases HCR approves for building-wide improvements, and increases for new work inside an apartment, can still be added (see MCI and IAI increases).

Leases and renewals

A stabilized tenant has a right to a renewal lease. Between 90 and 150 days before the lease ends, the owner must offer one on HCR's form RTP-8; the tenant picks a one- or two-year term and has 60 days to sign and return it. The renewal keeps the old lease's terms, at the guideline increase for the term chosen.

The renewal timeline for a rent-stabilized lease.

An owner may refuse to renew only on the law's grounds, by written notice in the same window: the apartment is not the tenant's primary residence; the owner or a close family member needs it as a home — since 2019 for one apartment only, with extra protection for tenants of 15 years or more, older and disabled tenants; or the building is being taken off the market.

Every lease must come with HCR's lease rider for rent-stabilized tenants, which shows the previous legal rent and how the new rent was worked out.

Succession rights let a family member keep the apartment when the tenant dies or moves out for good, if they lived there with the tenant as their primary home for the two years before — one year for someone 62 or older or disabled. Family includes close relatives and anyone who can show emotional and financial commitment and interdependence with the tenant.

A preferential rent is a rent below the apartment's legal regulated rent. Since June 14, 2019, increases on renewal are worked out from the preferential rent, and the higher legal rent can be charged only to the next tenant. HCR's 2025 figures count about 300,000 stabilized apartments statewide with a preferential rent.

The 2019 law

The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act (HSTPA), signed on June 14, 2019, was the largest change to the system in decades. It:

made the State's rent laws permanent, with no expiry date;
ended every route by which apartments left stabilization because of a high rent or a high income;
ended the vacancy and longevity increases owners used to add when a tenant moved out;
locked preferential rents in for the sitting tenant;
lengthened the look-back for overcharge complaints from four years to six, keeping triple damages for willful overcharges;
limited the owner's-use ground to one apartment;
capped and time-limited MCI and IAI increases (the 2024 State budget later loosened the apartment rules);
let any place in the State with a housing emergency adopt rent stabilization.

How apartments left the system

From 1993 until June 2019, an apartment could leave stabilization through high-rent vacancy deregulation — when its legal rent reached a threshold on a vacancy — or high-income deregulation, when an occupied apartment's rent passed the threshold and the household earned more than a set income for two years running. The Rent Guidelines Board's glossary calls the pair luxury deregulation. The rent thresholds were:

Period	Rent threshold
1993 to June 2011	$2,000
June 2011 to June 2015	$2,500
June 2015 to 2017	$2,700
2018	$2,733.75
January to June 13, 2019	$2,774.76

The income threshold was $250,000 under the 1993 law, $175,000 from mid-1998 and $200,000 from July 2011.

The 2019 law ended both. By the Rent Guidelines Board's count, at least 170,386 apartments left through high-rent vacancy deregulation between 1994 and 2019 — 116,953 of them in Manhattan — and 6,662 through high-income deregulation. Counting every way in and out, the system lost at least 117,471 apartments, net, from 1994 to 2025. The flow has reversed lately: in 2025 about 32,745 apartments entered and at least 11,464 left, a net gain of 21,281, the largest since the Board began tracking in 2003 — almost all of it from new buildings with 421-a and 485-x benefits.

Some apartments can still leave: those stabilized only because of a tax benefit, when it ends, under that program's rules — and market-rate apartments in Affordable New York buildings, at a vacancy once their rent reaches a threshold (see stabilization tied to tax benefits).

Registration and the fee

An owner must register each stabilized apartment with HCR within 90 days of it becoming stabilized, and then every year, with its rent on April 1, giving each tenant a copy. An owner who does not register cannot collect increases for the unregistered period, and since a 2023 State law owes a fine of $500 a month for each unregistered apartment.

The City also bills a $20 yearly fee for each stabilized apartment (Administrative Code § 26-517.1) on the property tax account; HCR treats an unpaid fee as grounds to freeze the rent. BlockLot counts stabilized apartments from these bills — our arithmetic on a published amount, not a count HCR publishes per building — and labels each count with the City's tax year, because which HCR registration year a bill reflects is not established. A building with no fee is not proof of no stabilized apartments: an owner who never registered is never billed.

How to check an apartment

Ask HCR for the rent history. A tenant (or the owner) can request an apartment's registration history online through HCR's Rent Connect, at a borough rent office, or on form REC-1. It lists the rent registered each year, which shows whether the apartment is stabilized and whether the rent was raised lawfully. Rent histories go only to the tenant, the owner or their representative.
Search the building. HCR's public building search, and the Rent Guidelines Board's yearly borough lists of buildings with at least one stabilized apartment, say whether a building is in the system — not which apartments are. Only HCR can confirm an apartment.
Read the lease. A stabilized lease comes with the lease rider and a copy of the yearly registration.

A tenant who believes the rent is above the legal rent can file a rent overcharge complaint with HCR, online or on form RA-89. HCR generally looks back six years; the owner must refund any overcharge, and pay three times the amount if the overcharge was willful. Where an owner stops providing services — heat, hot water, repairs — HCR can also reduce the rent until they are restored.

A worked example

Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, two neighboring apartment complexes on First Avenue in Manhattan owned by companies, are the two largest stabilized properties in the City's fee records. Each sits on one tax lot, so the fee counts each complex whole.

For tax year 2026/27, the City billed the stabilization fee for 8,768 apartments at Stuyvesant Town — against 8,764 homes on the City's tax roll — and 2,480 at Peter Cooper Village, out of 2,491: 11,248 stabilized apartments on two lots. Almost every apartment in both complexes is registered as stabilized, and the counts have hardly moved since tax year 2020/21, when they stood at 8,764 and 2,480.

Where you see this in BlockLot

A building's Lot & building card shows its rent-stabilized units — the City's fee divided by $20 — with the tax year, beside the building's total and residential units, and the earliest year we hold when the count has changed. The label opens a short definition. Area pages (ZIP codes, neighborhoods, blocks) add up the same counts as Rent-stabilised units, and the map can shade areas by their share of stabilized homes.

Stuyvesant Town's stabilized units, counted from the City's fee.
Counted from the $20 fee
Every home on the lot

Questions people ask

How do I know if my apartment is rent-stabilized? A stabilized lease comes with HCR's lease rider and a copy of the yearly registration. If in doubt, ask HCR for the apartment's rent history online, at a borough rent office or on form REC-1. Building lists show only whether a building has stabilized apartments.

How much can my rent go up this year? For leases beginning from October 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027, the Rent Guidelines Board's Order 58 allows 0% on both one- and two-year leases. For leases that began in the year before, it was 3% for one year and 4.5% for two. HCR-approved improvement increases can be added on top.

Which buildings are rent-stabilized? Generally buildings of six or more apartments built before 1974, and newer buildings whose owners took a tax benefit like 421-a, 485-x or J-51. Owner-occupied co-op and condo apartments are not.

Can a landlord take an apartment out of rent stabilization? Not because the rent or the tenant's income is high, since June 14, 2019. Apartments that left before then stayed out. Some apartments stabilized only by a tax benefit can still leave when it ends, under that program's rules.

Does my landlord have to renew my lease? Generally yes. The owner must offer a renewal 90 to 150 days before the lease ends, and may refuse only on the law's grounds, such as the apartment not being the tenant's primary residence.

What if I think I'm being overcharged? File an overcharge complaint with HCR. It looks back six years, and a willful overcharge costs the owner three times the amount.

Rent control in New York City, and how it differs from rent stabilization — NYC rent control explained: which apartments are still controlled, the Maximum Base Rent system, the 2.55% increase for 2026, succession, and how it differs from rent stabilization.
MCI and IAI rent increases: Major Capital and Individual Apartment Improvements — How NYC rent-regulated rents rise for improvements: Major Capital Improvements (MCIs) and Individual Apartment Improvements (IAIs), the 2019 and 2024 limits, and how tenants check them.
Rent stabilization tied to tax benefits: J-51, 421-a and 485-x — Why apartments in newer NYC buildings are rent-stabilized: the rent rules that come with 421-a, 485-x and J-51 tax benefits, the lease notice, and what happens when a benefit ends.
Good Cause Eviction: what New York's 2024 law covers in NYC — New York's Good Cause Eviction Law in NYC: which apartments it covers, the exemptions, the grounds for eviction, the 8.38% rent test for 2026 and the required notice.
SRO buildings: single room occupancy, rooming houses and hotel tenants — What an SRO (single room occupancy) building is in New York City, how SRO and hotel rooms are rent-stabilized, permanent tenants, the 0% hotel guideline for 2026, and the SRO harassment rule.
Certification of No Harassment (CONH) — What a Certification of No Harassment is, which buildings need one and for what work, how HPD investigates, what happens if harassment is found — and why the program became permanent in 2026.
Housing Court, HP actions and HPD litigation — Housing Court for owners and buyers: HP actions, the cases HPD brings, harassment findings, marshal evictions and HPD's Speculation Watch List.
HUD-assisted housing: project-based Section 8, Section 202 and 811 contracts — HUD rental assistance contracts on NYC buildings: project-based Section 8, Section 202 and 811, how tenants' rent works, what happens when a contract expires, and opt-outs.
The FARE Act: who pays the broker fee — New York City's FARE Act (Local Law 119 of 2024): since June 11, 2025 a broker who works for the landlord cannot charge the tenant, every fee must be disclosed, and DCWP enforces it.

Sources

By BlockLot. Reviewed October 9, 2026. Figures by BlockLot Intelligence, computed from public data on October 11, 2026. This page explains the rules in general; it is not legal or tax advice. For a decision about a specific property, check the official source or ask a professional. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.