New York / Housing guide
The 2026 Rent Freeze: What Order 58 Means If Your Lease Renews After October 1
Homzora editorial team · Updated September 14, 2026
If you live in a rent stabilized apartment in New York City and your lease renews on or after 1 October 2026, your rent is not going up. Not by one percent, not by a nominal amount. Zero.
The Rent Guidelines Board voted seven to one on 25 June 2026 to authorize no increase at all on both one year and two year renewals for leases commencing 1 October 2026 through 30 September 2027. That covers roughly a million apartments, which is 41 percent of the rental housing in the city.
This guide covers what the order actually says, who it applies to, how to establish whether you are one of them, and what it does not do.
What the Board decided
Order 58 authorizes a zero percent increase on a one year renewal and a zero percent increase on a two year renewal. Both figures are zero, which is unusual in itself because the Board normally sets a higher figure for the longer term to compensate for locking in the rate.
The vote was seven to one. The Board reported operating costs for stabilized buildings rising 5.3 percent over the year, and froze rents anyway.
The preceding order, Order 57, covered leases commencing 1 October 2025 through 30 September 2026 and allowed 3 percent on a one year renewal and 4.5 percent on a two year. So the change is not a small adjustment. It is the difference between a rise and nothing.
The date that decides which order applies to you
This is the part people get wrong, and it is worth being precise about.
A Rent Guidelines Board order applies by lease commencement date, not by calendar year and not by the date the renewal offer arrives. Order 58 governs leases that commence on or after 1 October 2026 and on or before 30 September 2027.
So two tenants in the same building can be under different orders at the same moment. A neighbor whose renewal started in August 2026 is under Order 57 and paying the 3 percent. Yours starting in November is under Order 58 and paying nothing extra.
If you are looking at a renewal offer right now, find the commencement date on it before anything else. That single figure tells you which guideline applies.
Whether this applies to your apartment
The freeze covers rent stabilized units. It does not cover market rate apartments, and the distinction is the single most consequential fact about any New York tenancy.
Stabilization typically covers buildings with six or more units built before 1974, together with some newer buildings that received tax benefits such as 421-a. Published sources describe the age criterion slightly differently, with one giving a window of 1947 to 1974 rather than simply before 1974, and we have not resolved that difference.
Roughly one million apartments are stabilized. That is 41 percent of the city rental apartments and 27 percent of all housing, according to the New York City Independent Budget Office.
Rent control is a separate and much smaller system covering about 16,400 units. Those are not governed by the Rent Guidelines Board at all. Increases there run through a Maximum Base Rent system administered by New York State Homes and Community Renewal, capped at the lesser of 7.5 percent a year or the average of the five most recent Board one year increases.
How to find out for certain
Do not rely on what a listing said, what an agent told you, or what the building looks like.
New York State Homes and Community Renewal maintains the registration records. Rent regulated units must be registered annually, recording the rent as at 1 April each year. You can request the rent history for your apartment from the agency, and it is free.
That record settles the question and does several other things at once. It shows the registered legal rent over time, which is how overcharges get identified, and it establishes the regulatory status you may need to rely on later.
If you have never requested it, this is a reasonable moment to do so, because the answer determines whether the freeze applies to you.
One year or two years
Because both figures are zero, the usual calculation disappears.
Normally a renewal decision involves weighing a lower one year increase against locking in a higher two year rate, and reasonable people land differently depending on how long they expect to stay. This year there is nothing to weigh on price.
What remains is the question of what happens next. A two year renewal commencing in this window carries the freeze through to 2028, past whatever the Board decides for the following period. A one year renewal returns you to the market in October 2027, when the next order applies.
Nobody knows what Order 59 will authorize. Guideline increases have averaged around three percent over the longer run, and ranged from zero to 1.5 percent between 2014 and 2021. A two year renewal is a hedge against a higher figure next year, and a one year renewal is a bet that it stays low.
That is a judgment about your own circumstances rather than something a guide can decide for you. But it is worth making deliberately rather than defaulting.
What the freeze does not do
Four things worth being clear about, because a rent freeze is easy to read as more than it is.
It does not cover market rate apartments. If your unit is unregulated, the Board has no authority over your rent at all, and New York sets no statewide percentage cap on market rate increases. What governs you is the notice requirement, not a limit on the amount.
It does not stop other charges. The guideline governs the base rent on a renewal. It does not address utilities, amenity charges, or anything else a lease permits separately.
It does not remove the landlord right to seek increases through other routes. There are mechanisms outside the guideline system, and this guide does not cover them.
It does not apply retroactively. If your renewal commenced in August 2026, Order 57 governs it and the 3 percent stands. The freeze begins with leases commencing on or after 1 October.
If your unit is market rate
The Board decision does not help you, but the notice rules do, and they are worth knowing.
Under Real Property Law section 226-c, a landlord proposing a rent increase of 5 percent or more, or declining to renew, must give advance written notice scaled to how long you have lived there. Thirty days if you have been there under a year. Sixty days from one year to two. Ninety days at two years or more, measured by occupancy or lease term, whichever is longer.
Verbal notice does not count. And where notice is given late, the tenancy continues on its existing terms from the date actual written notice is served until the full period expires. A ninety day notice served short does not become valid on day thirty one. It starts ninety days running from when it was actually served.
New York also caps late fees at fifty dollars or five percent of the monthly rent, whichever is less, and application fees at twenty dollars. Those apply regardless of regulatory status.
What to do with a renewal offer
- Find the commencement date first. It determines which order applies and everything else follows from it.
- Check your regulatory status against the state registration record rather than assuming. It is free to request.
- If you are stabilized and the offer includes an increase on a lease commencing on or after 1 October 2026, that is worth querying in writing before signing anything.
- Decide one year or two deliberately, since the price is the same and the difference is entirely about what you expect next year.
- If you are market rate, check the notice was properly given and count the days against your length of occupancy.
- Take advice on anything contested. Housing Court Answers and the Legal Aid Society tenant rights hotline both handle these questions.
Why this happened
Worth a brief note, because the context explains why the figure is unusual.
The Rent Guidelines Board has nine members appointed by the Mayor, representing tenant, owner and public interests. It researches and holds public hearings from March through June, votes by 1 July, and the guidelines take effect on 1 October.
Because the members are mayoral appointees, the composition of the Board reflects the position of the administration that appointed it. Guideline increases between 2014 and 2021 ranged from zero to 1.5 percent. Order 57, at 3 and 4.5 percent, was substantially higher. Order 58 is a return to the lower end and then some.
Owner groups point to the 5.3 percent rise in operating costs and argue the freeze defers maintenance. Tenant groups point to affordability in a city where the median stabilized rent sits well below market. Both positions are argued in the Board hearings each spring, and the hearings are public.
The short version
Zero percent on both one year and two year renewals, for leases commencing 1 October 2026 through 30 September 2027, covering roughly a million rent stabilized apartments. The preceding order allowed 3 and 4.5 percent.
Which order applies depends on your lease commencement date, not the calendar year. Check whether your unit is actually stabilized through the state registration record rather than assuming. And if you are market rate, the freeze does not reach you, though the tiered notice rules and the fee caps do.
The full reference, with the guideline figures, the scope of both regulatory systems and every source cited, is free to download at our New York datasets.
Not legal advice. This page summarizes published reports of Rent Guidelines Board orders and provisions of New York law as of September 2026. It does not evaluate any particular tenancy. Whether a specific apartment is rent stabilized is a question of fact about that building and its regulatory history, which Homzora cannot determine. New York State Homes and Community Renewal maintains the registration records. Consult an attorney or a legal aid organization about your own situation.