Which states ban rent control?

In most of the country, a city can't cap rents even if it wants to. The National Multifamily Housing Council, a landlord trade group that tracks these laws, counted 32 states that preempt local rent control in its August 2026 chart. That list still shows Nebraska as having no ban, but Nebraska lawmakers passed one in 2025, signed by the governor April 7, 2025, bringing the total to at least 33. Counts vary by source. The National Apartment Association put the number at 36 in February 2026.

A few of those labels need footnotes. Connecticut bans rent control but lets towns set up fair rent commissions that can order reductions. In six states in the last row, Alaska, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia, cities generally have only the powers the state grants them, which limits their ability to pass rent control. Oregon and Washington also bar cities from writing their own rules on top of the state cap.

The statewide caps are looser than many renters assume. California limits yearly increases to 5% plus inflation or 10%, whichever is lower, through 2029, and exempts homes built in the past 15 years. Oregon's cap is 7% plus inflation or 10%, and it works out to 10% for 2027, according to the state. Washington adopted the same formula in May 2025, and its cap is also 10% for 2027.

Those ceilings sit far above what typical rents are doing. In September 2026, typical rent was up 0.9% from a year earlier in Seattle, 1.7% in Portland, Oregon, and 4.6% in Spokane, according to RentDataNow data built on the Zillow Observed Rent Index. For most tenants, the statewide caps only come into play when a landlord tries an unusually large increase.

Where local rent control exists, it's usually much tighter. Portland, Maine, will let landlords raise rents up to 2.6% in 2027, local TV station WGME reported. St. Paul, Minnesota, limits increases to 3% a year, though its typical asking rent rose 3.4%. Asking rents include newer buildings, which the city exempts for 20 years. Montgomery County, Maryland, caps increases at inflation plus 3% or 6%, whichever is lower, for buildings at least 23 years old. New York lets any locality adopt rent stabilization after declaring a housing emergency, and New Jersey has around 100 or more towns with rent control ordinances, depending on the count.

Massachusetts is the clearest example of a ban holding. Voters ended rent control there in 1994, and the state's highest court blocked a measure to bring it back from the 2026 ballot, which we covered in our report on the ruling. For the rules on increases in states without caps, see how much a landlord can raise rent by state, and for the research on effects, whether rent control works.

Sources

• National Multifamily Housing Council, rent control laws by state (August 2026)
• Nebraska Legislature, LB 266 (approved April 7, 2025)
• National Apartment Association, state legislatures and rent control (February 25, 2026)
• California Attorney General, landlord-tenant issues, on Civil Code 1947.12
• Oregon Office of Economic Analysis, rent stabilization
• Washington Department of Commerce, HB 1217 resource center
• City of St. Paul, rent stabilization
• Montgomery County Bill 15-23
• WGME, Portland rent increase cap for 2027 (September 3, 2026)
• Massachusetts General Laws, chapter 40P, section 4
• RentDataNow city rent data, anchored to the Zillow Observed Rent Index, September 2026