What the Renters' Rights Act changed about rent increases

On 1 May 2026 the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 came into force in England. For rent increases specifically, five things changed:

1. A Section 13 notice on Form 4A is now the only way a private landlord can increase rent. Rent review clauses in tenancy agreements no longer have any effect.
2. Rent can rise once a year at most, and not at all in the first 12 months of a new tenancy.
3. Every increase needs at least 2 months’ notice, whatever your payment frequency.
4. If you challenge at the First-tier Tribunal, the rent it sets cannot be higher than your landlord proposed, and any increase is not backdated.
5. Because Section 21 “no fault” evictions were abolished at the same time, challenging an increase no longer carries the background fear of a retaliatory eviction notice.

The rest of this page unpacks each change and what it means in practice. This is not a general explainer of the whole Act (which also covers evictions, pets, bidding wars and more); it is the rent increase picture, for renters who have a notice in hand or expect one.

Before the Act, rent could go up in several ways: a rent review clause in the tenancy agreement, a renewal at a higher rent, or a Section 13 notice. That created confusion, and it let some increases through with no notice period and no right of challenge.

Now there is one route. To increase the rent on an assured periodic tenancy in England, a landlord must serve a Section 13 notice on the prescribed form, Form 4A. Rent review clauses became void on 1 May 2026, even in agreements signed before that date. A letter, an email, or a new figure quoted in passing does not change your rent.

This matters because the Section 13 route comes with built-in protections: a prescribed form, a minimum notice period, a frequency limit, and a right to challenge at tribunal. Every increase now passes through that gate. Our guide to Section 13 notices covers the route in full.

The Act standardised the timing rules:

• Frequency: rent can only be increased once in any 12-month period, and not within the first 12 months of a new tenancy.
• Notice: the new rent cannot start any sooner than 2 months after the notice is served on you. Under the old rules, a monthly tenancy could see an increase with just one month’s notice; now everyone gets at least two.
• Start date: the new rent must begin on the first day of a rent period. If you pay on the 5th of each month, the increase must start on a 5th.

Each of these is a validity condition, not a suggestion. A notice that gives 6 weeks’ notice, or lands mid-rent-period, or arrives 10 months after the last increase, is defective, and a defective notice does not raise your rent.

The Act also brought a new prescribed form. Form 4A, titled “Landlord’s notice proposing a new rent for assured tenancies in the private rented sector”, replaced the old Form 4 for notices served on or after 1 May 2026.

This is one of the most common defects right now. Landlords reusing last year’s template, or downloading an out-of-date form, are serving notices that cannot take effect. If your notice arrived after 1 May 2026 on old Form 4, or as a plain letter, it is not a valid Section 13 notice. We have a full field-by-field guide to Form 4A, including what to check when one lands on your doormat.

This is the change that matters most if you think your increase is too high.

Under the old law, the First-tier Tribunal decided the open-market rent and could, in principle, set a figure higher than the landlord had asked for. That possibility, however rare in practice, deterred plenty of renters from challenging at all.

The Act removed it. For notices under the new rules, the tribunal cannot set the rent above the figure your landlord proposed. The number on your notice is the ceiling. The tribunal can confirm it, reduce it, or occasionally go below your current rent where the evidence supports that. Challenging the amount is now risk-free on that axis: the worst outcome on the rent itself is the increase you were already facing.

There is one new cost to know about: applying to the tribunal now carries a £47 application fee (it was previously free, and remains free for notices dated before 1 May 2026). There is no hearing fee, and the Help with Fees scheme can cover the £47 if you are on a low income or certain benefits. Our guide to how the rent tribunal works covers the process end to end.

Tribunal cases take time, and under the old rules a decided increase could reach back to the date in the notice, landing renters with a lump sum of back-rent.

The Act fixed that too. If the tribunal’s decision comes after the start date in the notice, the new rent applies from the next rent period after the decision, not retrospectively. You keep paying your current rent while the case runs, and you will not owe arrears for the months the tribunal took. If the increase would cause serious financial difficulty, the tribunal can also delay it by up to 2 months.

Together with the no-higher-than-proposed rule, this changes the maths of challenging. Time spent at tribunal is time at your current rent, and the outcome cannot exceed what the notice already asked for.

Alongside the rent rules, the Act abolished Section 21, the “no fault” eviction route. A landlord can no longer respond to a challenge by simply serving notice to leave; possession now requires specific legal grounds, such as significant rent arrears or a genuine intention to sell.

That removes the quiet pressure that stopped many renters exercising rights they already had. It is still sensible to keep the relationship civil, and most rent disagreements are resolved with a letter rather than a tribunal. But the decision to question an increase is now a financial one, not a gamble with your home. Keep paying your current rent in full throughout, so arrears do not enter the picture.

Some fundamentals carried over, and they shape what a challenge can achieve:

• The standard is still the open market. The tribunal decides what your home would realistically let for today. There is no fixed cap or maximum percentage; the market is the ceiling. Our guide to how much a landlord can increase rent covers this in detail.
• The tribunal decides rent, not affordability. Your personal finances are not part of the market-rent assessment (though hardship can delay the start date).
• Increases themselves are normal. The Act did not freeze rents. If local rents have genuinely risen, some increase may well be justified. What the Act did is make sure every increase follows one visible, challengeable route.

If you have a notice in hand, the practical question is simple: does it comply with the new rules, and is the figure at or below market? Our free check answers both in about two minutes.