Fair Rent for a Regulated Tenancy in 2026: How the Maximum Is Worked Out

For a regulated tenancy in England, the landlord cannot charge more than the rent the rent officer has registered. When the rent is registered again, the new figure cannot go above the maximum fair rent: the rent registered now, raised by the change in the Retail Prices Index since it was registered plus 5% (7.5% on the first application since 1 February 1999), then rounded up to the next 50p. Only repairs or improvements by the landlord that lift the rent by 15% or more take it outside the cap. The rent officer first values the home under section 70 of the Rent Act 1977, in practice the market rent less any disrepair and a deduction for scarcity (usually 20% in the 2026 tribunal decisions), and registers that figure or the maximum, whichever is lower.

A flat registered at £725.00 a month in October 2024, not for the first time since 1999, has a maximum of £820.00 a month on the Order's own wording if the new rent is decided in November 2026. This guide sets out that sum step by step, what the rent officer weighs under the cap, how to apply and object, and what the First-tier Tribunal decided in 194 fair rent cases in 2026.

Which tenancies have a fair rent

For a private landlord, a fair rent belongs to a regulated tenancy: a protected or statutory tenancy under the Rent Act 1977 (section 18). Most lettings by private landlords that began before 15 January 1989 are regulated. The main exception is the resident landlord: a tenancy granted from 14 August 1974 is not protected if the landlord lived in another part of the same building when it was granted and the landlord, or a later owner, has lived there ever since, allowing for the gaps Schedule 2 permits. In a purpose-built block of flats that applies only where landlord and tenant share one flat (section 12). 15 January 1989 is the day Part I of the Housing Act 1988 came into force, and from it a new tenancy cannot be a protected tenancy, with narrow exceptions (section 34).

The exception landlords meet most: a new tenancy granted by the same landlord to someone who was already a protected or statutory tenant is still a protected tenancy (section 34(1)(b)). Signing a fresh agreement with a sitting regulated tenant does not turn the let into an assured tenancy.

What follows from that:

• Section 13 does not apply. The Housing Act 1988 route for raising the rent on an assured tenancy is not open. Where a rent is registered, a new rent goes through the register of fair rents, which the Valuation Office Agency's rent officers keep for England. Where none has been registered, the rent can also be raised by a written rent agreement that meets section 51 of the Rent Act 1977.
• Check the register first. GOV.UK's register of fair rents shows the rent registered for an address. A property last registered before 2004 may not be online, and a certified copy of an entry costs £1.
• The Renters' Rights Act 2025 leaves the fair rent rules alone. It amends nothing in the Rent Act 1977. It does count the private landlord of a regulated tenancy in England as a residential landlord (section 63), so the new PRS Database will cover these lets too when registration opens on 15 December 2026.

This guide covers England. A fair rent is not the market rent, and the rent officer does not set one for an assured tenancy. For what a home would let for today, the rent calculator shows the official average rents for your council.

The formula in the 1999 Order

Article 2 of the Rent Acts (Maximum Fair Rent) Order 1999 sets the cap. It applies when an application for a new rent is made and a rent is already registered for the home (article 2(6)):

MFR = LR × [1 + (x - y) ÷ y + P]

The RPI is the Office for National Statistics' all items Retail Prices Index, series CHAW. The ONS publishes each month's figure in the following month, so x is in effect the figure for two months before the decision. A new rent decided in November 2026 uses the RPI published in October 2026, which is September's: 422.1.

Five rules in the same article settle most real cases:

• Round up, not to the nearest. A result that is not a whole multiple of 50p goes up to the next 50p (article 2(3)).
• Falling prices. If (x - y) ÷ y + P comes out below zero, the maximum is simply the rent already registered (article 2(4)).
• Variable sums. A sum registered as variable under section 71(4) of the Rent Act, one that moves with the cost of services or of maintenance and repair works, is left out of the calculation (article 2(5)). The tribunal's decision forms take it off before the formula and add it back after.
• The 15% exemption. The cap does not apply where repairs or improvements by the landlord or a superior landlord, to the home or the common parts (replacing fixtures or fittings included), lift the newly decided rent at least 15% above the previous registered rent (article 2(7)). The 15% is about works, not services.
• First registration. With no rent registered yet there is nothing to cap, so the fair rent is registered as the rent officer finds it.

A worked example

A flat's rent was registered at £725.00 a month in October 2024. It was not the first registration since 1999, so P is 0.05. The landlord applies again, and the new rent is decided in November 2026.

Five things move the answer:

• The month of the decision. Decided in October 2026, x is the August figure, 421.6, published in September. The sum comes to £818.59 and the maximum to £819.00.
• Which month counts as y. The Order takes the RPI for the month of the last registration, and the example above does too. Tribunal sheets do not all read it that way. Some take the RPI published in that month, which is the previous month's figure. Some London panels take the RPI two months before the registration, as they do for x. In this example those readings give £820.00, £824.00 and £821.50, so check which month a sheet used for y before challenging its figure.
• Rounding the multiplier early. Cut to 1.13, the multiplier gives £819.25, which rounds up to £819.50: 50p a month below the Order's figure. Keep at least six decimal places and round only the final result. Tribunal sheets often round (x - y) ÷ y, usually to four or five decimal places but sometimes to two or three, so a sheet's figure can be 50p or more away from the exact sum.
• A first application since 1999. With P at 0.075 the maximum would be £838.00.
• A weekly rent. The same sum works on the weekly figure, and the 50p round-up applies to the rent a week: £167.50 a week registered in October 2024 comes to £189.34, so £189.50 a week on a decision in November 2026.

To work it out for your own let:

1. 1Find the rent registered now, and the month it was registered, on the register of fair rents.
2. 2Take the RPI for that month (y) from the ONS series CHAW.
3. 3Take the RPI published in the month before the decision (x). Until the decision is made, use the latest figure and expect it to move.
4. 4Work through the table and round the result up to the next 50p.

A tribunal decision usually sets out the same sum on a sheet headed "Maximum fair rent calculation". When it arrives, check its figures, and the months it used for x and y, against the register and the ONS series.

The fair rent under the cap

The maximum is a ceiling, not the rent. The rent officer first works out a fair rent under section 70 of the Rent Act 1977, then registers that figure or the maximum, whichever is lower. Section 70 asks for regard to all the circumstances except personal ones, and in particular to:

• the age, character, locality and state of repair of the home
• the quantity, quality and condition of any furniture provided
• any premium paid for the tenancy

It then assumes that the number of people looking for similar homes in the area is not substantially greater than the number available (section 70(2)). That is the scarcity assumption, and it is why a fair rent usually sits below the market rent. Disrepair caused by the tenant breaking the terms, and improvements the tenant made without being required to, are disregarded (section 70(3)).

The 2026 tribunal decisions follow the same pattern: the open-market rent for a similar home in good order, less an allowance for disrepair or missing modern amenities, less a percentage for scarcity. Where a decision gave one figure for scarcity (118 of them), it was 20% in 90, and between 5% and 25% in the rest.

Because the fair rent is valued afresh each time, it can come out lower than the rent it replaces. In 10 of the 172 decisions below, it did.

What the tribunal decided in 2026

Every fair rent decision the First-tier Tribunal published on GOV.UK for 2026, read on 25 October 2026:

In six cases out of ten the cap, not the valuation, decided the rent. Where a capped decision also gave the rent the tribunal would otherwise have registered (88 decisions), that figure was a median of 37% above the cap.

London accounts for most of the cases: 124 of the 172. There the cap set the rent in 84 (68%); in the rest of England it did so in 20 of 48.

These are the cases where a landlord or a tenant objected to the rent officer's figure, not every registration. Where local rents have risen faster than the RPI since the last registration, expect the maximum to be the rent, and check its arithmetic before anything else.

How these figures were made

Source: HM Courts and Tribunals Service, Residential property tribunal decisions on GOV.UK, category "Rents", read on 25 October 2026. Every decision dated from 1 January 2026 with a Rent Act fair rent case reference ("F77") was counted: 195 entries, one of them the same decision published twice, so 194 decisions, dated 7 January to 28 September 2026.

The rent registered, the maximum fair rent and the rent last registered were read from each decision's published documents by a script. "The maximum fair rent set the rent" means the rent registered matched the maximum on the decision's own calculation sheet, to within 50p. Where either figure could not be read reliably, the decision was left out of those counts rather than estimated: 22 decisions, the Eastern region's 11 among them, whose documents set the sum out in prose. The rent that would otherwise have been registered is the figure on the decision form; six that the script misread were checked and corrected by hand against the decision. The decisions include housing association tenancies, which also have registered fair rents. Regions are the tribunal's, from the case reference. RPI figures are the ONS series CHAW as released on 21 October 2026. No names of tenants or landlords were recorded.

Applying for a new rent

The landlord, the tenant, or both together can apply (section 67), on form RR1 from GOV.UK's fair rent forms page, sent to the VOA as that page directs. The application states the rent asked for. Where a landlord applies and the rent includes services, it gives the sum for them and details of what they cost (section 67(2)).

The timing rules:

• Two years. Neither side can apply alone within two years of the date the last registration took effect, unless the condition of the home, the terms, the furniture or other circumstances have changed so much that the registered rent is no longer fair (section 67(3)).
• The landlord's three months. A landlord applying alone may do so in the last three months of those two years (section 67(4)). That is why the VOA says landlords can usually apply from 1 year 9 months. The new rent cannot take effect before the two years are up (section 72(3)).
• Together, at any time. The VOA says a joint application from landlord and tenant may be accepted at any time, and the rent officer can register an agreed figure without more if it is fair (Schedule 11, paragraph 2).

Otherwise the rent officer asks both sides whether they want a consultation, then registers a fair rent or confirms the one already registered (Schedule 11, paragraphs 3 to 5). A rent the rent officer registers takes effect from the date it is registered (section 72(1)).

Objecting to the First-tier Tribunal

The rent officer's notice gives the landlord and the tenant 28 days to object in writing (Schedule 11, paragraph 5A). An objection in time is referred to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber); a late one is referred only if the rent officer or the tribunal agrees (paragraph 6). GOV.UK gives being in hospital as an example of a good reason for delay.

The tribunal values the home afresh. It can confirm the rent officer's figure or set its own, higher or lower, but never above the maximum fair rent (paragraphs 9 and 9B). In one London case decided in September 2026, the rent officer registered £1,730 a month; on the tenant's objection the tribunal valued the flat at £1,900 and registered the maximum, £1,808. A rent set by the tribunal takes effect from the date of its decision (section 72(1)).

Charging the new rent

The registered rent is the most the landlord can recover. Anything above it is irrecoverable from the tenant, whatever the agreement says (sections 44 and 45).

• A notice of increase. Registering a higher rent does not raise the rent by itself. While the tenancy is contractual, the rent is what the agreement says, up to the registered rent (section 44). On a statutory tenancy (the contractual term has ended and the tenant stays on under the Act), the higher rent is due from the date in a notice of increase in the prescribed form (section 45(2)(b) and section 49(2)). The notice can be served during the contractual term, and where the landlord could end the tenancy by a notice to quit served at the same time, it turns the tenancy into a statutory one from the date in the notice (section 49(3) and (4)). GOV.UK says to serve a notice of increase when the fair rent goes up, on a form from legal stationers.
• How far back. The date in the notice cannot be earlier than the date the registration took effect, or more than four weeks before the notice is served (section 45(3)).
• Overpaid rent. A tenant who paid more than the registered rent can recover it from the landlord or take it off the rent, within two years (section 57(3)).
• The rent book. Entering an irrecoverable sum as arrears in a rent book or similar document is an offence, unless the landlord had a genuine claim that it was due (section 57(4)).

So every rent record should show the rent recoverable: never more than the registered rent, and a higher registered rent only from the date it became payable, usually the date in a valid notice of increase. A lower registered rent applies from the date the registration took effect.

Keeping the rent record

In LetCompliance the rent sits on the tenancy: enter the rent payable and its period, weekly or monthly, and each rent day raises a charge at that amount. When the registered rent changes, enter the new figure with the date it applies from (the date in the notice of increase for a higher rent, the date the registration took effect for a lower one), and charges due before that date keep the old figure. Payments are recorded against the charges, and the rent statement (on the trial and every paid plan) sets out, rent period by rent period (week by week on a weekly rent), what was charged, what was paid and the balance carried forward. Keep the register entry and the notice of increase with the property's documents, so the statement and the register can be checked against each other. More on rent tracking and collection.

Keep the rent on the record. The rent payable, every payment and the balance, on one statement. Add the tenancy