Washington State Rent Increase Law: The Complete HB 1217 Guide
Washington caps rent increases. The cap changes every year, it is set by the year your increase takes effect, and inside Tacoma there are three separate notice requirements stacked on top of it. Here is all of it, with dates.
This page is general information, not legal advice. We are property managers, not attorneys. Rent increase rules in Washington and in Tacoma change every year, and the answer for your property depends on facts this page does not know. Confirm anything that matters with a Washington attorney before you serve a notice.
Reviewed: September 2026.
The short version
Washington passed HB 1217, and it is in effect. It is codified at RCW 59.18.700 through RCW 59.18.730.
The cap on a rent increase is 7 percent plus CPI, or 10 percent, whichever is less. The Department of Commerce publishes the number each year.
You cannot raise rent at all during the first 12 months of a tenancy.
Manufactured and mobile home lots follow a different rule: 5 percent flat, once per 12 months, under RCW 59.20.390.
2027 cap: 10.0 percent
2026 cap: 9.683 percent
The detail almost everyone gets wrong
The cap is set by the year the increase takes effect. Not the year you serve the notice.
That sounds like a technicality until you look at a calendar. Statewide you owe 90 days of notice. Inside Tacoma you owe 180 days on the City form, and the earlier of the two TMC 1.100.050 notices goes out up to 210 days ahead.
So a Tacoma notice written today, on September 1, 2026, cannot produce an increase that takes effect in 2026. The earliest it can land is 2027. That means the 2027 figure of 10.0 percent governs it, not the 2026 figure of 9.683 percent.
The mistake runs both ways. An owner who caps at 9.683 percent for a 2027 effective date has left money on the table. An owner who uses a 2027 number for an increase that actually takes effect in December 2026 has served a notice above the cap.
Check the effective date first. Then look up the cap for that year.
Who is exempt
RCW 59.18.710 lists the exemptions from the rent cap:
01
Buildings whose first certificate of occupancy was issued 12 or fewer years before the date of the notice.
02
Public housing authorities and public development authorities.
Qualifying nonprofits.
03
04
LIHTC units under a Washington State Housing Finance Commission agreement.
05
Units where the tenant shares a bathroom or kitchen with a resident owner.
06
Owner-occupied buildings of 1 to 4 units, where the owner lives there as a principal residence.
That last one has a limit worth reading twice. It is not available to corporations, to REITs, or to LLCs with a corporate member. If you hold your fourplex in an LLC that has a corporate member, the owner-occupied exemption is not yours.
The exemption must be claimed in the written notice. Being exempt is not enough. If you do not say so in the notice, you have not claimed it.
The Tacoma notice stack, and why renewal planning starts seven months early
RCW 59.18.140 sets the statewide notice period: 90 days written for a rent increase, or 30 days for income-based subsidized tenancies.
The notice must substantially follow the form in RCW 59.18.720, and it must state:
The percentage of the increase.
The dollar amount of the increase.
The effective date.
Whether the increase is below the cap, at the cap, or exempt from the cap.
A notice missing any of those four items is a defective notice. A defective notice does not start the clock, which usually means serving a new one and waiting the full period again.
The 5 percent lease-type parity rule
RCW 59.18.700(4) says you may not create more than a 5 percent rent difference based on lease type.
In practice this is about month-to-month pricing. Charging a large month-to-month premium over the twelve month rate was a normal practice for years. If the gap is more than 5 percent, it is no longer lawful.
The tenant’s 20 day exit
If a rent increase does not comply with the law, the tenant may terminate the tenancy on 20 days notice under RCW 59.18.700(3).
That is the quiet cost of a defective notice. You do not just lose the increase. You can lose the tenant, on 20 days notice, at a time of the tenant’s choosing rather than yours.
The penalties
Two separate exposures:
Private. Up to three months of unlawful rent, plus fees.
State. The Attorney General may seek civil penalties of up to $7,500 per violation.
Inside Tacoma there is a third layer. TMC 1.100.080(2) penalties run from not less than $500 up to five times the monthly rent per violation, plus injunctive relief, and they are enforced by private lawsuit.
Tacoma stacks three more requirements on top
If your property is inside Tacoma city limits, the state cap is only the first of four things you have to get right.
Before anything else, the business license precondition
Under TMC 1.95.060.E and TMC 1.95.070.B, no landlord may issue a notice to increase rent unless they hold a current Tacoma business license under TMC 6B and have registered each unit with certification of code compliance.
If you do not have both, you cannot lawfully raise the rent at all, no matter how correct your notice is. Start with our Tacoma landlord business license page.
180 days of notice on a City form
TMC 1.95.060 requires 180 days of written notice on a City form. It was raised from 120 days on January 1, 2026 by Ordinance 29086. The notice has to state the new rent, the percentage, the effective date and a description of the relocation assistance program.
A City “Notice of Resources” form must accompany the rent increase notice under TMC 1.95.030.B.
Two notices under TMC 1.100.050
TMC 1.100.050 requires two separate notices:
The first, 210 to 180 days before the increase.
The second, 120 to 90 days before the increase.
TMC 1.100 is enforced only by private lawsuit, so the City will not stop you for missing these. Your tenant can.
Our practical advice: send both. Treat the first notice as also satisfying the state’s 90 day requirement and the City’s 180 day requirement, and send the second one on schedule.
Relocation assistance if the increase is 5 percent or more
Triggered by an increase of 5 percent or more in a 12 month period, where the tenant elects to move. The tenant requests it, you pay within 30 days, and the tenant repays you within 10 days if they do not actually move.
| Size of the increase | What you pay |
|---|---|
| 5% up to 7.5% | Two months rent |
| Over 7.5% up to 10% | Two and a half months rent |
| Over 10% | Three months rent |
There is also a habitability rule to check before you send anything. Rent may not be raised while the unit has habitability violations, and that is an affirmative defense in an eviction case.
A worked calendar for a Tacoma rent increase
| Date | What you do | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Now, before anything | Confirm your Tacoma business license and unit registration with code compliance certification are current | TMC 1.95.060.E and 1.95.070.B. Without both, you cannot lawfully issue the notice |
| Now | Confirm the unit has no open habitability violations | Rent may not be raised while habitability violations exist |
| Now | Look up the cap for 2027, the year the increase takes effect: 10.0% | The cap is set by the effective year, not the notice year |
| December 3, 2026 to January 2, 2027 | Serve the first TMC 1.100.050 notice | 210 to 180 days before the effective date |
| On or before January 2, 2027 | Serve the TMC 1.95.060 notice on the City form, with the Notice of Resources form attached | 180 days before the effective date |
| March 3, 2027 to April 2, 2027 | Serve the second TMC 1.100.050 notice | 120 to 90 days before the effective date |
| Within 30 days of a tenant request | Pay relocation assistance if the increase is 5% or more and the tenant elects to move | Two, two and a half, or three months rent by tier |
| July 1, 2027 | The new rent takes effect |
Two notes on that table. First, serving the first TMC 1.100.050 notice on or before January 2, 2027 also satisfies the 180 day City requirement and the 90 day state requirement, which is why we recommend sending one document that meets all three sets of content rules. Second, the state notice content requirements in RCW 59.18.720 and the City form requirements in TMC 1.95.060 are different lists. Both have to be satisfied.
This is the section nobody else publishes. The dates below assume a target effective date of July 1, 2027, for a tenancy that has already run more than 12 months. Count your own dates against your own calendar, because a single day short on any of these is a defective notice.
One open question we are not going to guess at
Placeholder framing to use only after confirmation: the manufactured and mobile home lot rule in RCW 59.20.390 caps increases at 5 percent flat, once per 12 months. If litigation is pending that could change how that rule applies, we will note the case, the court and its status here, and we will not tell you what the outcome will be.
Rent increases in Tacoma are less about the percentage and more about the calendar. Most of the owners who call us about a rent increase have already missed a window and do not know it yet.
If you want someone to check your dates before you serve anything, book a property management consult or call 253.222.3387. We will tell you what we would do, whether or not you hire us.
Washington rent increase questions
-
The cap is 7 percent plus CPI, or 10 percent, whichever is less, under HB 1217 as codified at RCW 59.18.700 to RCW 59.18.730. The 2026 figure is 9.683 percent and the 2027 figure is 10.0 percent. The cap is set by the year the increase takes effect. Manufactured and mobile home lots are capped at 5 percent flat once per 12 months under RCW 59.20.390.
-
The year the increase takes effect, not the year you serve the notice. Because Washington requires 90 days notice and Tacoma requires 180 days on a City form, a notice served in the fall of 2026 will almost always take effect in 2027, which means the 2027 cap of 10.0 percent governs it rather than the 2026 figure of 9.683 percent.
-
No. There is no rent increase allowed during the first 12 months of a tenancy under Washington’s rent stabilization law. Plan the initial rent accordingly, because you will be living with it for a full year, and in Tacoma the notice for the first lawful increase has to go out months before that year ends.
-
The notice must substantially follow the form in RCW 59.18.720 and state the percentage of the increase, the dollar amount, the effective date, and whether the increase is below the cap, at the cap, or exempt. If you are claiming an exemption under RCW 59.18.710, you have to claim it in the notice itself.
-
Three things can follow. The tenant may terminate the tenancy on 20 days notice under RCW 59.18.700(3). You may owe up to three months of unlawful rent plus fees. The Attorney General may seek civil penalties of up to $7,500 per violation. Inside Tacoma, TMC 1.100.080(2) adds not less than $500 up to five times the monthly rent per violation.
-
Three requirements at once. TMC 1.95.060 requires 180 days of written notice on a City form, raised from 120 days on January 1, 2026. TMC 1.100.050 requires two notices, one at 210 to 180 days before and one at 120 to 90 days before. RCW 59.18.140 requires 90 days statewide. Sending both Tacoma notices satisfies all three.
Have a question about your own increase?
The cap is the easy part. The calendar, the forms, the license precondition and the relocation assistance tiers are where Tacoma increases go wrong.
If you would like us to look at your dates before you serve a notice, we are happy to. Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 4:00pm. We reply within 24 hours.
Red Roof Rentals & Real Estate, 14208 Pacific Ave., Unit #2, Tacoma, WA 98444. 253.222.3387.
This page is general information, not legal advice, and rent increase rules change every year. Confirm anything that matters with a Washington attorney before serving a notice.