Riverside apartment landlord rules come almost entirely from California state law: the city’s own rent stabilization program covers mobile home parks rather than apartments, so the statewide rent cap, just-cause eviction rules, deposit limits and notice requirements in the Civil Code are what govern most buildings. For the year that began August 1, 2026, that means most older Riverside apartments can raise rent by no more than 8.1% over any 12 months, and a tenant who has stayed a year can generally be removed only for one of the reasons the law lists.
Riverside is the county seat of Riverside County and the largest city at the heart of the Inland Empire. The U.S. Census Bureau counted 314,998 residents in April 2020 and estimates 323,057 as of July 2025, and its 2020–2024 American Community Survey puts the owner-occupied share of homes at 56.8%, which leaves a large renter population, with a median gross rent of $1,914 a month, according to Census QuickFacts for Riverside city. The rules below are the ones that shape day-to-day operations for the owners who house those renters.
Why Riverside apartment landlord rules start in Sacramento
Some California cities layer a local rent board, registry and eviction ordinance on top of state law. Riverside’s published rent stabilization program is narrower: the city’s mobile home park rent stabilization program under Chapter 5.75 of the municipal code applies to mobile home parks, and for 2026 it allows increases of 2.80%, which is 80% of a 3.50% change in the consumer price index. Apartment buildings are not part of that program.
For an apartment owner, the practical result is that the rulebook is the California Civil Code. The California Attorney General’s guide to landlord-tenant issues is a useful plain-language overview of the same statutes, and it is a good document for on-site managers to keep on hand. The core pieces are:
- Civil Code 1947.12, the statewide rent cap created by AB 1482, the Tenant Protection Act of 2019.
- Civil Code 1946.2, the companion just-cause eviction law, as tightened by SB 567.
- Civil Code 827, which sets how much notice a rent increase requires.
- Civil Code 1950.5 and 1950.6, which govern security deposits and application screening fees.
- Civil Code 1941.1, which defines a habitable unit, including a new appliance requirement for 2026.
Both the rent cap and the just-cause law in their current form took effect April 1, 2024, and both are scheduled to be repealed on January 1, 2030 unless the Legislature extends them. Owners planning a hold period that runs past 2030 should treat that sunset as a date to watch rather than a date to count on.
How the statewide rent cap works in Riverside
Under Civil Code 1947.12, an owner of a covered unit may not increase rent over any 12-month period by more than 5% plus the percentage change in the cost of living, or 10%, whichever is lower. Three mechanics matter more than the headline percentage:
- The base is the lowest rent. The cap is measured against the lowest gross rent charged for the unit at any point in the prior 12 months, so a temporary concession can become the base for the next increase.
- Two increases at most. Rent can be raised no more than twice in a 12-month period, and the two increases together must stay inside the cap.
- The CPI is regional. The law uses the regional Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, measured April over April, or March over March where no April figure exists, rounded to a tenth of a percent.
The current number for the Riverside area
The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes a separate index for the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario area every two months, in odd-numbered months, so there is no April figure and the March figure is the one that applies. According to the BLS Riverside-area CPI release for March 2026, prices rose 3.1% over the prior 12 months. Adding the statutory 5% gives a cap of 8.1% for increases taking effect from August 1, 2026 through July 31, 2027.
The year before, the index rose 2.5% in the 12 months ending March 2025, which produced a 7.5% cap for increases between August 1, 2025 and July 31, 2026. Because increases that take effect before August 1 use the prior year’s figure, an owner who issued a notice in early summer 2026 for a July effective date was working with 7.5%, not 8.1%. Neither the state nor the city publishes an official annual cap figure, so the calculation is the owner’s responsibility, and keeping a copy of the BLS release with each year’s rent-increase file is a sensible habit.
Buildings and units the cap does not cover
The exemptions most relevant to Riverside apartment owners are:
- Newer buildings. Housing issued a certificate of occupancy within the previous 15 years is exempt. This is a rolling window, so a building completed in 2010 is now covered, and newer buildings join the cap as they pass the 15-year mark.
- Owner-occupied duplexes. A duplex where the owner lives in one unit is exempt.
- Some single-family homes and condominiums. These are exempt only if they are not owned by a REIT, a corporation or an LLC with a corporate member, and only if the tenant receives the specific written exemption notice the statute requires.
A tenancy paid with a Section 8 voucher in a market-rate building is not exempt. For a typical five-plus-unit Riverside building built before the mid-2010s, the safe assumption is that every unit is covered.
Just-cause eviction after the first 12 months
Civil Code 1946.2 applies once a tenant has continuously and lawfully occupied a unit for 12 months. If new adult occupants join the household, the protection applies once all tenants have been there 12 months or any one of them has been there 24 months. From that point, the owner needs a listed reason to end the tenancy.
The reasons fall into two groups. “At-fault” causes include nonpayment and lease violations. For a violation that can be cured, the owner must first give written notice and an opportunity to fix the problem before serving a three-day notice to quit. “No-fault” causes include an owner or relative moving in, withdrawing the unit from the rental market, and a substantial remodel. For a no-fault termination, the owner must either pay relocation assistance equal to one month’s rent within 15 calendar days of serving the notice or waive the final month’s rent in writing. A notice that does not comply is void, which means the clock starts over.
Owner move-in and remodel terminations after SB 567
SB 567, effective April 1, 2024, closed the gaps that owners had used to clear units. For an owner move-in, the owner or qualifying relative must move in within 90 days and live there for at least 12 consecutive months. The notice must name the person moving in and their relationship to the owner. If the move-in does not happen as required, the owner must offer the unit back to the displaced tenant at the same rent and terms and reimburse moving expenses.
For a substantial remodel, the work must require the tenant to vacate for at least 30 consecutive days, and the notice must describe the work and include copies of the required permits. Cosmetic upgrades, such as paint, flooring or new fixtures that can be done with the tenant in place, do not qualify. For value-add plans in Riverside’s older garden-style stock, this means interior renovations are usually timed to natural turnover rather than forced vacancies.
Notice periods for raising rent
Under Civil Code 827, a month-to-month tenant must receive at least 30 days’ written notice of an increase of 10% or less, and at least 90 days’ notice of an increase of more than 10%. The 10% threshold is cumulative, counting all increases in the prior 12 months. With the Riverside-area cap at 8.1%, most covered units will never reach the 90-day tier, but exempt units, such as buildings under 15 years old, can, and the longer notice period applies to them.
For annual budgeting, the interaction between the notice rule and the August 1 cap reset is worth planning around. An increase intended to take effect on or after August 1 can use the new figure, but the notice must still go out at least 30 days ahead, so notices served in early July for an August effective date are typical when the cap rises.
Security deposits, move-in photos and screening fees
Three recent laws reshaped the leasing paperwork for Riverside buildings.
The one-month deposit limit
AB 12 amended Civil Code 1950.5 so that deposits collected on or after July 1, 2024 may not exceed one month’s rent. A narrow exception allows up to two months for a landlord who is a natural person, or an LLC made up entirely of natural persons, owning no more than two residential rental properties with no more than four units in total, and even then not for a tenant who is a service member. An owner of a five-plus-unit building does not fit that exception. The deposit, less lawful deductions, must be returned with an itemized statement within 21 days after the tenant moves out.
Photo documentation under AB 2801
AB 2801 added photo requirements to the deposit process. Since April 1, 2025, owners must photograph a unit after the tenant returns possession but before repairs or cleaning, and again after the work is done, to support deductions. For tenancies beginning on or after July 1, 2025, owners must also photograph the unit at the start of the tenancy. The California Department of Real Estate’s summary of new real estate laws covers this change along with several others below.
Screening fee limits under AB 2493
Civil Code 1950.6 caps the application screening fee at $30 per applicant, adjusted annually for inflation. As amended by AB 2493, owners may not charge a fee when no unit will be available within a reasonable time, must provide written screening criteria with the application, and must either review applications in the order received and approve the first qualified applicant, or refund the fee to every applicant who is not selected within seven days of choosing a tenant or 30 days of the application, whichever comes first.
Habitability and the 2026 appliance requirement
Civil Code 1941.1 lists the conditions that make a unit habitable: effective weatherproofing, working plumbing and gas, hot and cold running water, heating, safe electrical systems, clean premises free of vermin, adequate trash receptacles, and floors, stairways and railings in good repair. These standards are the backdrop for any code enforcement complaint or rent dispute.
AB 628, signed October 6, 2025, adds a working stove and refrigerator to that list for leases entered into, amended or extended on or after January 1, 2026. A recalled appliance does not satisfy the requirement, and the owner must repair or replace a recalled unit within 30 days of notice. A tenant may supply their own refrigerator if the lease says so in writing. For Riverside owners, the practical tasks are to confirm that every unit has both appliances, record model numbers so recalls can be checked, and update lease templates where tenant-owned refrigerators are part of the arrangement.
Eviction timelines and what changed in 2025
When a tenancy does end up in court, AB 2347 lengthened the first stage. Since January 1, 2025, a tenant served with an unlawful detainer complaint has 10 court days, rather than five, to file a response under Code of Civil Procedure 1167. Court days exclude weekends and court holidays, so the change adds roughly a week or more before a case can move toward a default or trial setting.
Combined with the cure notice required before an at-fault termination, the longer response period means that a nonpayment or lease-violation case in Riverside takes longer to resolve than it did a few years ago. Owners modeling bad debt and vacancy loss should account for that longer timeline rather than relying on historical turnaround times.
Costa-Hawkins and the rent bill that stalled
The Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, Civil Code 1954.52, remains in force. It allows owners to set the initial and subsequent rents for units that received a certificate of occupancy after February 1, 1995, and for separately alienable units such as single-family homes and condominiums, even where a local rent ordinance exists. AB 1482 does not override it; the state cap carries its own, separate 15-year rolling exemption.
Proposals to tighten the state cap continue to appear. AB 1157, which would have lowered it, stalled in the Assembly Judiciary Committee on January 13, 2026 and died at the January 31 constitutional deadline for bills introduced in the first year of the session. The AB 1482 formula therefore remains unchanged for now, but the 2030 sunset guarantees that the Legislature will revisit the law.
Practical takeaways for owners of Riverside rentals
The rules translate into a short operating checklist for a Riverside apartment building:
- Confirm each building’s certificate of occupancy date to know whether, and when, the rent cap applies.
- Keep a rent history for every unit showing the lowest rent charged in each rolling 12-month window, since that is the base for the next increase.
- Save the March BLS release for the Riverside area each year and calculate the cap that takes effect August 1.
- Track each tenant’s 12-month and 24-month dates so the just-cause rules are applied correctly.
- Update deposit practices to the one-month limit and build the AB 2801 photo steps into move-in and move-out checklists.
- Audit units for a working stove and refrigerator before leases renew in 2026 and later.
These rules also affect valuation and transfers. A buyer of a covered building inherits existing tenancies along with their rent histories and just-cause protections, so in-place rents cannot be reset to market at closing. Our guide to selling a rental property with tenants in place explains how occupied buildings change hands, and the California market overview compares conditions in other parts of the state. For owners weighing their next step, our page on selling an apartment building in the Inland Empire covers how we approach buildings in Riverside and the surrounding cities.
