How Much Can You Raise the Rent in Culver City This Year? The 2026 Numbers and the Rules Around Them

For Owners · Culver City · September 2026 · 9 min read

Take a 1962 fourplex a few blocks off Washington Boulevard. The longest tenant moved in during 2021 and has never had an increase. The owner wants to raise the rent, wants to do it legally, and has heard four different numbers from four different people. That is a normal Culver City conversation. The city has its own rent cap, the state has another one, and which number applies to you depends on what you own and when it was built.

This is the walk-through we give owners. The figures below come from the city’s Housing Services Division and the Culver City Municipal Code as of September 2026. They change, so check the date on anything you read, including this.

Step one: which set of rules covers your unit

Culver City’s rent cap applies to what the code calls a covered rental unit: a unit in a building with two or more units that was first occupied on or before February 1, 1995. Most of the apartment stock in the city qualifies. The dingbats on Sepulveda, the courtyard buildings near Veterans Park, the eight-unit boxes in Culver West, the 1920s fourplexes around Carlson Park. If your building has two or more units and pre-dates 1995, assume you are covered until you have a written exemption from the city.

Units the city cap does not reach: single-family homes, condominiums, and townhomes rented out individually; buildings with a certificate of occupancy after February 1, 1995; and government-subsidized units. Those owners are not off the hook. They fall under the state cap in the California Tenant Protection Act (AB 1482), covered below, and Culver City’s tenant protection rules still apply to them regardless of the building’s age or type.

The city number for 2026: 3.25%

Culver City’s cap is tied to the consumer price index with a floor of 2% and a ceiling of 5%. If inflation runs under 2%, you can still take 2%. If it runs over 5%, you stop at 5%. In between, you get the CPI change.

For most of the ordinance’s life the city published a new percentage every month, about six weeks ahead of its effective date, which meant the allowable increase depended on the month your notice took effect. That ended this summer. The council amended the ordinance in late 2025 so the Housing Services Division announces one maximum permissible rent increase a year, effective July 1. The figure the city posted for increases taking effect June 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027 is 3.25%. Every monthly figure earlier in 2026 was also 3.25%, so an owner who has been sitting on a notice since January is working with the same number either way.

On a $2,400 unit that is $78 a month. It is not a lot, which is exactly why skipping years is expensive. Each increase is capped at the percentage in force when it takes effect, and the code allows one increase per twelve-month period. There is no provision for going back and collecting the years you did not take. The owner with the tenant from 2021 cannot roll four years of missed increases into one notice. He gets 3.25% now, and another increase no sooner than twelve months later.

Three things that have to be true before the notice goes out

1. The unit is registered, and the registration is current

Every rental unit in Culver City has to be in the city’s rent registry, exempt units included. The code says a landlord must hold a valid registration certificate before demanding rent, and the city treats registration as a precondition for a rent increase. Renewal is due July 31 each year through the city’s online portal, with a grace period to August 31. The fee is $177 per unit as of July 1, 2026. Miss August and a 20% penalty is added on the first of each month, up to 100% of the fee. The registration also has to be updated when the property sells, when a new tenant moves in, or when the services included in the rent change. If the city finds a problem with your filing it gives you 15 days to fix it.

If you bought a building this year and the seller’s registration lapsed, get it current before you do anything else. An increase served on an unregistered unit is the kind of thing that ends up in a tenant petition, and the Housing Services Division does hear them.

2. Twelve months have passed since the last increase

Count from the effective date of the last increase, not the date you served it. If a new tenant moved in on October 1, 2025 at a market rent, the earliest a notice can take effect is October 1, 2026.

3. The notice is right

Rent increase notices in California follow Civil Code section 827: at least 30 days’ written notice for an increase of 10% or less over the prior twelve months, 90 days for anything larger, plus extra days if the notice goes by mail. A 3.25% increase is a 30-day notice. We serve it in writing, keep a copy with proof of service, and put the new rent and effective date in the tenant’s ledger the same day. The city also requires the increase to be within the posted percentage and the unit to be registered when the notice takes effect, so the ledger, the registry, and the notice all have to agree.

Exempt units: the state number is 8.7%

If your Culver City property is a house, a condo, a townhome, or a building finished after February 1, 1995, the city cap does not apply, but the state cap usually does. AB 1482 limits annual increases to 5% plus the local CPI, never more than 10%. Los Angeles County’s Department of Consumer and Business Affairs publishes the figure each year. For increases taking effect August 1, 2026 through July 31, 2027 in the Los Angeles metro area it is 8.7%, made up of the 5% base plus a 3.7% CPI change. The prior year was 8.0%.

Two things to check before you rely on that number. The state cap does not apply to buildings less than 15 years old, so a 2015 fourplex is under it and a 2014 one is not, and the line moves every year. And a single-family home or condo can be exempt from the state cap altogether when the owner is an individual, not a corporation, REIT, or LLC with a corporate member, and the lease contains the exemption notice the statute requires. Without that language in the lease the 8.7% cap applies even to an individually owned house. If your lease was written years ago, read it before you serve a notice above the cap.

Either way, the tenant protection side of Culver City’s code still covers these units. Just cause, relocation assistance, buyout rules: all of it applies to a rented house in Sunkist Park the same as to a 1950s building on Jefferson.

When 3.25% is not enough

The ordinance has two routes for owners whose costs have outrun the cap. The first is an application for a rent adjustment, which asks the city to allow more than the annual percentage because the owner is not getting a fair return. It is a documented process with its own review, not a form you file and forget, and it requires real financials. The second is the capital improvement pass-through, which lets an owner recover part of the cost of qualifying capital work, a new roof, a seismic retrofit, a re-pipe, by spreading it over the rent for a set period. The city has an application and its own rules on what qualifies and how much can be passed through. The pass-through tends to be worth the paperwork on a large project and not on a small one. Run the numbers before you start the job, because the application has to be tied to the actual costs.

What the cap does not change

Vacancy still resets the rent. Under state law (Costa-Hawkins), when a tenant leaves on their own or is evicted for cause, the next tenancy starts at whatever rent the market will bear, and the annual cap applies from there. This is why turnover, not the annual increase, is where the rent on a covered unit actually moves, and why leasing a vacancy at the right price matters more in Culver City than almost anywhere else on the Westside.

Just cause kicks in at twelve months. After a tenant has been in place for a year, you can end the tenancy only for a reason the code lists. The for-cause reasons are the ones you would expect: nonpayment after a three-day notice, an uncured breach of a material lease term, refusing reasonable access, nuisance or illegal use, and the end of a resident manager’s employment. The no-fault reasons are demolition, taking the unit off the rental market, owner or relative move-in, complying with a deed restriction, and a government order to vacate.

Owner move-in has real strings on it. The person moving in must be the owner or the owner’s spouse, registered domestic partner, child, grandchild, parent, or grandparent. They must move in within three months and stay at least three years, and the ground can be used once per person across all the owner’s units. The owner must be a natural person, a trust for a natural person, or an LLC or partnership with no corporate members; the council carved out room in late 2025 for small landlords who hold title through an LLC or LLP where a natural person owns at least half, so confirm the current wording with the Housing Services Division before you plan around it. Certain tenants cannot be displaced this way at all: households of ten years or more with a member who is 62 or older or disabled, terminally ill tenants, low-income tenants, and households with a school-age child during the school year.

Every no-fault termination comes with relocation assistance: three times the greater of the current rent or HUD’s small area fair market rent, plus $1,000, with half paid within five business days of serving the notice and the rest within five business days of move-out. A small landlord, meaning one with an interest in no more than three rental units anywhere, pays half that amount. A tenant buyout is the alternative many owners prefer, and Culver City regulates that too: you give the tenant the city’s disclosure notice before negotiating, the tenant can back out of a signed agreement for 45 days, and the signed agreement is filed with the Housing Division within 20 days. A tenant who tells you in writing to stop can only be approached again after six months.

What is changing in 2026

In January 2026 the council re-adopted both ordinances as Ordinance 2026-001 and 2026-002, renamed the rent control ordinance the Rent Stabilization Ordinance, and moved to the once-a-year rent increase announcement. As of this writing the city is holding public meetings on a further round of amendments, including security deposit protections and expanded eviction protections. If you own in Culver City, the Housing Services Division’s email list is worth being on, and we will update this post when the council acts.

Questions owners ask

My tenant has been in a covered unit since 2019 and I have never raised the rent. Can I catch up?

No. You can serve one increase of up to 3.25% now, and the next one can take effect no sooner than twelve months after that. The years you skipped are gone. Going forward, take the allowable increase every year even when it feels small; the gap compounds against you.

My duplex is owner-occupied. Does the cap apply to the unit I rent out?

If the building was first occupied on or before February 1, 1995, the rented unit is a covered rental unit and the 3.25% cap applies. Living in the other half does not change that. It also still has to be registered.

I own one condo in Fox Hills. Which number is mine?

The city cap does not cover a condo, so you are under the state cap of 8.7% for increases taking effect August 1, 2026 through July 31, 2027, unless you are an individual owner and your lease carries the AB 1482 exemption notice, in which case the state cap does not apply. Culver City’s just-cause and relocation rules apply to the condo either way, and it has to be registered with the city.

Can I raise the rent while the registration is late?

Do not try. The code requires a valid registration certificate before rent is demanded, and the city treats a lapsed registration as a defect in the increase. Pay the fee and penalty, get the certificate, then serve the notice.

Does the increase have to take effect on the first of the month?

No. It has to take effect at least 30 days after written service and at least twelve months after the last increase. Most owners line it up with the first of the month because the ledger is cleaner, but the law does not require it.

The tenant says the increase is illegal. What happens now?

A tenant in Culver City can file a noncompliance petition with the Housing Services Division, which reviews whether the increase followed the ordinance. If your registration is current, the percentage matches the posted figure, twelve months have passed, and the notice was served properly, you are in good shape. If any of those is off, withdraw the notice, fix the problem, and re-serve. It costs a month; a petition costs more.

Sources and disclaimer. City of Culver City, Rent Stabilization & Tenant Protection Measures (maximum permissible rent increase table, registration fee and deadlines, relocation and buyout summaries, 2026 amendment notice); Culver City Municipal Code Chapter 15.09, § 15.09.215 Permissible rent increases (Ord. 2020-014, Ord. 2026-001), § 15.09.315 For cause termination, § 15.09.320 No fault termination, § 15.09.325 Relocation assistance, and § 15.09.340 Rent registry; City of Culver City bulletin, What Culver City Landlords & Tenants Need to Know (buyout rescission and filing periods); Culver City Crescent, Updates made to Rent Control and Tenant Protection Ordinances (November 2025 council action); Los Angeles County Department of Consumer and Business Affairs, Rent Increases (AB 1482 figures); California Civil Code §§ 827, 1946.2, 1947.12, and 1954.50 et seq. Current as of September 2026. This article is general information for property owners, not legal or tax advice. Culver City’s ordinances are being amended in 2026, and the allowable percentages change every year. Confirm your situation with the Culver City Housing Services Division (Rent.Control@CulverCity.org, (310) 253-5790) and with a California landlord-tenant attorney before serving any rent increase or termination notice.