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A percentage applied to rent, and what it costs over a year. Enter the rent you pay now and the increase your notice quotes, or enter the new rent and let the page work the percentage back out. Every figure below is the arithmetic, not an estimate.
Rent after an increase of 8.5%
+$157.25 a month · +$1,887.00 over 12 months
Set this to the length of the new lease. A 24-month term doubles the extra you pay, because the new rent applies every month of it.
The percentage is applied to the old rent in one step and the result is rounded once, to the nearest cent. The monthly increase is the difference between two billed figures, so it is a cent figure as well.
One percentage, applied at each renewal, against the rent paid today. The bars are the monthly increase, not the rent itself.
One multiplication, then one subtraction: the old rent times one plus the rate gives the new rent, and the difference between the two is what the increase costs each month. The last row runs it backwards, from a new rent to the percentage that produced it. Every row can be re-checked against the calculator on this page.
| Case | Working | New rent | A year |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1,850.00, up 8.5% | 1,850.00 × 1.085 | $2,007.25+$157.25 a month | +$1,887.00 |
| $1,200.00, up 3% | 1,200.00 × 1.03 | $1,236.00+$36.00 a month | +$432.00 |
| $2,400.00, up 12% | 2,400.00 × 1.12 | $2,688.00+$288.00 a month | +$3,456.00 |
| $1,975.00, up 6.5% | 1,975.00 × 1.065 = 2,103.375 | $2,103.38+$128.38 a month | +$1,540.56 |
| $1,850.00 raised to $1,950.00 | 100.00 ÷ 1,850.00 × 100 | 5.4054%+$100.00 a month | +$1,200.00 |
6.5% of $1,975.00 is $128.375, and rent is billed in whole cents, so the new rent has to be one of the two neighbours: $2,103.37 or $2,103.38. This page takes the nearer one, $2,103.38, and then treats the increase as the difference between two billed figures — $2,103.38 minus $1,975.00 is $128.38 a month. Twelve of those is $1,540.56. Annualising the exact $128.375 instead gives $1,540.50, six cents less, and the gap is not an error: twelve months of a rounded bill is not the same thing as a rounded year.
8.5% three times is not 25.5%. The first increase is charged on $1,850.00 and gives $2,007.25; the second is charged on that $2,007.25, not on the original, and gives $2,177.87; the third is charged on $2,177.87 and gives $2,362.99. That is 27.73% above where the rent started, and $512.99 a month more than today rather than $157.25.
Rounding at each renewal moves the chain by a cent over three steps: carrying the rate through without rounding anything until the end gives $2,362.98, while rounding each year's rent to the cent — which is what a lease actually does — gives $2,362.99. The one-cent difference is the rounding, not a mistake in either method, and it is the reason the figure on a renewal letter can sit a cent away from a straight compounding calculation.
Notices often quote the new rent and nothing else. The rate is the increase divided by the old rent: $100.00 on $1,850.00 is 5.4054%, not 5.4%, and the fourth decimal is not decoration — a landlord who rounds 5.4054% down to 5% and applies it back gets $1,942.50, which is $7.50 short of the $1,950.00 the notice asked for. A $50.00 increase on the same rent is 2.7027%.
The monthly figure is the one people compare and the yearly one is the one they pay. At $157.25 a month the extra is $1,887.00 across a twelve-month lease and $3,774.00 across a twenty-four-month one, because the new rent is charged in every month of the term, not only in the month it takes effect. If the increase lands mid-lease rather than at renewal, the first month is a partial month at the new rate — that is a proration question rather than a percentage one, and the prorated rent calculator handles it by the day.
It does not say whether an increase is permitted, how much notice it needs, or what a typical increase is where you live. Those answers come from a lease, a local ordinance or a rent board, and they change by city and by year; a figure printed here would be stale or wrong, so the page does not print one. It also does not model a rent that rises in steps inside the term, or an increase charged on a rent that already includes a utility allowance — enter the rent the notice quotes, and the arithmetic above is what the notice means.
Multiply the rent by one plus the rate as a decimal, then round to the cent. At 8.5% on $1,850.00 that is 1,850.00 × 1.085 = $2,007.25, an increase of $157.25 a month. The subtraction matters as much as the multiplication: the new rent is what gets billed, and the increase is the difference between the two billed figures.
1,850.00 × 1.05 = $1,942.50, which is $92.50 more a month and $1,110.00 more across a year. A 5% increase is not a fifth of the rent and it is not $5 per hundred of monthly rent per year — it is $5 per $100 of monthly rent, every month.
Divide the increase by the old rent and multiply by 100. From $1,850.00 to $1,950.00 the increase is $100.00, and 100.00 ÷ 1,850.00 × 100 = 5.4054%. Dividing by the new rent instead gives 5.1282%, which is the same $100.00 expressed against the wrong base — the base is always the rent before the increase.
No. Each year's increase is charged on the rent the year before produced, so three increases of 8.5% compound to 27.73%. On $1,850.00 that is $2,362.99 rather than the $2,321.75 a flat 25.5% would give, a difference of $41.24 a month by the third renewal.
Because the rent has to land on a whole cent and the rounding can happen in two places. 6.5% on $1,975.00 is exactly $2,103.375; rounded once at the end it is $2,103.38, and a chain of yearly renewals rounded at each step can drift a cent from the same rate carried through without rounding. Neither figure is wrong — they answer slightly different questions, and the difference is the rounding.
No. Whether an increase is permitted, how much notice it requires and what happens if the tenant refuses are set by the lease and by local law, and they differ from one city to the next. This page only does the arithmetic the notice describes. Read the notice against your lease, and check your local rules separately.
No, and the difference is what the page starts from. This page starts from a rent you already pay and applies a rate to it. The rent calculator starts from a move-in and adds up the deposit and first month against the monthly figure, and the rent affordability page starts from an income and works out the ceiling. Use this one when a renewal letter quotes a percentage; use the affordability page when you are deciding whether to sign at all.