Oregon 2027 Rent Cap: 10% Is the Ceiling, Not the Raise
DAS posted the number. That is the only new fact.
On September 28, 2026, the Oregon Department of Administrative Services published the maximum rent increase for calendar year 2027. For ordinary tenancies on the ORS 90.323 track, the Oregon 2027 rent cap is 10%. That is up from 9.5% in 2026. Large manufactured-dwelling parks and floating-home marinas stay at 6%.
That publication is what Oregon Rent Increase Rules 2026 told you to wait for. If the increase takes effect January 1, 2027 or later, you use 10%, not last year’s 9.5%. You still do not have to use all of it.
What the Oregon 2027 rent cap actually is
DAS 2027 maximums by tenancy type. The 6% line is parks and marinas with more than 30 spaces.
ORS 90.324 tells DAS to pick the lesser of 10% or 7% plus the West Region CPI, and to publish it by September 30 for the next calendar year. For 2027, the 10% ceiling won. The methodology workbook is on the DAS newsroom post.
Two tracks, not one:
Most houses, duplexes, and apartments covered by ORS 90.323: 10%.
Small parks and marinas, 30 spaces or fewer: the same 10% / 7%+CPI track. For 2027 that is also 10%.
Parks and marinas with more than 30 spaces: 6%, from HB 3054 and ORS 90.600.
“Facilities” in the DAS release means manufactured dwellings and marinas. It does not mean an apartment building with more than 30 units. A few write-ups already blurred that line. If you own walk-up units, you are not on the 6% park rule.
What did not change when the percentage moved
The cap is only one piece of ORS 90.323.
You still cannot raise rent during the first year of the tenancy. You can serve the notice in year one. The new rent cannot start until after that first year is done.
You still get one increase in any 12-month period.
You still owe at least 90 days’ written notice on anything other than week-to-week. Week-to-week is seven days.
The notice still has to state the dollar increase, the new rent, the effective date, and — if you are going above the published maximum because the unit is exempt — the facts that support the exemption.
The 15-year exemption is still measured from the date on the notice, not from January 1. If the first certificate of occupancy is less than 15 years old on that date, the percentage cap does not apply. Keep a copy of the certificate.
Affordable housing that is regulated or certified still has its own exception when the tenant’s share does not go up, or when the program requires the change.
Between tenancies, the cap usually does not follow the next occupant. The exception is the first-year no-cause termination under ORS 90.427(3) or (4). End that tenancy that way and you cannot reset the rent above what you could have charged the person you just moved out.
Blow the percentage rule and the statute is not gentle. ORS 90.323(6) puts the landlord on the hook for three months’ rent plus actual damages.
and now a couple shameless plugs.
A January notice is a bad week to invent language. Portland Area Rental Owners Association (PAROA) members use the current ORHA rent-increase form — O1 statewide, O1PD inside Portland — and can call the Helpline before the envelope goes out. Join at www.paroa.org.
If you would rather not run a 90-day calendar, a Portland overlay, and a park-versus-apartment split across a mixed portfolio, Northwest Real Estate and Property Management (NWRPM) already does that work for owners in the Portland Metro and in Central Oregon. Details at www.nwrpm.com.
The January 2027 calendar is the part people miss
Count 90 days, add mail days if you only mail, then use the next rent due date. No mid-month proration.
Pick the effective date first. Count backward. Then slide that date to the start of a rental period.
A January 1, 2027 increase needs a full 90 days before that date. That lands around October 3 for personal service. If you serve by first-class mail only, Oregon practice — and the ORHA form — adds four days, including the date of mailing.
Those 90 days, plus the mail days, are the floor. They are not automatically the date you put on the notice.
Rent is due on a rental period. For almost every Oregon month-to-month, that is the first of the month. Do not set the increase for October 17 because that is when day 90 happens to land. You would be inventing a mid-month change and a proration fight you do not need. Count 90 days — and the extra mail days if you only mail — then walk forward to the next rent due date and make that the effective date. The tenant pays the old rent through the end of the current period. The new rent starts on the next period. No half-month math.
Worked example. You serve a good notice on October 8. Day 90 is around January 6. Rent is due on the first. January 6 is mid-month. Put February 1, 2027 on the notice. That is still a 2027 increase, so you use the Oregon 2027 rent cap, not 9.5%.
Do not cut the 90 days close and then also try to hit the first of the next month. Give yourself a later effective date if the packet is not ready.
The notice has to name 2027’s maximum if the new rent starts in 2027. A leftover 9.5% letter with a January effective date is the wrong ceiling.
Write the percentage from the rent you are actually raising. $1,800 times 10% is $180. New rent $1,980. If last year’s increase already ate part of the 12-month window, you wait.
Use the current form. Do not type a homemade letter that “covers the idea.”
Portland: 10% is also the relocation tripwire
Inside Portland city limits, PCC 30.01.085 still treats a 10% or greater jump in rent or associated housing costs, over a rolling 12 months, as a relocation event. Confirm the property on PortlandMaps. Do not trust the envelope.
Associated housing costs are the recurring charges you control: base rent, pet rent, a required parking stall, a fixed utility or garbage fee you set. Usage-based utilities the tenant pays to the company usually stay out. Stack a 9% rent increase on a new $50 trash line and you can cross 10% without meaning to.
The city dollars have not moved: $2,900 studio or SRO, $3,300 one-bedroom, $4,200 two-bedroom, $4,500 three-bedroom or larger, per rental agreement, not per roommate.
If the tenant asks in writing within 45 days of the increase notice, you have 31 days to pay. They then have six months from the effective date to repay you and stay, or give notice and leave. They owe the new rent while they remain.
That is the tripwire. The 10% city trigger is still the law. A September 15 committee briefing heard people ask to drop it to 5%. No ordinance moved. Do not write your 2027 notices as if it did.
If you are in Portland and you need every dollar of the state ceiling, run the city math before you pick 10.0%. Many owners will land at 9.9% on purpose. That is a business choice, not a moral one.
Eugene, if you go all the way to the state maximum
Eugene’s rental code can attach city relocation — two months of current rent — when you raise rent at or above the state maximum. Stay under that published percentage and you stay off that city hook. Go to the maximum and the notice needs the city’s extra content. Eugene also does not give you a free pass just because the building is under 15 years old for the city relocation piece. Check the current city handbook before you mail.
Parks are spaces. Apartments are not parks.
House Bill 3054 locked larger parks and marinas at 6% beginning in 2026. DAS kept that 6% for 2027. The 12% infrastructure exception still exists on the large-park track: majority of occupied spaces, written project facts, once in five years, in lieu of the regular annual increase — not stacked on top of it.
If you do not own pads in a park or slips in a marina, stop reading that paragraph. The 6% line is not a second cap on a 40-unit walk-up.
Decide the number. Then write the notice.
The Oregon 2027 rent cap is a ceiling. Insurance, taxes, and make-ready costs are why a lot of owners will look at 10% and feel behind. Vacancy and a thin renter pool are why a lot of the same owners will not use it.
Work the file in this order:
Confirm the unit is past year one, and that you have not already raised rent in the last 12 months.
Confirm whether the 15-year certificate applies. If it does, put those facts on the notice and attach the document.
Confirm city limits. Portland and Eugene are different overlays. Washington County and Clackamas County do not get a Portland check just because the tenant shops in Portland.
Add landlord-controlled fees before you pick the percentage.
Pick an effective date you can actually serve — 90 days plus mail days, then the next rent due date. No mid-month proration.
Use the current ORHA O1 or O1PD. PAROA members get the member price in the form store.
Then mail it like you mean the date to stick.
Christian Bryant
President of both the Portland Area Rental Owners Association (PAROA)
If you want the current rent-increase form and a place to ask the Helpline whether your unit is on the 10% track or the 6% park track, join PAROA at www.paroa.org.
If you would rather have a manager count the 90 days, the city overlay, and the associated-housing-cost stack for you, use NWRPM at www.nwrpm.com.
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