What Is Sacramento’s Tenant Protection Program?

Sacramento runs its own rent-control and eviction-protection law on top of state law: the Tenant Protection Program, codified at Sacramento City Code Chapter 5.156. It caps most covered rentals at 5 percent plus the change in the California Consumer Price Index each year, up to a 10 percent ceiling, and it requires a recognized just cause before a covered tenant of more than 12 months can be evicted.

This program is separate from, and layered on top of, the statewide Tenant Protection Act (AB 1482). It has its own code sections, its own exemptions, its own registry, and its own enforcement arm inside the city’s Code Compliance division.

Below is what the ordinance actually requires, who it covers, how the annual cap is set, and what any of this means if you own a rental in the city and are weighing a sale.

Where This Ordinance Came From

Sacramento’s rent cap and just-cause rules did not start with a statewide law. The city council adopted the Tenant Protection and Relief Act by ordinance in August 2019, more than a year before AB 1482’s companion protections were in place statewide, and codified it as Sacramento City Code Chapter 5.156.

The ordinance carried a built-in sunset date of December 31, 2024.

Rather than let it lapse, the city council’s Law and Legislation Committee moved in 2024 to extend the program for another multi-year term, and the Tenant Protection Program has continued operating without interruption since, including a current registration cycle and an updated rent-cap notice for 2026.

It’s worth separating this from a different, stricter proposal that never took effect. In November 2020, Sacramento voters considered Measure C, a charter amendment that would have replaced the council’s ordinance with an elected nine-member rental board, a tighter 2-to-5 percent cap, and mandatory relocation payments starting at $5,500.

Voters rejected it by a wide margin. The law actually in force today is the 2019 council ordinance and its extension, not Measure C, and that distinction matters if you’re trying to figure out which rules actually apply to a specific address.

How the City’s Rent Cap Formula Works

For a covered unit, Sacramento limits the annual rent adjustment to 5 percent plus the percentage change in the California Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, with a combined ceiling of 10 percent no matter how high inflation runs.

The city recalculates the figure every year using the April CPI number the California Department of Industrial Relations publishes in mid-June, and the new rate takes effect July 1.

A rent increase can be imposed only once in any 12-month period, and a tenant cannot waive the cap by agreement, even voluntarily.

For the current cycle, the city’s Tenant Protection Program set the maximum annual rent adjustment at 8.6 percent, effective July 1, 2026, based on a 3.6 percent April 2026 CPI reading. That figure resets every year and should always be confirmed against the city’s current notice before a lease renewal goes out, since last year’s number is not this year’s number.

A landlord who believes the standard cap doesn’t produce a fair return can petition for a larger increase. That petition goes to a hearing examiner, who weighs factors like property tax changes, documented operating cost increases, and necessary health-and-safety capital improvements amortized over their useful life, while excluding things like income taxes and debt service. The examiner’s decision is final unless a party seeks timely judicial review.

Which Rentals Are Covered, and Which Are Carved Out

Not every rental inside city limits falls under Chapter 5.156. The ordinance exempts a specific list of property types, largely mirroring what the state’s Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act already requires:

• Single-family homes and condominium or stock-cooperative units
• Units in buildings with a certificate of occupancy issued after February 1, 1995
• Hotels, motels, and other transient lodging rented for fewer than 30 days
• Hospitals, residential care facilities, transitional homeless housing, religious convents or monasteries, fraternity or sorority houses, and dormitories
• Government-owned or income-restricted units where rent is capped at or below 120 percent of area median income
• A unit where the tenant shares a bathroom or kitchen with the owner, or where the owner or an immediate family member occupies the property as a primary residence

Everything else residential, generally duplexes, triplexes, and larger apartment buildings rented for 30 days or more, is a covered unit.

That single-family-home carve-out is the detail owners most often miss: a detached rental house or a condo inside Sacramento is usually exempt from the city’s rent cap and just-cause rules specifically, even though it still falls under the statewide Tenant Protection Act.

Coverage turns on the parcel and building history, not on a landlord’s intent, so an owner who isn’t sure should call the Tenant Protection Program office at 916-808-8121 before sending a rent notice rather than guess.

One wrinkle: even an exempt unit still has to be registered with the program. The city’s annual registration process applies to both covered and exempt rentals, and exemption claims for categories like owner-occupancy or post-1995 construction have to be renewed every year rather than filed once and forgotten.

Just-Cause Protections and Notice Periods

Once a tenant in a covered unit has lived there more than 12 months, the ordinance requires a specific, listed reason to end the tenancy, and the termination notice has to state which one applies. The permitted grounds are narrower and more procedural than most landlords expect:

1. Nonpayment of rent, following a notice to pay or quit
2. A material breach of the lease that continues after written notice and a reasonable chance to cure
3. Criminal activity on the property or ongoing disorderly conduct after a notice to cease
4. Repeated denial of lawful entry after three documented access attempts
5. Permitted repairs that require the unit to sit vacant, with 120 days’ written notice and a right for the tenant to return at the prior rent
6. An owner or their immediate family moving into the unit as a primary residence for at least a year, with 120 days’ notice
7. Withdrawing the entire building from the rental market for at least 12 months, with 120 days’ notice and a filing with the city before the notice goes out

Selling the property to a new owner is not on that list. A pending sale, by itself, is never a just cause for ending a covered tenancy, which is a point worth underscoring given how often it comes up with owners who assume a closing date resets the lease clock.

Here’s a detail that trips up landlords who assume the city mirrors state law exactly: Chapter 5.156 itself does not require a cash relocation payment for a no-fault termination.

Its own relief is narrower, a right to return to the unit at the old rent, or to move into a comparable vacant unit the same landlord owns, for repair-related vacancies only.

The statewide Tenant Protection Act’s one-month relocation payment or rent waiver is a separate requirement that can still apply depending on the circumstances, so an owner ending a tenancy for a no-fault reason needs to check both the city ordinance and AB 1482 rather than assume compliance with one satisfies the other.

Registration, Fees, and How Violations Get Penalized

The city doesn’t just publish the rule and leave compliance to chance. Sacramento’s Code Compliance division keeps a rental housing registry tied to the Tenant Protection Program, coordinated with the separate Rental Housing Inspection Program.

Owners of residential rentals in the city, covered or exempt, register annually and pay a yearly program fee set by the city council, billed per unit on the parcel.

Failing to register on time can draw an administrative penalty on its own, and the city’s own registration notices start that penalty at $500 for a missed deadline before factoring in anything about the rent itself.

Substantive violations carry more weight.

Under the ordinance’s enforcement sections, raising rent above the annual cap, raising it more than once in 12 months, terminating a covered tenancy without a valid just cause, or skipping the required notice periods can each trigger an administrative penalty of up to $25,000 per violation, with repeated violations stacking, in addition to any civil or criminal remedy otherwise available.

Lease language that tries to waive these protections is void outright.

And separate from any city penalty, a landlord’s noncompliance with the ordinance is something a tenant can raise as a defense in an unlawful detainer case, which can stall or sink an eviction filing that looked straightforward on paper.

For owners who inherit a tenancy they didn’t set up themselves, confirming what’s actually on file with the city, and what the tenant’s lease actually says, matters before any notice goes out. A tenant estoppel certificate is one of the more reliable ways to pin down the current rent, deposit, and lease terms in writing before relying on memory or an old file.

How This Overlaps and Differs From the State’s AB 1482

California’s statewide Tenant Protection Act, AB 1482, uses an almost identical rent-cap formula, 5 percent plus the regional CPI change, capped at 10 percent, and requires just cause after a tenant has occupied a unit for 12 months. That similarity is not a coincidence; Sacramento’s ordinance predates and closely parallels the statewide law. But the two operate as separate systems rather than one superseding the other:

• Coverage differs. AB 1482 exempts single-family homes and condos only when they aren’t owned by a corporation or REIT and the tenant received a specific written exemption notice. Sacramento’s ordinance exempts single-family homes and condos more broadly, regardless of who owns them, as long as the building itself isn’t otherwise disqualified.
• Enforcement differs. AB 1482 is generally enforced through private lawsuits and the eviction-defense process. Sacramento runs its own administrative enforcement arm, with a registry, inspection coordination, a hearing examiner, and city-imposed penalties, independent of whether a tenant ever sues.
• Relocation assistance differs. The state law ties a no-fault termination to a relocation payment or rent waiver. The city ordinance’s own relief for most no-fault grounds is narrower, mainly a right of return, with the state’s payment requirement layered on separately.

A rental that sits outside Sacramento’s city limits, in unincorporated Sacramento County or in a neighboring city, isn’t touched by Chapter 5.156 at all and simply follows AB 1482 and general state law. That’s a meaningful distinction for owners who assume a Sacramento-area rental automatically carries the city’s rules just because it shares a mailing address or school district.

What This Means If You’re Selling an Occupied Rental

None of this stops an owner from selling. A sale doesn’t cancel a lease, and it isn’t a just cause for ending one, covered unit or not. What it does is change how a buyer prices the deal.

A buyer who will hold the property as a rental looks at current rent against market rent, how fast the capped increases let that gap close, and whether the unit is even subject to the cap in the first place.

A covered duplex with a long-term tenant well under market rent, and years of 5-to-10-percent annual caps standing between here and market rate, is priced differently than an exempt single-family rental where the new owner can reset rent to market once the tenancy turns over lawfully.

That’s also where the registration history and any pending hearing-examiner petitions become part of the paperwork a serious buyer wants to see, alongside the lease itself and a rent roll.

Owners who’ve dealt with a similar coverage question on a multi-unit building elsewhere in the state, including selling a tenant-occupied property under Los Angeles’s own local rules, will recognize the pattern: local ordinances add a layer of diligence on top of state law that a buyer’s financing or purchase price can hinge on.

If you’d rather not manage that diligence process or wait through a retail listing timeline, a direct cash sale is one way to move the property with the tenancy intact; we buy directly or bring a vetted cash buyer who is comfortable owning it with the lease in place, and a no-obligation cash offer can be compared against what a retail listing would realistically net once vacancy, repairs, and carrying costs are factored in.

When a Cash Sale Isn’t the Right Move

A fast cash sale isn’t the better option in every situation, and it’s worth being direct about that.

If the unit is exempt from the city’s cap, say a single-family rental, and the lease is ending soon with a cooperative tenant, a vacant listing on the open market will usually draw more buyers and a higher price than an occupied sale to an investor.

If you have time, a tenant willing to leave on a reasonable schedule, and a property in decent condition, the retail path is often worth the extra months.

A cash sale also isn’t the fix for a registration problem or a pending enforcement action on its own, those obligations transfer with the property rather than disappearing at closing, so they need to be disclosed and addressed either way.

And if a tenant has recently died in the unit and the tenancy or estate issues haven’t been resolved, that’s a separate legal question worth sorting out first; our guide on what happens when a tenant dies in a California rental walks through who has rights to the unit before a sale should move forward.

A direct buyer can still work with any of these situations, but understanding the real trade-off, speed and certainty against a potentially higher net from a patient, vacant sale, is worth ten minutes before deciding either way.

Confirming Coverage Before You Act

Because coverage depends on building age, ownership structure, and unit type rather than a simple address lookup, the most reliable first step for any Sacramento rent increase, lease termination, or pre-sale notice is confirming status directly with the Tenant Protection Program rather than assuming either way.

The program’s office can verify whether a specific parcel is covered, exempt, or sitting in a gray area that needs documentation, which matters because getting it wrong, in either direction, can expose a landlord to the ordinance’s administrative penalties or hand a tenant a defense to a termination notice that otherwise looked valid.

For an owner who has sat with a tenant, a registration deadline, and an annually moving rent cap long enough to want out, selling with the tenancy in place is a legitimate path that doesn’t require resolving any of this first.

If that’s the direction you’re weighing, our page on how to sell a Sacramento rental with the tenant still in the unit walks through the mechanics, from the estoppel certificate to the closing-day handoff.

You can also see how we’re reviewed directly on Cash Home Buyers CA on Google before deciding who to call.