Tenant rights under the Renters' Rights Act 2026

Most of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 came into force in England on 1 May 2026. Section 21 no-fault eviction is abolished, assured shorthold tenancies and fixed terms no longer exist, and every private tenancy in England is now a rolling assured periodic tenancy. Your rent can only be raised once a year, using a section 13 notice with at least two months' warning, and you can challenge the figure at the First-tier Tribunal. These rules cover England. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland run separate systems.

The Act is officially the Renters' Rights Act 2025, after the year of Royal Assent. Most renters call it the 2026 Act, because 1 May 2026 is when it started to matter. Either way, if you rent privately in England, the tenancy you live under today is not the tenancy you signed.

Your tenancy no longer has an end date

Assured shorthold tenancies were abolished on 1 May 2026. Every AST that existed on that date converted automatically into an assured periodic tenancy. Nobody had to sign anything, and your landlord did not have to send you fresh paperwork. If your agreement says "12 month term ending 3 September 2026", that end date no longer applies.

The tenancy now rolls on, usually month to month, matching the period your rent is paid in. Weekly rent gives you a weekly tenancy. It carries on until you and your landlord agree to end it, until you give notice, or until your landlord gets a possession order on a legal ground.

None of this can be contracted out of. A clause that contradicts the Act has no effect, even though you signed it.

Ending the tenancy yourself

You can leave whenever you want. Give at least two months' notice in writing (an email counts), and make sure it expires at the end of a rental period. That is the whole requirement. A shorter period can be agreed, but every tenant named on the agreement has to agree and you want it in writing. Until the tenancy properly ends, the rent is still yours to pay.

Section 21 has gone. What replaced it

A landlord cannot serve a section 21 notice on or after 1 May 2026. Not on a new tenancy, not on an old one, not even where the agreement says they can. The only route now is a section 8 notice citing one or more grounds, followed by a court hearing where the landlord has to prove it.

Different grounds carry different notice periods. Some of the ones tenants meet most often:

• Ground 1 (landlord or a close family member moving in) and Ground 1A (landlord selling): four months' notice, and neither can be used in the first 12 months of the tenancy.
• Ground 8 (serious rent arrears): four weeks' notice, and you have to be at least three months behind (13 weeks if you pay weekly or fortnightly) both when the notice is served and at the hearing. Where part of the arrears exists only because a universal credit housing payment you were entitled to has not landed, that part is left out of the calculation.
• Ground 7A (severe antisocial or criminal behaviour): the landlord can go to court straight away.

There are more, including discretionary grounds where a judge decides whether eviction is reasonable at all. GOV.UK carries the full list. Two things are worth holding on to. A notice is not an eviction, and only a court bailiff can lawfully remove you. And a landlord commits an offence if they use a ground they do not reasonably believe will win them a possession order.

How your rent can be increased now

Rent review clauses are finished. If your agreement has one, it cannot be used for any increase after 1 May 2026.

The only lawful method is a section 13 notice under the Housing Act 1988, served on Form 4A. Your landlord can do this once every 12 months and has to give you at least two months' notice before the new rent starts. The proposed rent cannot be higher than the open market rent for a comparable property.

If you think the figure is over the odds, refer it to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) before the increase takes effect. The tribunal will set the rent at the open market figure or at the landlord's proposed figure, whichever is lower, so it cannot end up higher than what you were asked for. That removed the old risk that challenging an increase could backfire. Build your evidence first: screenshot comparable listings for the same size and type of property nearby, with dates.

Pets

Since 1 May 2026 you have the right to request a pet in writing, and your landlord cannot unreasonably refuse. They have to give you a written answer within 28 days, and a refusal has to come with a reason. If you send extra information about the pet part way through, the clock can extend a little. Each request is judged on its own facts, so this is not a blanket right to keep any animal you fancy, but a flat "no pets" clause is no longer an answer on its own. You can challenge an unreasonable refusal in court.

What agents cannot do while you are property hunting

• Rental bidding is banned. An advert has to carry a stated proposed rent, and the landlord or agent cannot invite, encourage or accept offers above it.
• No blanket bans on benefits or children. Refusing you because you claim benefits or have children is unlawful, and so is advertising on that basis.
• Rent in advance is capped. For tenancies granted on or after 1 May 2026, no rent can be taken before the agreement is signed at all, and after that a landlord or agent cannot require more than one month's rent up front.
• Most fees remain banned. The Tenant Fees Act 2019 outlaws charges for viewings, referencing, credit checks, inventories, renewals and check-out. Holding deposits are capped at one week's rent.
• Deposits are capped. Five weeks' rent, or six weeks where the annual rent is £50,000 or more.

Councils enforce most of this and can order money repaid. Report it to your council's private sector housing team.

Deposits: mostly unchanged, with one addition

The protection rules themselves survived intact. Your deposit still has to go into one of the three approved schemes (DPS, MyDeposits or TDS) within 30 days, and you must be given the prescribed information inside the same window. If that did not happen, you can ask the county court for compensation of between one and three times the deposit.

What the Act added is a link to possession. A landlord cannot get a possession order on a section 8 ground unless the deposit is protected and the prescribed information has been served before the notice is issued. That protection used to bite only on section 21 notices, which no longer exist. We go through the rest, including the free scheme dispute service, in our guide on what to do if a letting agent will not return your deposit.

England only, and that matters

A lot of coverage says "UK renters". That is wrong. The Renters' Rights Act applies to England.

• Wales has run under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 since December 2022. You are a contract-holder with an occupation contract, and the notice rules differ.
• Scotland uses the private residential tenancy, open-ended with no no-fault ground since 2017. Disputes go to the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland.
• Northern Ireland has its own private tenancies legislation, with different notice periods again.

What has not started yet

Several of the headline promises are still on paper. None of the following applies as at the end of August 2026:

• The private rented sector database. Landlords will have to register properties on it, and tenants will be able to look them up. Government has indicated a later phase from around the end of 2026, rolled out area by area, but no dates have been published. Do not assume you can check your landlord on it yet.
• The landlord ombudsman. Landlords will have to join a single redress scheme, giving tenants a free route to complain about the landlord directly. It is expected some years out and no administrator has been appointed.
• Awaab's Law in private renting. The strict repair timescales for damp, mould and other hazards have applied to social landlords since October 2025. They have not been switched on for the private rented sector, and no commencement date has been set. The Decent Homes Standard is on the same later track.

Until Awaab's Law reaches private renting, disrepair still runs through the older routes: your landlord's repairing obligations, the council's power to inspect hazards, and if necessary the courts.

Redress against letting agents already exists, though. Agents have had to belong to an approved scheme since 2014, so you have a free route to complain about the agent even while the landlord ombudsman is pending. We cover that, and how to spot a decent agent, in our tenant guide to finding a good letting agent.

Where to get help

• Shelter England for free housing advice, including an emergency helpline if you face eviction.
• Citizens Advice for help with notices, arrears, disrepair and deposits.
• Your council's private sector housing team for illegal eviction, harassment, banned fees and serious disrepair.
• The Housing Loss Prevention Advice Service for free legal advice before and on the day of a possession hearing.

A final point. If your tenancy was already running on 1 May 2026, your landlord or agent should have given you the government's Renters' Rights Act Information Sheet explaining the change. It took over from the How to Rent guide, which was withdrawn on 1 May 2026. If you never got it, ask. And keep everything in writing. Most renter disputes that go badly go badly because nobody can prove what was said.

This article is general information about the law in England, not legal advice. If you are facing eviction or a claim, get advice on your own situation from Shelter, Citizens Advice or a housing solicitor.

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