How Often Can a Landlord Raise Rent in Calgary?

Before a landlord decides what number to write on the notice, there's a separate and prior question: is this unit even eligible for an increase right now? That eligibility question has nothing to do with the market, the mortgage, or what a comparable unit down the street rents for. It's purely a matter of counting days since the tenancy started or since the last increase took effect, and confirming which tenancy type governs the notice period. Only once that's settled does the actual proposed amount become relevant, and at that point it's a business decision the Residential Tenancies Act simply doesn't weigh in on.

Landlords who skip this ordering tend to run into trouble the same way: they land on a number that feels defensible, serve the notice, and only then discover the 365-day clock hadn't actually run yet, or that the notice period didn't match the tenancy type. The number was never the problem.

A landlord cannot raise rent more than once in any 365 days. The count begins from the start date of the tenancy, or, once an increase has already happened, from the effective date of that most recent increase, whichever is later. This resets with every increase; it isn't a once-per-calendar-year allowance, and it doesn't line up with the anniversary of the lease unless the timing happens to coincide.

This trips landlords up most often when they manage several units on staggered schedules. A property manager who mentally files "rent increases happen every January" and applies that uniformly across a portfolio will eventually catch a unit where the actual 365-day mark hasn't passed yet, because that unit's last increase took effect in March, not January. There's no shortcut around tracking each tenancy's own clock individually.

Once a unit clears the 365-day mark, the next requirement is proper written notice, and how much notice depends on the type of tenancy. A month-to-month tenancy requires three full tenancy months of notice before the increase takes effect. A week-to-week tenancy requires twelve full tenancy weeks. Other periodic tenancies generally require 90 days. None of these accept verbal notice or an informal heads-up; the notice has to be in writing and has to reach the tenant with the full required period intact.

"Full tenancy months" is doing real work in that first rule, and it's a detail landlords get wrong more than any other part of this framework. If a month-to-month tenancy runs on a calendar-month cycle, notice given partway through a month doesn't count that partial month as one of the three. The clock for a properly served notice generally has to start at the beginning of a tenancy month, which means a landlord who serves notice on the 15th is often looking at four calendar months of lead time in practice, not three, once the partial month is excluded.

A fixed-term lease adds a specific timing interaction that doesn't come up with a periodic tenancy. If the 365-day eligibility mark falls at some point during the fixed term itself, the increase can't take effect until the term ends. A landlord can't serve notice mid-term and have a higher rent kick in while the fixed term is still running, even if 365 days have technically passed since the tenancy started or the last increase.

This means a two-year fixed-term lease effectively locks in the rent for the full two years, regardless of when the 365-day mark falls within it, unless the parties agree to something different through a new negotiated agreement rather than a unilateral increase. Once the fixed term ends and the tenancy either renews or converts to periodic, the standard 365-day and notice rules apply from that point forward.

It's worth stating plainly what's absent from Alberta's framework, since the gap itself is the source of most confusion. The Residential Tenancies Act doesn't set a percentage cap, a dollar limit, or any formula tying an increase to inflation, comparable rents, or a landlord's costs. There's also no separate application process to exceed a cap, because there's no cap to exceed. A landlord proposing a 4% increase and a landlord proposing a 40% increase are following the same legal process, provided the timing and notice rules above are both satisfied.

This doesn't mean an unusually large increase carries no practical consequences. A tenant facing a steep increase may choose to end the tenancy rather than accept it, and a landlord weighing that risk is making a business decision about vacancy and turnover cost, not navigating a separate legal ceiling. That calculation belongs to the landlord and sits entirely outside what the RTA regulates.

A month-to-month tenant has been in a unit since June 1 last year with no prior increase. The 365-day mark falls on June 1 this year. Because the tenancy is month-to-month, the landlord needs three full tenancy months' notice, meaning notice served at the start of a tenancy month, with the increase taking effect no earlier than three full months later.

A week-to-week tenant's last increase took effect on a Monday eight months ago. The next eligibility date is 365 days from that Monday, not from the original move-in date. The landlord needs twelve full tenancy weeks of notice counted from a week's start, run backward from the intended effective date.

A tenant on a two-year fixed-term lease that began in October last year would technically hit the 365-day mark next October, but the lease itself doesn't end until the October after that. The increase can't take effect at the one-year mark. It waits until the fixed term ends, at which point ordinary periodic timing rules take over if the tenancy continues.