New Brunswick Rent Increase Cap: 3% Limit on Annual Increases, Extended Through 2027

Rather than voiding a rent increase notice that exceeds 3%, the regulation deems that notice to be a 3% increase instead.

[Cite: N.B. Reg. 82-218, ss. 11.12-11.13]

That distinction has real practical consequences; a landlord who mistakenly serves a notice above the cap doesn't need to start the entire notice process over from scratch, since the excess portion is simply treated as not having been requested, while the underlying notice itself still takes effect at the capped 3% figure.

New Brunswick rent increases were uncapped for a period, including during 2023, after an earlier rent-cap framework wasn't renewed, before the current 3% cap took effect in February 2025.

[Cite: REMI Network, "New Brunswick rent increases uncapped for 2023"]

That history is directly relevant to how a landlord should plan; a cap that has already lapsed once before isn't something to treat as a fixed, unchangeable feature of New Brunswick tenancy law, even though the current version has since been extended rather than allowed to expire again.

The current cap is subject to annual government review, and while it was extended for the 2027 calendar year through a June 2026 announcement, the next review is scheduled for May 2027.

[Cite: Government of New Brunswick, "Three per cent rent cap maintained in response to ongoing affordability challenges," June 2026]

A landlord building multi-year financial projections around this 3% figure should treat each year's continuation as a separate decision rather than assuming the cap will automatically persist past its next scheduled review in May 2027.

New Brunswick's Minister responsible for the file described the cap as providing stability after rent rose roughly 40% over the preceding 6 years, directly tying the policy to that specific affordability trend.

[Cite: Government of New Brunswick news release, Minister David Hickey]

That stated rationale helps explain why the province chose to extend rather than lift the cap in 2026; a landlord assessing whether future extensions are likely should watch whether the underlying affordability pressures the government cited continue, since that's the framing the province itself has used to justify each extension decision.

Alongside the rent cap, the province introduced a provincial sales tax rebate for new rental buildings with construction commencing on or after November 15, 2024.

[Cite: Government of New Brunswick, rental construction incentive program]

That pairing matters for understanding the policy's full shape; the province appears to have deliberately balanced a tenant-protective rent cap with a landlord-facing construction incentive, rather than treating rent control as a standalone measure disconnected from housing-supply considerations.

The cap limits increases to 3% year-over-year, meaning the relevant comparison is the unit's rent as of 1 year prior, not some other historical baseline.

[Cite: N.B. Reg. 82-218, ss. 11.12-11.13]

A landlord calculating a permissible increase needs to confirm the specific prior-year rent figure for that unit and apply the 3% cap to that exact number, rather than working from an older rent figure or an average across multiple years, which could produce an incorrect calculation.

The committee amendments to sections 2, 4, and 6 of Bill 3 were only available as scanned PDF documents rather than searchable text as of this review, meaning the exact final wording of those specific sections wasn't independently text-verified.

[Cite: Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick, Bill 3 committee amendment documents]

A landlord or legal professional needing the precise final statutory language for those specific sections, for a dispute or formal filing, should confirm the current consolidated text of N.B. Reg. 82-218 directly rather than relying on a summary derived from the scanned amendment documents alone.

Bill 3 received Royal Assent on December 13, 2024, but the cap itself didn't take effect until February 1, 2025, about 7 weeks later.

[Cite: Bill 3, S.N.B. 2024, c. 29; N.B. Reg. 82-218]

That gap gave landlords and tenants a specific window to understand the incoming cap before it actually applied to increase notices; a landlord serving an increase notice with an effective date before February 1, 2025 wasn't yet subject to this specific 3% cap, since the regulation's operative provisions only took hold starting that date.

Since the cap depends on comparing a unit's current proposed rent against its rent from 1 year prior, a landlord needs clear, unit-specific rent-history records to calculate a compliant increase.

[Cite: N.B. Reg. 82-218, ss. 11.12-11.13]

A landlord managing a larger portfolio benefits from maintaining a clear rent-history log for each unit, since an incorrect baseline figure could lead to serving a notice that either understates what's actually permitted or, more riskily, exceeds the cap and gets automatically reduced to 3% under the deeming provision.

Since the next scheduled review of this cap is May 2027, a landlord planning rent strategy beyond that date should watch for the government's review outcome rather than assuming the 3% figure continues automatically.

[Cite: Government of New Brunswick, "Three per cent rent cap maintained," June 2026]

A property manager with multi-year lease renewal planning extending past May 2027 should build in a check of that review's outcome specifically, given the cap's demonstrated history of being revisited rather than left in place as permanent, unreviewed policy.

The practical starting point is confirming each unit's rent exactly 1 year prior to any planned increase, applying the 3% cap to that specific figure, and documenting the calculation in case a notice is ever questioned.

Watching for the outcome of the May 2027 review keeps a landlord from being caught off guard if the cap's continuation, extension, or modification changes the planning assumptions currently in place for 2027 leases and beyond.