Find out how much your rent can be increased in Canberra

This calculator tells you the rent increase for periodic tenancies above which a landlord must seek ACAT approval.

$

Maximum new rent (under prescribed amount)
(per week)

$110

Allowable rent increase (without applying to ACAT)

$10

The dates you entered are less than 12 months apart. According to Legal Aid ACT's guidance for rent increases (PDF, 97KB), rent can only be increased at the end of a tenancy of 12 months or more, or every 12 months in a periodic lease.

How this was calculated

The maximum allowable increase under the rules is 110% of the change in Canberra rental prices since your last rental increase, or since the lease began.

The change in rental prices is represented by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for rent in Canberra. This data can be found on the ABS website under Data Downloads > Table 9 > Data 5.

At the start of your tenancy, the most recent CPI data was from . At this time the CPI for Canberra rents was .

The most recent CPI data from the date of the rental increase is , at which time the CPI was .

This gives a percentage difference of %.

To find the maximum allowable change, we multiply by 110%, which is %.

To find the allowable rent increase, we multiple this number by your current rent, which gives us $.

Note: the ABS is often slow to update their API dataset. If using this tool around the end of the quarter, check the CPI data on the ABS website to ensure the data is up to date (You want table 9).

What to do if a rent increase is too high

The ACT has rules about how much rent can be increased.

According to those rules, if your landlord or property manager asks for a rent increase more than the calculated amount, you do not have to agree.

If you disagree, your landlord can apply to ACAT to have the rent increase approved.

If the rent increase is below the calculated amount, you can apply to ACAT to block the rent increase.

If you are being asked for a rent increase above the prescribed amount, consider contacting the ACT legal aid tenancy service for advice.

You can read more about the rules and how to apply for a review at the ACAT website.

You can ask questions and read about other people's experiences with rent increases on the Canberra Renters Facebook Group.

For general information about renting in Canberra, you can use the ACT Government's Renting Book (PDF)

I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.

A note about this tool

It's a bit ridiculous that the ACT doesn't provide a tool like this. It took me a few weekends to put together.

The recommended method is to rifle through ABS spreadsheets, find the relevant numbers and do the maths.

This isn't accessible to the vast majority of renters. This may be part of why renters are often bullied into extreme rent increases.