Rent Standard and guidance
This page includes the Rent Standard that registered providers of social housing must comply with and guidance on how to apply for an exemption to the Standard.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
The Rent Standard is one of three economic standards that the Regulator of Social Housing expects registered providers to comply with. It sets the requirements around how registered providers set and increase rents for all their social housing stock in line with government policy as set out in their Policy Statement on Rents for Social Housing.
In some circumstances, private registered providers can apply for an exemption to the Rent Standard – please refer to the “Making a formal application for an exemption to the Rent Standard” guidance for more details. Separate guidance for local authorities can be found in the “Local authority guidance for formal applications to disapply government rent policy”.
To ensure that providers use the correct annual percentage increase to set their rents, they should refer to the adjusted tables in the latest “Limit on annual rent increases” guidance on this page. This also provides the additional data needed to work out formula rents for new properties.
Prior to the introduction of the Rent Standard on 1 April 2020, social housing rents were set and managed through the requirements of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016. For issues prior to 1 April 2020 and the introduction of the Rent Standard, registered providers may need to consult the Act and associated regulations to establish how the previous rules applied to their stock.
You can view our economic and consumer standards on the regulatory standards page.
In March 2020 we published: Setting rents for social housing - An addendum to the Regulator of Social Housing’s 2019 Sector risk profile.
The 2023 Rent Standard has been set in response to the Government’s Direction on the Rent Standard 2023.
Please note that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government was renamed as the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in September 2021 and all references to MHCLG mean DLUHC.
Last updated 4 January 2024 + show all updates
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Limit on annual rent increases for 24/25 added - will apply from April 2024.
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Limit on annual rent increases 2023-24 added.
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Published the Rent Standard to apply from 1 April 2023 - 31 March 2024.
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Updated: Local authority guidance for formal applications to disapply government rent policy
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Limit on annual rent increases 2022-23 published and note added about MHCLG being changed to DLUHC.
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Limit on annual rent increases 2021-22 added
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Added Local authority guidance for formal applications to disapply government rent policy.
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First published.