Landlords can hike rent by 1.8 per cent in 2026, province announces

The Manitoba government will allow landlords a marginal rent increase when new rent guidelines take effect in January.

The province announced its updated rent-increase guideline for 2026, setting the maximum rate landlords can increase rent at 1.8 per cent — up from a rate of 1.7 per cent in 2025.

Landlords must send written notices of rent increases at least three months before they takes effect. For a rent increase on Jan. 1, therefore, renters must be notified of the change by Sept. 30, the province said in a news release Friday.

The guideline is updated annually and calculated using a formula based on Manitoba’s consumer price index, the province said. It applies to most residential rental properties, including apartments, single rooms, houses and duplexes.

The guideline doesn’t apply to rental units that cost more than $1,670 per month, or units in a building first occupied after March 2005. Social housing units, co-operative units, non-profit life lease units and approved rehabilitated rental units are also exempt.

Units owned and operated by, or for, the various levels of government are not impacted.

In Manitoba, the rent increase guideline was set at three per cent in 2024, and there were rent freezes in both 2023 and 2022.

The release noted “with few exceptions, rent can only be increased once a year.” However, critics of Manitoba’s rental regulations have long argued that is not true.

In February, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released a report outlining tenants’ concerns about Manitoba’s rent guidelines, including loopholes that allow landlords to raise rent above the annual amount set by the government.

The report noted nearly 60,000 units were approved for increases higher than the rent guideline from 2019 to 2021. The average approved increase was 10.8 per cent in 2019; 11.65 per cent in 2020 and 10.3 per cent in 2021, the report said.

“This study finds that landlords use above-guideline increases to raise rents… through repairs and upgrades. Above-guideline rent increases blur the line between a landlord’s responsibility to maintain their buildings and the additional costs they foist onto tenants. Renters have no say in the changes that happen to their homes and are forced to pay for these changes in perpetuity,” the report said.

Landlords apply to the Residential Tenancies Branch and claim operating and capital expense increases that are over the annual guideline to justify the extra rent.

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca