New Jersey Landlord-Tenant Laws
Local rent regulation in New Jersey
New Jersey permits local rent control — more than one hundred municipalities have rent-control or rent-leveling ordinances, adopted under general municipal police powers upheld by the New Jersey Supreme Court — while state law expressly authorizes rent regulation of substandard multiple dwellings and exempts newly constructed multiple dwellings from local rent-increase limits for up to 30 years.
- Atlantic City — Rent Control
- Bayonne — Rent Control
- East Orange — Rent Control
- Elizabeth — Rent Control and Stabilization
- Fort Lee — Rent Control
- Hoboken — Rent Control
- Jersey City — Rent Control
- Newark — Rent Control
- Passaic — Rent Stabilization
- Paterson — Rent Leveling
More than one hundred New Jersey municipalities have rent control or rent leveling ordinances of their own. The records above cover ten of the largest regimes, not the full list — a landlord anywhere else in New Jersey should check the municipal code directly.
Cited to N.J.S.A. 2A:42-84.1 to -84.6 (new-construction exemption from local rent control; official DCA statute text) , N.J.S.A. 2A:42-74 et seq. (substandard multiple-dwelling rent control authorization; official DCA compilation) · Verified August 12, 2026 · Full New Jersey rent-increase rules →
New Jersey landlord-tenant laws by topic
New Jersey security deposits
New Jersey caps security deposits at one and a half months' rent — and the cap counts every dollar of prepaid money however it's labeled, so a landlord cannot stack 'last month's rent' on top of a full deposit.
New Jersey rent increase notice
New Jersey has no single rent-increase-notice statute; instead, to raise the rent on a month-to-month tenant the landlord must serve a written notice to quit terminating the existing tenancy — one month's notice under N.J.S.A. 2A:18-56 — paired with an offer of a new tenancy at the higher rent.
New Jersey late fees
New Jersey sets no statewide cap on residential late fees and no general grace period — a late charge is enforceable if the lease clearly provides for it and the amount is reasonable.
New Jersey entry notice
New Jersey has no statute fixing how many hours of notice a landlord must give before entering a rental unit.
New Jersey eviction process
New Jersey eviction runs on two ideas that surprise landlords from other states: almost every tenant can only be evicted for statutory good cause, and yet simple nonpayment of rent needs NO advance notice at all — the landlord can file the summary dispossess action in the Special Civil Part the moment rent is due and owing.
New Jersey application & screening fees
New Jersey caps what it costs to apply for a rental: since May 1, 2026 a landlord or their agent may not charge more than $50 in application and similar fees for one application, and before taking any application fee a housing provider must say in writing whether it will look at criminal history and that the applicant may answer with corrections or evidence of rehabilitation.
New Jersey deposit interest
New Jersey requires landlords to pay tenants the interest their security deposits actually earn, once a year.
New Jersey habitability & repairs
New Jersey has no habitability statute, and a residential landlord's duty to keep a rented home fit to live in comes from the state's courts rather than from the Legislature.
New Jersey lease termination
New Jersey is a state where a landlord needs a reason: for most rental homes the Anti-Eviction Act bars ending or refusing to renew a tenancy except on one of eighteen statutory grounds, and the notice period is set by the ground, running from three days to three years.
New Jersey mobile home park laws
New Jersey's park law sits in three places: the mobile home park law (N.J.S.A. 46:8C-2 to 46:8C-9) requires a written lease offer of at least 12 months and protects the sale of a home in place, the Manufactured Home Park Protection Act (N.J.S.A. 46:8C-10 to 46:8C-21) gives residents a right of first refusal when the community is sold, and the Anti-Eviction Act allows a lot tenancy to end only for cause.
The New Jersey FAIR Act: rent-pricing software is now regulated
Signed July 20, 2026, effective July 1, 2027 — what P.L.2026, c.43 bans, who it covers (every NJ landlord, from one unit up), and what stays legal.
New Jersey Fair Market Rents (FY 2027) — HUD's benchmark rents for every New Jersey metro area and county.
Changes since last full verification
The Verified date above (July 8, 2026) marks the last time every figure on this page was verified end-to-end against official state sources. The changes below were published since then, each verified against the official source it names (what these dates mean).
- Updated, September 5, 2026 — New Jersey: P.L.2026, c.82 (S2368, the Garden State Balcony Solar Act), approved September 1, 2026 and in force March 1, 2027, is typed as pending on the habitability record. From that date a landlord may not prohibit a tenant who pays for the premises' electricity from using or placing a portable solar generation device of up to 1,200 watts within the leased premises, including a leased balcony or patio, subject to reasonable restrictions and 14 days' written tenant notice, and a landlord is not liable for failing to maintain a habitable dwelling or provide an essential service where the condition was caused solely by the device.
- Correction, August 29, 2026 — Deposit-interest prose corrections from a primary-source re-read of every state's law: IA unsupported after-five-years inference removed (Iowa Code 562A.12 stops at the five-year landlord allocation) and the anti-commingling rule narrowed to the landlord's personal funds; FL commingling bar scoped to the two account options in 83.49(1)(a)-(b); IL local line names Chicago only and the Department announces the qualifying bank's rate; NJ 46:8-19's ten-unit tier stated as a mandatory vehicle rule (money-market fund or variable-rate account); MN unverified pre-2003 5.5% figure removed and 504B.178 subd. 7's bad-faith presumption with its two-week-after-suit cure window added; NM 47-8-18's rate reference records the 1986 federal ceiling expiry alongside the 1989 agency abolition; VA repeal pinned to July 1, 2014 (accrual duty) and January 1, 2015 (rate schedule) under 2014 Acts c. 651 enactment clause 4; MO 99.040 carve-out stated in the statute's own scope words; AZ mobile-home-park deposit cell gains A.R.S. 33-1431(B)'s five-percent-minimum annual interest duty (paid or compounded annually) with the 33-1431(D) doubling remedy.
How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text of N.J.S.A. 46:8-21.1 (full text via the 2025 code mirror, corroborated by a 2025 NJ Appellate Division opinion on njcourts.gov construing 46:8-19 and 46:8-21.1), cross-checked against the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs' official 'Truth in Renting' guide (the state's authoritative landlord-tenant publication) for the 46:8-21.2 cap, prepaid-rent rule, 10% annual increase cap, pet-deposit rule, late-charge rules, and the 2A:42-6.1 protected-tenant grace period. New Jersey's official statute portal (njleg.state.nj.us) does not provide stable deep links to code sections, so section citations link to a code mirror where no official URL exists, with the official DCA guide and court opinion cited as official sources.