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Is my apartment rent stabilized? How to check in NYC

Close to a million NYC apartments are rent stabilized, and listings rarely say so. The building, the lease and the state’s records each tell you part of it.

Updated 2026-10-21

What rent stabilization means for you

In a rent-stabilized apartment, the increase on each renewal is capped by the Rent Guidelines Board, which sets it every year, and you have the right to renew. The owner must register the apartment and its rent with the state every year. Since the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019, an apartment no longer leaves stabilization because its rent got high or it became vacant.

Which buildings have stabilized apartments

Most stabilized apartments are in buildings of six or more apartments built before 1974. Newer buildings can have them too, when the owner took a tax benefit such as 421-a or J-51 in exchange. Not every apartment in such a building is necessarily stabilized, so check the apartment itself too.

How to check

  1. The building. Search the address on the state’s building search, which lists buildings with stabilized apartments. With Pigeon, the Landlord score shows whether the building has stabilized apartments registered, how many, and whether that number is falling; the counts come from the building’s property tax bills, collected in JustFix’s NYCDB.
  2. The lease. A rent-stabilized lease has to come with the state’s rent stabilization lease rider. Ask the broker whether the apartment is stabilized, for the rider, and for the apartment’s last registered rent.
  3. The rent history. If you live in the apartment, you can request its registered rent history from New York State Homes and Community Renewal for free. It shows each year’s registered rent and whether the apartment was registered as stabilized.

If the building’s count is falling

Before 2019, apartments could leave stabilization when they became vacant above a rent threshold or after certain renovations. A building whose registered count fell over the years may have deregulated apartments, some properly and some not. It is worth asking how the apartment you are seeing was deregulated, if it was.

What to ask before you sign

Pigeon does this on every StreetEasy listing.

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No listing open? Check any NYC address for its building, landlord, noise and transit scores, or find a building’s page with its violations, owner and rent-stabilized apartments.

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