AN OVERHAUL OF rent regulations has been signed into law by President Catherine Connolly.

The Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026 has now been enacted, and its provisions will come into effect for new tenancies created on or after 1 March.

Tenancies currently in operation will see no change.

Housing Minister James Browne welcomed the bill’s enactment, saying it will provide “greater certainty and stability for tenants”, as well as encouraging a needed increase in the number of rental homes available.

What will change?

The main change the bill provides for is that landlords will be able to reset rents to ‘market rents’ for new tenancies created on or after 1 March 2026.

After the initial rent is set, landlords will only be allowed to reset rents every six years.

The only way the landlord can reset the rent before the six years is when a tenant leaves of their own volition or where a tenant has breached their tenant obligations or where the dwelling is no longer suitable to the accommodation needs of the tenant household.

Renters who sign up to a new tenancy will have tenancy security for the first six years, meaning they cannot be evicted unless there has been a genuine breach to the rental agreement.

Smaller landlords, who have three or fewer tenancies, will be allowed to terminate a tenancy during the six-year term if financial or other hardship requires the landlord to sell up or if the landlord or a close family member needs to live in the property.

The bill also provides for the publication of a rent price register, which the government said will provide greater transparency in rental prices for tenants, landlords and other stakeholders. 

There will be a nationwide rent cap, preventing landlords from raising the rent by more than 2% each year. New build apartments and student-specific accommodation will be exempt from this cap.

Criticism

While Browne said the bill will be beneficial for tenants and attract a greater amount of landlords, the opposition has strongly railed against this claim.

Among the most prominent criticism is that the resetting of rents to ‘market rents’ will allow landlords to set rents at whatever price they choose on 1 March, and then every six years or between tenancies. 

Sinn Féin’s housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said the legislation was “terrible” and the new measures will hit student renters particularly hard, as they tend to only rent on a yearly basis, leaving their tenancy after one year, allowing the landlord to reset the rent for that property.

The new rental regulations come in as market rents rose nationally by 4.4% last year and are now 80% higher than a decade ago, according to the latest rental report by Daft.ie.

Daft said a drop in availability is “particularly acute” in Dublin, where the number of homes to rent is down annually by over one third, leading to the average apartment rent in the city to climb to nearly €2,700.

The author of the report, Ronan Lyons, professor in economics at Trinity College Dublin, remarked that “widespread uncertainty about the new rent controls appears to have exacerbated ongoing supply shortages in the rental market”.