How Much Notice to Increase Rent in BC: 3 Full Months or 90 Days?
Is BC rent increase notice 3 full months or 90 days? Can you go above 2.3%? Does email service count? Six landlord questions answered from the RTA.
Disclosure: we build free BC tenancy compliance tools at FactAI Lab. The BC deadline calculator is free, requires no account, and also works out your latest service date in the same result. The link is also at the bottom.
These six questions cover the spots where the Residential Tenancy Act most often surprises the people applying it - the same trip points our compliance corpus and free tools were built around. No usernames. Situations paraphrased. Every answer is sourced to the Residential Tenancy Act, its Regulation or RTB Policy Guideline 12, with retrieval date, because this area of law changed substantially in 2024 and 2025 and older guides still circulate.
"Is the 3-month notice for a rent increase 3 full calendar months, or just 90 days?"
Three full calendar months - not 90 days, and not three months measured however is convenient.
For a rent increase taking effect on June 1, the notice must be received by February 28 (or February 29 in a leap year). Not mailed by February 28 - received by that date. Service by mail adds five deemed days under RTA s.90 (confirmed in RTB Policy Guideline 12 §N, retrieved July 11, 2026 from gov.bc.ca), so if you are mailing the RTB-7, the envelope must leave your hands by February 23 at the latest.
The 90-day shortcut is wrong in two directions. In months shorter than 31 days, 90 days falls short of three full calendar months. And the full-calendar-month calculation counts backward from the effective date, not forward from today.
RTA s.42(2) is the source: notice "at least 3 months before the effective date of the increase." The RTB's rent increases page reads that as "three full months notice," and the RTB-7 form as three whole months. The 2026 cap is 2.3% (gov.bc.ca, retrieved July 11, 2026); the RTB-7 form is required regardless of whether the proposed amount is at cap or below it.
Corpus receipts: RENT_INCREASE_RULES.noticeMonths (rent-increases.ts), SERVICE_METHODS.mail.deemedDays (service-rules.ts), RTA s.42, GL12 §N.
"My tenant has rented from me for seven years. Can I raise their rent more than 2.3%?"
Not on your own. The annual cap applies regardless of tenure, regardless of how far below market the current rent sits.
For 2026, the maximum allowable increase is 2.3% (gov.bc.ca, retrieved July 11, 2026). For 2025 it was 3%. The cap resets each calendar year; a long-term below-market tenancy does not accumulate unused headroom from prior years.
There are two paths above cap. The tenant can agree to a higher increase in writing (RTA s.43(1)(c)); they do not have to. Or the RTB can approve an Additional Rent Increase (ARI) on your application (RTA s.43(3)), in the cases the regulation lists, such as a financial loss from an extraordinary increase in operating expenses, or eligible capital spending (Residential Tenancy Regulation s.23 and s.23.1). An ARI is a formal application with supporting evidence, not a unilateral landlord decision, and the RTB decides the amount.
If you want to reset to market rent, the path is a new tenancy with a new tenant. The cap applies for the life of a tenancy.
Corpus receipt: RENT_INCREASE_CAPS[2026] (2.3%), rent-increases.ts, RTA s.43 and Residential Tenancy Regulation s.22 (cap), RTA s.43(3) (ARI).
"I emailed my tenant the RTB-7 because that is how we always communicate. Is that valid service?"
Only if the tenant gave you that email address, in writing, as an address for service (Residential Tenancy Regulation s.43, made under RTA s.88(j); RTB Policy Guideline 12). An address used for casual communication does not count.
If they did, email service is valid, with three deemed days added (Residential Tenancy Regulation s.44; RTB Policy Guideline 12 §N, retrieved July 11, 2026). Emailed October 25 means deemed received October 28. That date is your start for the three-month backward count.
If they did not, email was not one of the service methods for that notice. You need to re-serve by a valid method - in person (same-day receipt), by mail (+5 deemed days), or by email once the tenant gives an address for service - and the three-month window runs from the new deemed-receipt date.
The practical fix is to document an email address for service at lease signing. A clause in the tenancy agreement confirming the email address is an address for service satisfies this requirement.
Corpus receipts: SERVICE_METHODS.email_with_consent (service-rules.ts), RTA s.88-90, Residential Tenancy Regulation s.43-44, GL12 §N.
"I want to move my daughter into my rental unit. What notice do I give, and are there any catches?"
Three months (RTA s.49, form RTB-32L). There are catches.
The form. RTB-32L must be generated through the RTB web portal, not downloaded and filled in locally (RTA s.53.1; Residential Tenancy Regulation s.42.1). A locally saved PDF is likely the old version and may be rejected.
The five-unit restriction. This notice type is prohibited in buildings with five or more rental units unless the building is strata-titled and its rental units are not all owned by the same owner (RTA s.49(6.1)). In a six-unit building you own outright, you cannot use RTB-32L to evict a tenant for a family member's occupancy.
Compensation. You must pay the tenant one month's rent on or before the effective date, or the tenant can keep it back from the last month's rent (RTA s.51(1) and (1.1)).
Occupancy requirement. Your daughter must occupy the unit for at least 12 months. If she does not, you owe the former tenant 12 months' rent unless the RTB excuses it for extenuating circumstances (RTA s.51(2)-(3)).
The dispute window. The tenant has 21 days from deemed receipt to file a dispute. If they dispute on day 21, an RTB hearing is scheduled and the eviction outcome depends on that hearing. Your planning horizon is not "serve by date X" - it is "the unit is uncertain until 21 days after deemed receipt, and potentially longer if the RTB schedules a hearing."
Corpus receipt: END_TENANCY_NOTICES.three_month_landlord_use (end-tenancy-notices.ts), RTA s.49, RTB-32L.
"My tenant is three weeks behind on rent. How quickly can I start the eviction process?"
You can serve a Ten Day Notice to End Tenancy for Unpaid Rent or Utilities (form RTB-30, RTA s.46) as soon as the rent is overdue. The ten-day period starts from deemed receipt of the notice, not from when you served it.
In-person delivery: deemed received the same day. By mail: add five deemed days. Mailed July 1 means deemed received July 6 and effective date July 16 at the earliest.
The tenant has 5 days from deemed receipt to pay the full overdue amount or file a dispute. If they pay in full within 5 days, the notice has no effect and the tenancy continues (RTA s.46(4)) - this is the most common outcome for first-time non-payment situations. If they neither pay nor dispute within 5 days, you can apply to the RTB for an Order of Possession. You cannot change the locks (RTA s.31) or take the unit back without that Order (RTA s.55).
The common mistake: mailing the notice and counting ten days from the mailing date. Mail adds five deemed days. Mailed on the first, effective date is the sixteenth at the earliest, not the eleventh.
Corpus receipt: END_TENANCY_NOTICES.ten_day_unpaid_rent (end-tenancy-notices.ts), RTA s.46, RTB-30.
"I gave my tenant a 2-month landlord-use notice in 2024. My tenant says I needed 3 months. Who is right?"
It depends on when the notice was given, and neither "two months" nor "three months" is the whole answer.
The three-month period, with a 21-day dispute window, applies to landlord-use notices given on or after June 18, 2025 (Residential Tenancy Regulation s.42.2 and s.42.3). A notice given before that date keeps the notice and dispute periods that applied on the day it was given (Residential Tenancy Regulation s.42.5). Purchaser-use notices changed earlier: three months with a 21-day dispute window for notices given on or after August 21, 2024 (Residential Tenancy Regulation s.42.4).
So for a 2024 landlord-use notice, check the period in force on the day you gave it; the RTB information line can confirm it. If the notice turns out to be short, it is not void: under RTA s.53 its effective date is deemed changed to the earliest date that complies.
Many property management guides still show older periods.
The Perch corpus pins an effectiveFrom date of "2025-06-18" on the three_month_landlord_use entry; the tool will not return the current value for a notice given before that date.
Corpus receipt: END_TENANCY_NOTICES.three_month_landlord_use.effectiveFrom ("2025-06-18"), end-tenancy-notices.ts, RTA s.49, s.53, Residential Tenancy Regulation s.42.2-42.5.
The deadline arithmetic is where these fail
The patterns above - three full calendar months, five days for mail, deemed-receipt offsets applied to both notice periods and dispute windows - appear in nearly every BC tenancy compliance question because they interact. A correct form, correct amount, and wrong service date produces a late notice: a rent increase starts later (RTA s.42(4)) and an end-of-tenancy date moves later (RTA s.53). A correct notice period, correct form, and wrong understanding of "deemed receipt" can push back the end date of a ten-day notice that should have been straightforward.
The BC deadline calculator handles this arithmetic free: current rent and proposed rent give a yes or no answer against the annual cap, and adding a planned effective date and service method gives the latest service date, with the s.90 deemed-receipt offsets applied, in the same result.
It runs the same corpus-pinned rules and statute references cited above.