Napa County, CA Rental Property Rules: Rent Control (2026)

Napa County has not enacted a local rent-control or rent-stabilization ordinance for the unincorporated county. The controlling cap is the California Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (AB 1482), codified at Civil Code Section 1947.12. On any unit covered by AB 1482, the landlord may not, in any 12-month period, increase the gross rental rate by more than 5% plus the percentage change in the regional Consumer Price Index, with a hard ceiling of 10% even in a high-inflation year. The relevant CPI for Napa County is the All Urban Consumers index for the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward MSA published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The landlord may impose no more than two increases in any 12-month period and may not raise rent during the first 12 months of a tenancy. AB 1482 expressly does not preempt local rent ordinances enacted before September 1, 2019; because Napa County did not enact such an ordinance, the AB 1482 statewide cap is the binding ceiling in the unincorporated county. Statutory exemptions from the cap parallel the just-cause exemptions: natural-person-owned single-family homes and condominiums (with timely written notice of exemption), housing certificated for occupancy within the previous 15 years on a rolling basis, owner-occupied duplexes, dormitory housing, and deed-restricted affordable units. Vacancy decontrol applies to covered units: when a tenant voluntarily vacates, the landlord may reset the initial rent to market for the new tenancy, after which the 5%+CPI cap restarts.