Can a landlord raise the rent when the lease is renewed?
Short answer
A landlord cannot raise the rent on their own, either during the lease or at renewal. Outside the Riyadh urban area, the landlord files a rent-adjustment request on Ejar at least 90 days before the lease ends; if the tenant accepts, the lease renews at the new rent, and if the tenant rejects it or does not answer before the final 60-day window, automatic renewal is cancelled and the lease ends on its end date. Inside the Riyadh urban area, rent increases on residential and commercial leases, existing and new, are banned for 5 years from 25 September 2025.
No increase during the lease term
Under Article 94 of the Civil Transactions Law, a valid contract cannot be revoked or amended except by agreement or under a statutory provision. A landlord therefore cannot change the rent documented on Ejar during the term on their own, and even an adjustment the tenant accepts through Ejar’s rent-adjustment request applies to the renewed lease, not the active one.
A yearly step-up that both parties agreed at signing through Ejar’s “escalating rent” option is different: it is part of the lease itself, subject to the Riyadh rule below.
How a renewal increase works outside Riyadh
Across the Kingdom, a lease longer than 3 months renews automatically unless one party notifies the other at least 60 days before the end that they do not want to renew. A landlord who wants new rent files a “rent-value adjustment” request on Ejar at least 90 days before the end, and the tenant can respond until the 60-day window begins.
Outside Riyadh there is no statutory cap on the increase, and the tenant decides:
- Accept: the lease renews automatically at the new rent.
- Reject: automatic renewal is cancelled and this counts as notice of non-renewal, so the lease ends on its end date unless the parties agree a new one.
- No answer before the 60-day window: treated as a rejection.
Riyadh: a 5-year freeze
Under the rules approved by Royal Decree M/73 dated 2/4/1447H, increases in the total rent of residential and commercial leases inside the Riyadh urban area are stopped for 5 years from 25 September 2025. Adjustment requests there can only lower the rent, and under an escalating-rent lease the rent stays at the first agreed value, with the step-ups applied only after the five years.
A Riyadh landlord also cannot refuse a renewal the tenant wants, except for non-payment, structural defects affecting safety confirmed by an approved technical report from the competent government body, the landlord wanting the residential unit for personal use or for a first-degree relative, or other cases set by REGA’s board. Breaching these rules can bring a fine of up to 12 months’ rent for the unit, plus correcting the violation and compensating the harmed party.
Follow-up questions
What happens if the tenant ignores a rent increase request?
Outside Riyadh, if the tenant neither accepts nor rejects the request before the 60-day window before the lease end, Ejar treats it as a rejection: automatic renewal is cancelled and the lease ends on its end date. However, Article 440(3) of the Civil Transactions Law provides that if the lease has not been renewed and the tenant stays on after the term without objecting to a specific increase the landlord requested, the increase binds the tenant from the end of the lease and the lease is treated as renewed on its terms. Rejecting the request explicitly on Ejar therefore records the tenant’s objection clearly.
Can a Riyadh landlord re-let a vacant unit to a new tenant at a higher rent?
A previously leased unit cannot exceed the total rent of its last lease registered on Ejar, while a never-leased unit is priced by agreement and that price then becomes its cap. The landlord may object to REGA if the unit underwent major structural renovation that affected its rental value, if its last lease was concluded before 2024, or in other cases REGA’s board approves, with a report from a valuer accredited by the Saudi Authority for Accredited Valuers.
Official sources
- REGA: Approval of the statutory rules governing the landlord–tenant relationship
- Ejar: The new statutory rules for the rental relationship (FAQ)
- Civil Transactions Law (Bureau of Experts at the Council of Ministers)
General information for guidance, not legal advice; the governing regulations and official bodies are the final reference.
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