Rent Standard and Guidance
Source: gov.uk (2025-04-01)

This page includes the rent standard that registered providers of social housing must comply with and guidance on how to apply for an exemption to the Standard.

Registered providers are required to comply with the Regulator of Social Housing’s Rent Standard. It sets the required outcomes for how registered providers set and increase rents for all their social housing stock in line with government policy as outlined in their Policy statement on rents for social housing (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/direction-on-the-rent-standard-from-1-april-2020/policy-statement-on-rents-for-social-housing).

To ensure that registered providers use the correct annual percentage increase to set their rents, they should refer to the adjusted tables in the latest limit on annual rent increases (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/limit-on-annual-rent-increases-2025-26-from-april-2025) guidance.

In some circumstances, private registered providers can apply for an exemption to the Rent Standard – please refer to the Making a formal application for an exemption to the Rent Standard (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/making-a-formal-application-for-an-exemption-to-the-rent-standard-from-1-april-2020) guidance for more details. Separate guidance for local authorities can be found in the Local authority guidance for formal applications to disapply government rent policy (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-authority-guidance-for-formal-applications-to-disapply-government-rent-policy).

The 2023 Rent Standard (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rent-standard-1-april-2023-31-march-2024) sat alongside the 2020 Rent Standard and applied to rent periods that began in the 12 months from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. The 2023 Standard reflects that the government introduced a 7% ceiling on rent increases in that year, which meant that for rents set between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024, registered providers could only increase social rent and affordable rent (excluding supported housing) by up to 7%. For rents set from 1 April 2024 onwards, the 2023 Rent Standard is not applicable and the 2020 Rent Standard applies in full.

Prior to the introduction of the 2020 Rent Standard for the period 1 April 2016 to 1 April 2020, social housing rents were set and managed through the requirements of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/7/crossheading/social-housing-rents). For issues arising during this period, registered providers may need to consult the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 and associated regulations to establish how the previous rules applied to their stock.

You can view our standards on the regulatory standards page (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/regulatory-standards).

In March 2020 we published: Setting rents for social housing - An addendum to the Regulator of Social Housing’s 2019 Sector risk profile (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/setting-rents-for-social-housing).

The Rent Standard has been set in response to the Government’s Direction on the Rent Standard (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/direction-on-the-rent-standard-from-1-april-2020).