Richmond, California: security deposit interest

Richmond's Fair Rent, Just Cause for Eviction and Homeowner Protection ordinance counts a security deposit as "Rent" for rent-control purposes, and the Rent Board's regulations govern only the amount: the deposit may not be raised during a tenancy, and both the amount and its return run on California Civil Code § 1950.5, which requires no interest. The one place Richmond's regulations mention interest on a deposit is Regulation 911(A), a remedy that treats unlawfully retained deposit interest as a rent overcharge; it presupposes an entitlement created somewhere else and creates none itself. In Richmond there is no such entitlement to presuppose.

Richmond deposit interest at a glance

How this interacts with state law

California's Civil Code § 1950.5 requires no interest on a security deposit, and no state law stops a city from adding a requirement — several California cities have. Richmond has not. Its rent ordinance reaches deposits only by defining one as "Rent," which brings a mid-tenancy deposit increase inside the rent-overcharge machinery; the amount of the deposit and its return are left entirely to the state statute, and the Rent Board's regulations say so in terms.

Notes and caveats

• The "will be required" claim describes a law that never took effect — A law firm's still-live post announcing Richmond's rent control states that landlords "will be required to pay to tenants interest on their security deposits." It is describing the 2015 Richmond rent-control ordinance, which was suspended by referendum and never revived. The measure actually in force is the November 2016 ordinance codified at chapter 11.100, which contains no deposit-interest provision at all, together with the Rent Board Regulations, whose security-deposit chapter defers wholly to state law. Whether the 2015 ordinance really carried such a section is a question about a law that never operated either way.
• The one sentence that reads like a duty — Regulation 911(A) says that "any receipt or retention of Rent, including security deposits and interest earned on security deposits, in violation of any order, rule or regulation of the Board or any other applicable law shall be deemed to be an overcharge." It is the only place in Richmond law where deposits and interest appear together, and it is easy to misread as a requirement. It is a characterisation of what counts as an overcharge, not a grant: it sets no rate, names no account, imposes no accrual and says nothing about who keeps interest a deposit actually earns. In Richmond the phrase has nothing local to point at, and California's § 1950.5 creates no entitlement for it to police.
• Richmond is not Santa Monica — The pattern people expect here — deposits must sit in an interest-bearing account, and the landlord may keep the interest to offset operating expenses unless the rent board directs otherwise — belongs to Santa Monica's city charter, not to Richmond. Nothing in Richmond's ordinance or in the Rent Board's regulations requires a segregated account, an interest-bearing account, or any particular custody of the money at all.
• The real local deposit rule — Richmond's genuine local protection is about the amount, not the earnings. Under Regulation 1101, a landlord sets the deposit at the start of a tenancy in line with Civil Code § 1950.5, and it cannot be increased during that tenancy, measured by whether at least one original occupant is still in the unit; when all the original occupants have voluntarily left, the landlord may reset it. A narrow exception lets a landlord petition to raise it where a tenant gives written consent in exchange for being allowed a pet, subject to the state cap and to fair-housing protections for service and assistance animals. Regulation 1102 makes an increase in breach of that rule a rent increase the tenant can challenge as an overcharge with the Rent Program.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Richmond, California: security deposit interest (verified August 28, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/deposit-interest/california/richmond/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified).

Citations

• Richmond Muni. Code ch. 11.100 (Fair Rent, Just Cause for Eviction and Homeowner Protection) · § 11.100.030(j) (verified 2026) Official source
• City of Richmond Rent Board Regulations, ch. 11 (Security Deposits), regs. 1101–1102, and reg. 911 · regs. 1101, 1102, 911(A) (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Richmond Municipal Code chapter 11.100 (Fair Rent, Just Cause for Eviction and Homeowner Protection) read in full from the official code as codified through Ordinance No. 02-26 N.S., enacted March 3, 2026, with its single occurrence of 'deposit' and all three occurrences of 'interest' enumerated in context; the City of Richmond Rent Board Regulations for chapter 11.100, 130 pages, updated November 19, 2025, read in full, with Chapter 11 (Regulations 1101 and 1102) and Regulation 911 read verbatim and every place in the document where 'security deposit' and 'interest' meet accounted for; and a code-wide search for the phrase 'security deposit' run across the whole municipal code, returning two sections, neither in chapter 11.100.

This page records local law on deposit interest. The statewide position — California's security-deposit statute says nothing about interest — no part of Civil Code § 1950.5 requires a landlord to pay or credit a tenant any interest on a residential deposit. — lives on the California deposit-interest page with its own citations and verification date.