Landlord Atlas

Bayonne, New Jersey: Rent Control

Verified August 17, 2026 All New Jersey topics →

Bayonne's rent control reaches a shrinking set of long-standing tenancies rather than the city's rental housing generally.

Cited to Rev. Gen. Ords. of Bayonne § 16-4.1 (annual increase, 5.5% ceiling) and 11 more sources · Verified August 17, 2026

A unit is covered only if it has housed the same tenant continuously since June 30, 2011, and only if the building has five or more units and is not a hotel, motel, public housing, or a newly built property whose certificate of occupancy came after November 1, 2011. For a covered unit, rent may rise once a year by the change in the consumer price index and by no more than 5.5%, and the landlord must get written approval from the Rent Control Office before charging it. When the tenant leaves, the unit is permanently decontrolled and never returns to rent control. Landlords must file a registry of rent-controlled tenants with the city each year by December 1, and the Rent Control Board hears applications for hardship and improvement surcharges as well as tenant complaints about increases and lost services.

What is in force

In force today. Bayonne first limited rents in 1973, and the current law was rewritten from top to bottom by Ordinance No. O-23-31, adopted July 19, 2023. One later ordinance, No. O-24-06 of January 17, 2024, extended the chapter for a one-year period ending December 31, 2024, and the published code, which includes legislation through December 17, 2025, carries no extension after that. The city continues to run the law: the Rent Control Office issued its 2026 schedule of application deadlines, and the Rent Control Board has held monthly hearings through July 2026. The law is Chapter 16 of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne.

The rent increase limit

Rent on a covered unit may rise once a year by the change in the consumer price index, and never by more than 5.5%. The Rent Control Office does the math: it takes the twelve-month change in the index for the region that includes Bayonne, using the last figure reported two months before the office finds the landlord's application complete, and cuts the increase to 5.5% of the unit's base rent whenever the index change is higher. The landlord must apply to the office and receive written approval first, the office decides within 15 days, and the new rent may not start sooner than one year after the last increase ended. An increase a landlord skips cannot be saved up and added to a later one. Surcharges for hardship, building-wide improvements, single-unit improvements, late rent, returned checks, and separately billed extra services sit on top of the base rent and are never folded into it, so they do not raise the base for future increases.

What housing is covered

Only long-standing tenancies are covered. A unit is regulated only if it was under rent control under the 1973 ordinance and its successors and has housed the same tenant continuously since June 30, 2011; every unit that fell vacant after that date left rent control for good. On top of that, whole categories of buildings are exempt: any building with four or fewer rental units, motels, hotels, commercial and industrial space, buildings owned or operated by the federal government, the State of New Jersey, any municipality or public housing authority, buildings preempted by federal or state law, and newly built dwellings rented for the first time whose certificate of occupancy the Bayonne Building Department approved after November 1, 2011. Individual units are also exempt if the rent is subsidized in whole or part under federal or state programs, including Section 8, Section 202, and Section 811, or if the unit has already been permanently decontrolled. Owner-occupied buildings get no exemption of their own beyond the four-unit rule, and the chapter says nothing about condominiums. A landlord who believes a property is exempt can apply to the Rent Control Board for a ruling, and a tenant who believes they are covered can ask the board to say so.

What happens on vacancy

Vacancy ends rent control permanently. When a rent-controlled tenant moves out voluntarily or is evicted through the courts, the landlord applies to the Rent Control Office for permanent decontrol, giving proof of the vacancy or a copy of the court order. The landlord must send the former tenant a copy of the application within 10 days by certified mail or personal service, and the former tenant has 14 days to object. If no objection arrives the office approves, and the unit is decontrolled the day approval is granted and can never come back under the law. There is no vacancy increase percentage, because the unit simply leaves rent control.

Eviction and termination rules

State law governs evictions. The chapter adds no grounds of its own and points to the New Jersey Anti-Eviction Act. It does add two rent-related protections. Trying to empty a covered unit so it can be decontrolled, by harassment or other wrongful action, carries a fine of up to $2,000. And a landlord who has not paid back money the Rent Control Board ordered refunded may not apply for or collect any increase or surcharge until the refund is paid in full.

Registration and filings

On or before December 1 each year, a landlord whose building contains any covered unit must file a completed Registry of Rent-Controlled Tenants with the Rent Control Office and give a copy of that completed registry to every tenant named on it. There is no registration fee. Filing fees apply instead to applications and complaints, on a schedule the council adopted on July 19, 2023 that the published code still carries: $50 to apply for an annual increase covering 1 to 10 units and $100 for more than 10, $100 for a hardship application, $100 for a building-wide improvement application, $50 for a single-unit improvement application, and $25 per unit to apply for permanent decontrol or for an exemption. Tenants pay $25 to challenge an increase or a surcharge, $25 to ask for a rent reduction, $25 to ask the board to confirm they are rent-controlled, and $5 to report that a landlord has not paid what the board ordered. When a tenant wins, the board charges that tenant's fee back to the landlord.

Other requirements

Beyond the annual increase, the law allows several surcharges, none of which becomes part of the base rent. A landlord can seek a twelve-month hardship surcharge, but only after showing that the building's operating expenses exceed 60% of its gross income; buildings with 50 or more units may be asked for accountant-certified figures, and an approved surcharge is spread evenly across every unit in the building even though only rent-controlled tenants have to pay it. Surcharges for building-wide improvements and for work inside a single unit must be sought within 12 months of finishing the work, and together they may never exceed 20% of a unit's monthly base rent. A late fee may not exceed $35, and a returned check charge is $35. Charges for separately billed extra services are not limited by the chapter at all. Tenants can push in the other direction: if a service included in the rent is cut back or dropped, a tenant has 18 months to ask the board to lower the base rent, and the lower figure becomes the base for future increases. Tenants also have 18 months from the first payment to challenge an increase or surcharge as invalid, and the board can void it, order refunds, and extend the refund to other tenants in the building in the same position. After an increase is approved, the landlord has 10 days to serve each affected tenant by certified mail or personal service and 14 more days to file proof of that notice; missing either step voids the increase. Fines run to $2,000 for a reckless or intentional violation, counted separately for each apartment affected, and $500 for each false statement in a filing. Decisions of the board and the office are final and can be challenged only in court.

Notes and caveats

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Bayonne, New Jersey: Rent Control (verified August 17, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/new-jersey/bayonne/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified).

Citations

This page records local law. Statewide rules — deposits, notice periods, late fees, entry, evictions — live on the New Jersey hub, and the state-level position on local rent regulation appears there with its own citations and verification date.