The New Jersey FAIR Act: What Landlords Need to Know

New Jersey's FAIR Act (P.L.2026, c.43, signed July 20, 2026) makes it unlawful — starting July 1, 2027 — for any New Jersey rental property owner to pay for or subscribe to software that sets or recommends rents using other landlords' nonpublic data. There is no small-landlord exemption: it applies from one rental unit up, and subscribing is itself the violation, whether or not you follow the software's recommendations.

The "Forbidding the Algorithmic Inflation of Rent (FAIR) Act" passed the Assembly 57–22 and the Senate 33–4 on June 30, 2026, and was signed by Governor Sherrill on July 20. It adds a new violation to the New Jersey Antitrust Act, aimed at the RealPage class of revenue-management tools: services that pool competing landlords' private pricing data and feed it back as rent recommendations. New Jersey is the fourth state to regulate rent-setting algorithms — following New York and Connecticut, whose laws are already in force, and California, whose law covers pricing algorithms in every industry, not just rentals.

What becomes illegal on July 1, 2027

• Paying for or subscribing to a "coordinator." A landlord — or their agent, representative, or subcontractor, which includes property managers — may not "receive, subscribe to, contract for, or otherwise exchange any form of consideration in return for the use of" an algorithmic rent-coordination service. The statute punishes the subscription itself; the state does not have to prove you adopted the recommended rents.
• Operating such a service. Running software that performs a "coordinating function" — collecting two or more landlords' competitively sensitive information to power rent recommendations, or recommending prices to multiple landlords from the same algorithm — becomes unlawful for the vendor as well.
• Parallel pricing coordination. Tacit or express agreements among landlords to move pricing together are covered, and the act says a tacit agreement "may, but need not, be demonstrated by a pattern of conduct" — no email trail required.

Who is covered

Every New Jersey rental property owner, defined as anyone who directly or indirectly owns "one or more" residential units. Unlike some early proposals, the enacted law contains no unit-count threshold and no small-landlord carve-out. Commonly controlled entities count as a single owner — which matters for what stays legal, below.

What stays legal

• Analyzing your own portfolio. Because affiliated entities are one "owner," software that works only from your own units' data — occupancy, turnover, your own rent history — performs no coordinating function.
• Using free public data. "Competitively sensitive information" must be nonpublic, and the act defines nonpublic as "not available to the public at no cost." Consulting published market data — including HUD's Fair Market Rents, the basis of our New Jersey rent tables — is outside the act. One caution: if public data is combined with any nonpublic data, the act deems the whole combined dataset nonpublic.
• Free public rent estimates. The act expressly excludes "developing an estimated amount of rent that is made available to the public at no cost."
• Ordinary spreadsheets and databases. A spreadsheet that "operates without artificial intelligence" and needs human analysis is not an "algorithmic device," nor is a database that only queries unprocessed data. Listing databases available on equal terms to subscribers (brokerage MLS-type services) are also excluded, so long as they don't set or recommend prices.
• Government affordability programs. Pricing required by Section 8, NJHMFA programs, municipal rent control, and similar affordability controls is excluded.

Note the line the act draws: it is about what a product does with competitors' data, not what the product is called. General property-management software — listings, screening, rent collection, maintenance — is not what the statute describes; a "revenue management" or "rent optimization" feature fed by other landlords' private data is. If a vendor markets rent recommendations, the question to ask is what data drives them.

Enforcement and penalties

Violations are violations of the New Jersey Antitrust Act, carrying that act's existing remedies (N.J.S.A. 56:9-6 through 56:9-17), enforced by the Attorney General. The act also directs the AG to maintain a complaint-intake page on the Department of Law and Public Safety website. It is an antitrust statute, not a Consumer Fraud Act amendment. Municipal ordinances that conflict with the act are preempted — relevant in Jersey City and Hoboken, which adopted their own algorithmic-pricing ordinances earlier.

How New Jersey compares to the other states

Colorado's similar bill was vetoed in May 2025; Maryland's and Washington's died in committee. A landlord operating in New York, Connecticut, or California should note those laws are already effective — New Jersey's July 2027 date only governs New Jersey.

What New Jersey landlords should do before July 2027

• Inventory your software. If anything you use recommends or sets rents, ask the vendor in writing what data drives the recommendation. Recommendations built on other landlords' nonpublic data are the act's target — and after July 1, 2027, the subscription itself is the violation.
• Property managers count. The ban covers your "agent, representative, or subcontractor" — if a management company prices your units with a covered tool, that is within the statute's text. Ask managers the same question.
• Keep pricing from public sources. Free published data — HUD Fair Market Rents, advertised asking rents, your own portfolio's history — remains a lawful basis for setting rents.
• Remember the rules that already exist. The FAIR Act changes nothing about how rent increases are served in New Jersey: the notice-to-quit mechanism, the Anti-Eviction Act's unconscionability backstop, and the ~100 municipal rent control ordinances all still apply — see New Jersey rent increase rules.

A note on sources

This page is written from the enacted bill text — the Assembly Committee Substitute for A3497 as passed by both houses — not from summaries. Some early coverage relies on the bill's superseded draft or the legislative fiscal estimate, which describe provisions (a relaxed pleading standard, a state public-education program) that are not in the law as enacted. The official chapter-law print of P.L.2026, c.43 had not yet been published when this page was verified; we will re-check it against the enacted text and update this page if anything differs. Bill history and votes: njleg.state.nj.us.

Sources

• A3497 ([1R] Assembly Committee Substitute — the enacted text), 222nd Legislature, approved July 20, 2026 as P.L.2026, c.43 Official source
• Governor's press release, July 20, 2026 — signing statement (“fourth state to explicitly regulate rent setting algorithms”) Official source