Landlord Atlas

How much notice is required to raise the rent in Hawaii?

Verified July 11, 2026 All Hawaii topics →

Hawaii landlords must give at least 45 consecutive days' written notice before raising the rent on a month-to-month tenancy — an express statutory rule in HRS 521-21(d), not a derivation from termination notice — and 15 days' written notice for tenancies shorter than month-to-month.

Termination runs on a separate track: a landlord ending a month-to-month tenancy needs 45 days' written notice (the tenant needs only 28), and a termination notice issued to dodge the rent-increase notice duty is void by statute. There are no limits on the size or frequency of increases and no rent control anywhere in Hawaii, though a retaliation statute bars increases on the heels of tenant complaints or repair requests, and a declared emergency or severe-weather warning temporarily freezes residential rents statewide under HRS 127A-30. Hawaii has no statute preempting county rent control — none of the four counties has adopted any, and a 2026 bill for a statewide 3% cap died in committee.

Hawaii rent increase notice at a glance

Notice — month-to-month 45 days
Varies by increase size Not addressed by statute
Fixed-term leases Rent is locked for a fixed term as a matter of contract; no statute permits mid-term increases. HRS 521-21(d)-(e) governs periodic tenancies only. Bills to require pre-expiration notice of renewal-rent increases (HB 464, 2025-26) died without passage.
Statewide rent control / stabilization No
Rent control details No statewide rent control and no current county rent control anywhere in Hawaii. Temporary exception: HRS 127A-30 freezes prices of 'commodities' — expressly defined to include residential dwellings — whenever the governor or a mayor proclaims an emergency or a severe-weather warning issues, which operates as a proclamation-bound rent-increase freeze (documented cost pass-throughs and pre-signed written increases excepted); it also restricts tenancy terminations during the freeze (amended by Act 206 (2024)). A statewide 3% annual rent-increase cap (SB 2539) was introduced in the 2026 session and died in committee at sine die 2026-05-08.
Local rent control preempted Not addressed by statute
Frequency limits Not addressed by statute

Notes and caveats

notice_days_month_to_month = 45 is an EXPRESS statute (521-21(d), 'forty-five consecutive days,' written notice required) — double-read on the official page and verbatim in the SLH 2017 Act 179 PDF, and corroborated by the official DCCA handbook. Do not confuse the three 45s: rent-increase notice (521-21(d)), landlord's m2m termination notice (521-71(a), written, 45 days), and the tenant's 45-day vacate notice needed to apply the deposit to last month's rent (521-44(b)); the tenant's own m2m termination notice is 28 days (521-71(b)), sub-monthly tenancies take 10-day termination (521-71(d)) and 15-day rent-increase notice (521-21(e)), and demolition/condo-conversion/vacation-rental conversion takes 120 days (521-71(c)). Anti-evasion: 521-71(f) voids any termination notice initiated to evade 521-21(d)-(e). Preemption null (NV precedent): no express preemption statute exists in either direction — HRS 666-20 (enacted 1943) even preserves county emergency rent-control ordinances against ch. 666, but the county powers it cites (former 62-34(11), 70-65) are repealed per the revisor's note, and no Hawaii county has rent control today. Dead bills debunked (2025-26 biennium ended at sine die 2026-05-08): SB 2539 (2026, statewide 3% cap + first-year increase ban, never heard); HB 464 (60-day renewal-increase notice, 90/60-day termination tiers — some 2026 charts print these as law; they are not); HB 693 (increase-increment limits, never advanced); SB 2762 (2024, county rent-ceiling enabling bill, died 2024). frequency_limits null: verified negative from full ch. 521 sweep.

Statute citations

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Hawaii State Legislature site (capitol.hawaii.gov, hrscurrent edition; fetched via curl with a browser user agent because the host 403s automated fetchers): sections 521-44, 521-21, 521-53, and 521-71 each fetched twice with SHA-1-identical results, and every load-bearing figure additionally reconciled against two more official documents — the Session Laws of Hawaii act PDFs on capitol.hawaii.gov (Act 179 (2017), S.B. 119, which sets out amended section 521-21 in full including the 45-day/15-day rent-increase notices and the 8 per cent late-charge cap, effective 2017-11-01 with an entered-into-or-renewed applicability clause; Act 206 (2013), S.B. 328, which sets out amended section 521-44(a)-(b) including the one-month cap plus the additional one-month pet deposit, applicable to agreements entered into on or after 2013-11-01) and the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs Office of Consumer Protection's official 2024 Landlord-Tenant Handbook (cca.hawaii.gov), which matches on the 14-day return, forfeiture rule, treble small-claims penalty, one-year limitation, two days' entry notice, 45-day termination and rent-increase notices, 8 per cent cap and its 2017-11-01 applicability, and the no-interest negative. Also read in full: 521-7, 521-8, 521-10, 521-22, 521-31, 521-43, 521-46, 521-63, 521-66, 521-70, 521-73, 521-74, 521-75, 521-77, 521-85, 666-20, and 127A-30. Verified negatives (no deposit interest, no separate-account rule, no grace period, no rent-increase frequency or size tiers, no express rent-control preemption) each run against the full chapter 521 table of contents sweep. Legislative check 2026-07-11 on official capitol.hawaii.gov status pages and the LRB Bills Passed 2026 list: the 2026 regular session adjourned sine die 2026-05-08 ending the 2025-2026 biennium; no 2025 or 2026 act amended any topic section; SB 2539 (3% rent cap), SB 347 (late fee 8%-to-5%), HB 464 (60/90-day notices), HB 693 (increase increments), and SB 822 (code working group) all died.