How many days' notice must a landlord give before raising rent in West Virginia?

No rent-increase statute — notice derives from tenancy-termination rules (see summary).

Does West Virginia preempt local rent control ordinances?

No West Virginia statute expressly addresses local rent control — state law neither authorizes nor prohibits city or county regulation of rent amounts, and the codes of ordinances of Charleston, Huntington and Morgantown contain no rent-control provision.

Can a landlord raise the rent during a fixed-term lease in West Virginia?

Rent is fixed for the lease term as a matter of contract. No West Virginia statute sets notice for, or limits, a mid-term or renewal increase; the only statute that mentions rent increases bars the landlord of a factory-built home rental community from retaliating by selectively increasing rent (37-15-7(a)).

How much notice is required to raise the rent in West Virginia?

Verified October 2, 2026 All West Virginia topics →

West Virginia has no statute requiring advance notice of a rent increase — the working rule for month-to-month tenancies is derived from W. Va. Code 37-6-5, under which either party may end a periodic tenancy by written notice given one full period before the end of any period, so a landlord proposing higher rent is offering new terms the tenant can refuse by leaving.

Cited to W. Va. Code § 37-6-5 and 2 more cited sources · Verified October 2, 2026

In practice that means a rent increase on a month-to-month tenancy needs written notice spanning at least one complete rental month, measured to the end of a rent period, and a year-to-year tenancy takes three months' notice before year-end. A mid-month '30-day notice' that straddles two partial periods does not meet those words, though in a 2026 memorandum decision the Intermediate Court of Appeals upheld a notice given on September 12 to leave by October 12 as one month's notice without discussing where the rental period ended (Dibella v. Mastermonico, No. 26-ICA-17). The statute yields to any special agreement fixing different notice. There is no limit on the size or frequency of increases, no statewide rent control, and no express statute either allowing or preempting local rent control; the codes of ordinances of Charleston, Huntington and Morgantown contain no rent-control provision.

West Virginia rent increase notice at a glance

Notice — month-to-month	No rent-increase statute — notice derives from tenancy-termination rules (see summary)
Varies by increase size	Not addressed by statute
Fixed-term leases	Rent is fixed for the lease term as a matter of contract. No West Virginia statute sets notice for, or limits, a mid-term or renewal increase; the only statute that mentions rent increases bars the landlord of a factory-built home rental community from retaliating by selectively increasing rent (37-15-7(a)). §37-6-5 itself does not apply where the term ends at a certain time (no notice needed) or where a special agreement fixes different notice.
Statewide rent control / stabilization	No
Rent control details	West Virginia has no statewide rent control, the codes of ordinances of Charleston, Huntington and Morgantown contain no rent-control provision, and no statute expressly preempts local rent control either. Ch. 37 arts. 6, 6A, and 15 contain no rent-control or preemption provision, and no such section exists despite some websites claiming one (see notes). W. Va. Code 8-1-5a(k) bars a municipality from prohibiting or effectively limiting the rental of a property or regulating the duration, frequency or location of a rental, but it does not mention rent amounts, so it is not an express preemption of rent control.
Local rent regulation	No West Virginia statute expressly addresses local rent control — state law neither authorizes nor prohibits city or county regulation of rent amounts, and the codes of ordinances of Charleston, Huntington and Morgantown contain no rent-control provision.
Frequency limits	Not addressed by statute

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, West Virginia Rent Increase Notice Laws (verified October 2, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/rent-increase-notice/west-virginia/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

Create a West Virginia rent-increase notice — free, no signup, built on the same verified West Virginia law as this page.

Notes and caveats

There is no rent-increase notice period to show — The notice field is empty because 37-6-5 addresses only termination of a periodic tenancy, never rent increases. Its measure is 'one full period before the end of any period' — a month anchored to the end of a rent period, not a flat 30 days.
A mid-month '30-day notice' rarely lines up — Because 37-6-5 measures the notice as one full period ending at the end of a period, a standard 30-day notice served in the middle of a rental month rarely lines up with it. The section requires notice in writing for a year-to-year tenancy and allows a shorter periodic tenancy to be ended 'by like notice, or by notice for one full period before the end of any period'.
Week-to-week and year-to-year — A week-to-week tenancy takes one full week under the same clause; a year-to-year tenancy takes at least three months before the end of any year.
The statute yields to the lease — 37-6-5 is expressly alterable or waivable 'by special agreement.'
The preemption answer is empty because no such statute exists — The local-preemption field is empty because West Virginia has no express statute preempting local rent control — not because the answer is unknown.
No rent-control preemption section exists — Claims circulating online place a rent-control preemption in W. Va. Code chapter 37, article 6, enacted in 2016. None of article 6's 31 sections addresses rent control or preemption, and no act of the 2011 through 2026 sessions amended article 6 on that subject.
A bill in the section's history that never became law — The code page's 'Bill History' for 37-6-5 lists HB 4570 (2026), on service of an eviction summons by posting. It passed the House on February 6, 2026 but died in Senate Judiciary at sine die on March 14, 2026, and the section is textually unchanged; its 2025 twin, HB 2537, also died in committee.
Bills to watch for reintroduction — HB 2648 (2025) and HB 4432 (2026), both aimed at 'tenant protections and landlord notice requirements,' died in House Judiciary — watch for reintroduction in 2027.

Common questions: West Virginia rent increase notice

Each answer is the verified value from the table above, restated as a direct answer. Free to quote with a link to this page.

How many days' notice must a landlord give before raising rent in West Virginia?: No rent-increase statute — notice derives from tenancy-termination rules (see summary).
Does West Virginia have rent control?: No — West Virginia has no statewide rent control or stabilization. West Virginia has no statewide rent control, the codes of ordinances of Charleston, Huntington and Morgantown contain no rent-control provision, and no statute expressly preempts local rent control either.
Does West Virginia preempt local rent control ordinances?: No West Virginia statute expressly addresses local rent control — state law neither authorizes nor prohibits city or county regulation of rent amounts, and the codes of ordinances of Charleston, Huntington and Morgantown contain no rent-control provision.
Can a landlord raise the rent during a fixed-term lease in West Virginia?: Rent is fixed for the lease term as a matter of contract. No West Virginia statute sets notice for, or limits, a mid-term or renewal increase; the only statute that mentions rent increases bars the landlord of a factory-built home rental community from retaliating by selectively increasing rent (37-15-7(a)).
How often can a landlord raise the rent in West Virginia?: Not addressed by statute.

Citations

W. Va. Code § 37-6-5 (verified 2026) Official source
W. Va. Code ch. 37, art. 6 (full-article text; contains no rent-increase, rent-control, or preemption provision) (verified 2026) Official source
W. Va. Code § 37-15-7 (factory-built home communities — bars retaliatory selective rent increases only) · (a) (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official WV Legislature code site (code.wvlegislature.gov): sections 37-6A-1, 37-6A-2, 37-6A-5, and 37-6-5 each read at least three times across two distinct official presentations (individual section pages read twice independently, plus the official whole-article 'email view' pages /email/37-6A/ and /email/37-6/), with all key figures matching verbatim (60-day/45-day whichever-shorter return window, 15-day contractor-itemization extension, 1.5x annoyance/inconvenience damages, one-full-period month-to-month termination notice, 6-month hold and 72-hour delivery rules). All of article 6A additionally reconciled against the enrolled Committee Substitute for HB 3202 (2011) on wvlegislature.gov — approved by the Governor 2011-04-01, Chapter 149, Acts 2011, effective 2011-06-10 — proving the 1.5x penalty is original 2011 text with no later amendment. Verified negatives (no deposit cap, no interest, no separate account, no late-fee or grace-period statute, no entry-notice statute, no rent-increase-notice statute, no rent-control or preemption statute) run against the full official texts of ch. 37 arts. 6 (all 31 sections), 6A, and 15. Bill outcomes verified on official Bill_Status action tables: dead bills SB590 (2022), SB147 (2023, House-rejected Roll No. 638), SB165 (2024), HB4695 (2006), HB4570/HB4432/HB5155/HB5334 (2026), HB2537/HB2648/HB2828/HB2903 (2025). Enacted 2025 acts: HB2434 (Stop Squatters Act, Ch. 219, eff. 2025-07-10) confirmed off-topic for these deposit, rent, fee, and entry topics (it amended the ch. 55 art. 3C squatter-removal scheme that HB4940 of 2024 created, treated as out of scope in the eviction topic's notes); HB3272 (Ch. 1, Acts 2025 — passed 2025-04-12, approved by the Governor 2025-04-28, eff. 2025-07-11) is on-topic, not off: it amended and reenacted W. Va. Code 55-3A-1, the core residential-eviction petition statute (filing-first hearing scheduling plus the tenant's five-day written-defense window), and its changes are carried in the eviction_process topic. The eviction topic is verified on its own track (see its topic_verified date and notes): its build pass reconciled the codified 55-3A-1 against the enrolled HB3272 word for word and ran currency checks on adjacent sections (50-2-1 reflecting HB2761 (2025), 2-2-1 reflecting SB793 (2026), 55-3C reflecting HB2434 (2025)); 55-3A-1 and 37-6-19 were independently re-read 2026-07-25; and on 2026-08-05 the enrolled HB3272 text and the codified 55-3A-1 were each read twice more and matched character-for-character, with the passage (2025-04-12) and gubernatorial-approval (2025-04-28) dates confirmed as distinct events from the official Bill_Status action table. 2026 regular session adjourned sine die 2026-03-14 with no on-topic bill passing. On October 2, 2026 every section the security deposit, rent increase, late fee and entry answers rest on was read again on code.wvlegislature.gov: sections 37-6A-1 to 37-6A-6, the whole of chapter 37, articles 6, 6A and 15, chapter 55, articles 3A, 3B and 3C, section 8-1-5a, and sections 38-14-4 and 46B-3-9, with the Legislature's tables of code sections affected for every regular and special session from 2011 through 2026 (no 2025 or 2026 act amended articles 6, 6A or 15). Article 15, on factory-built home sites, limits a landlord to the fees listed in the written rental agreement (37-15-5(a)(1)) and bars retaliatory rent increases (37-15-7(a)). The codes of ordinances of Charleston, Huntington and Morgantown were read for rent regulation, and Dibella v. Mastermonico, No. 26-ICA-17 (September 25, 2026), on the courts' site.