In Ontario, a landlord who serves a rent increase and hears nothing gets the increase.

In Quebec, a landlord who serves a rent increase, receives a refusal, and does nothing for a month gets nothing at all. Not a reduced increase. The old rent, for the full term.

Same country, opposite risk, and the difference sits in a one-month window that nothing will remind you about.

Quebec also has no province-wide percentage cap. What it has instead is a negotiation backed by a tribunal, and that is where the window lives.

The 2026 Percentages, And Why There Are Two Tables

Significant regulatory changes came into effect on 1 January 2026, and the TAL now publishes two sets of percentages depending on when the notice of lease modification was given.

For notices given on or after 1 January 2026, the calculation has three components:

For notices given before 1 January 2026, the old table still governs, and it has nine components: electricity, gas, heating oil and other energy sources, maintenance, building services, services of a personal nature, management costs, net income, and capital expenditures.

Two things worth taking from that.

1. The method genuinely changed, not just the numbers. Nine components became three. If you are working from a spreadsheet, a template or a piece of guidance built before 2026, it is describing a calculation that no longer applies to new notices.

2. Use the table that matches your notice date, not the current calendar year. A notice given in December 2025 is governed by the old method even though the increase takes effect in 2026.

The Percentages Are Not A Cap

Three percent is the base component, not a ceiling.

As the TAL puts it, lessors and lessees in Québec are free to agree on a rent increase that both consider acceptable. If the tenant accepts, the increase is the increase. The percentages exist to help the parties reach agreement, and to govern what the Tribunal does if they cannot.

The calculation is also building-specific. It can take account of the property's municipal and service taxes, school taxes, insurance premiums and eligible capital expenditures. The TAL is explicit that each calculation is specific to the building or dwelling concerned, and that to obtain a result similar to what the Tribunal would set, the information entered has to be accurate.

One operational note for anglophone operators. The TAL's online calculation tool is available in French only. The guidance pages and notice models are published in English, but the tool itself is not.

What Else Changed On 1 January 2026

The regulatory changes published in December 2025 went wider than the calculation. They also covered the mandatory content of a notice of modification of the lease, and the mandatory lease forms including the particulars of a notice to a new lessee.

Which means three things that operators often treat as settled are all in scope: your notice template, your lease form, and your new-tenant disclosure. If none of them has been reviewed since 2025, all three are worth checking rather than assuming.

The Notice, And The Clock It Starts

The landlord sends a written notice of rent increase before the end of the lease, stating the proposed new rent, the effective date, and any other changes to the lease terms. The notice should clearly state the proposed modifications and the response deadline, and be signed and dated. Use a method that provides proof of receipt, because that date matters later.

Timing depends on the lease. For a lease of 12 months or more, three to six months before the end. For a month-to-month lease, one to two months.

The TAL publishes a model notice, and it is worth using rather than drafting your own, because the required warning to the tenant is on it and because the mandatory content requirements changed in 2026.

That warning reads, in the TAL's own words: if the lessee refuses the modifications or is moving at the end of the lease, they must respond within one month of receipt. Otherwise the lease is renewed under the new conditions.

So far this looks familiar. Tenant silence equals acceptance. Then the tenant refuses, and the logic reverses.

The Month That Decides It

A Quebec tenant has three options on receiving the notice. Accept, and the lease renews on the new terms. Refuse and leave at the end of the lease. Or refuse and stay.

The third one is the one to understand.

A tenant who refuses cannot be evicted for refusing. Their right to remain is protected. The lease renews, and the only question is on what terms.

To get an answer to that question, the landlord must apply to the TAL to modify the lease no later than one month after the date of receipt of the tenant's negative reply.

Miss that month and the lease renews at the same rent and other conditions. Not at a reduced increase. Not at 3.1%. At the old rent, for the full term.

Which makes one administrative step load-bearing. Somebody has to record the date the refusal was received, because that date starts the clock and nothing in the process will remind you. Holding that date against the tenancy rather than in an inbox is the difference between a decision and a default.

The Exception: Buildings Under Five Years

There is a category where the tenant cannot refuse and stay.

For dwellings in buildings constructed not more than five years earlier, a tenant who refuses a rent increase may have to leave at the end of the lease if the applicable restriction is properly indicated in section F of the lease. For certain newer buildings and leases, additional information about the maximum rent the lessor may impose during the five-year period must also appear in the lease.

Read the condition carefully. The restriction does not apply because the building is new. It applies because the building is new and the lease says so, in the right place, correctly completed.

An operator who owns a recently constructed building but has not properly completed the applicable lease restriction should not assume the tenant must leave after refusing an increase. The ordinary refusal and one-month application rules may apply instead.

Section G, And The Obligation Most Operators Miss

Quebec requires the landlord to disclose the previous rent to a new tenant. It appears in section G of the mandatory lease form, and a new tenant who believes the rent was set excessively compared with what the previous tenant paid can apply to the TAL to have the rent fixed.

There is a situation the form alone may not cover. Where no rent was paid during the 12 months preceding the start of the lease, the lessor must instead give the new tenant written notice of the last rent paid and the date it was paid.

If no rent was paid for the unit during the preceding 12 months, that is the situation to check. And since the mandatory lease forms and the particulars of a notice to a new lessee were both amended effective 1 January 2026, check the current form rather than the one in your template folder.

What This Means Operationally

Four things, and only one of them is about the percentage.

1. Your increase is a negotiation, not a calculation.
   The TAL percentage is a reference point for negotiation. If the parties do not agree, the landlord can apply to the Tribunal to have the rent fixed.

2. The date of receipt of a refusal is the most important date in the process.
   It starts a one-month clock, and missing that deadline means the lease renews without the proposed modification.

3. The lease form does real work.
   Section F can determine whether a tenant can refuse and stay. Section G determines your exposure to a rent-fixing application from a new tenant. Both are completed at the start of a tenancy and both matter much later.

4. And a Quebec portfolio runs on a different calendar from the rest of Canada.
   Many residential leases run to 30 June, concentrating a large share of renewal work rather than spreading it evenly across the year. For a 30 June lease end, the notice window opens six months before and closes three months before, putting the work between January and March.

For Operators Running Multiple Provinces

The contrast is worth stating plainly, because the same instinct produces opposite outcomes.

Ontario and BC: a percentage cap set by the province, a prescribed form, a fixed notice period, and an increase that takes effect unless the tenant successfully disputes it.

Quebec: no cap, a building-specific calculation, a tenant right to refuse and stay, and an increase that fails entirely unless the landlord applies to the Tribunal within one month of a refusal.

A process built for the first model, applied to the second, can cause an increase to be lost without anyone noticing. The lease simply renews at the old rent and the revenue never appears.

It is the same lesson that shows up wherever rent is regulated: the calculation is the visible part, and the procedure decides whether it holds. Quebec just moves the procedural risk onto the landlord rather than the tenant.

FAQ

1. What is the Quebec rent increase percentage for 2026?
For notices of lease modification given on or after 1 January 2026, the base percentage applicable to the rent is 3.1%, down from 4.5% in 2025. Services of a personal nature are at 6.7% and capital expenditures at 5%. These are calculation components, not a cap.

2. Does Quebec cap rent increases?
There is no province-wide percentage cap. Lessors and lessees are free to agree on an increase both consider acceptable.

3. How much notice is required?
For a lease of 12 months or more, three to six months before the end of the lease. For a month-to-month lease, one to two months.

4. What happens if the tenant does not reply?
The TAL's model notice states that a tenant who refuses or is moving must respond within one month of receipt, failing which the lease is renewed under the new conditions.

5. What happens if the tenant refuses?
The tenant may refuse and remain in the dwelling. The landlord must apply to the TAL to modify the lease no later than one month after receiving the negative reply, or the lease renews at the same rent and other conditions.

Sources: Tribunal administratif du logement, applicable percentages to the criteria for the fixing of rent, changing a condition of the lease, rent increase guidance, notice to a new lessee, and the model notice of rent increase; Éducaloi on renewing a residential lease and rent increases. The regulatory changes effective 1 January 2026 were published in Gazette officielle du Québec no. 51, 17 December 2025, covering the criteria for the fixing of rent, the mandatory content of a notice of modification of the lease, and the mandatory lease forms. Percentages are published annually. Confirm current figures, forms and timelines with the Tribunal administratif du logement before serving any notice. This article describes general concepts and is not legal advice.