Oregon’s 15-Year Rent Cap Exemption for New Builds

The short answer: The Oregon rent cap 15 year exemption comes from ORS 90.323(5)(a). A rental unit is exempt from the statewide annual rent increase cap if its first certificate of occupancy issued less than 15 years before the date of the rent-increase notice. Because the measurement runs from the notice date, the exemption rolls forward and a building eventually ages out of it.

What the Oregon Rent Cap 15 Year Exemption Actually Says

Oregon caps how much rent may rise on a sitting tenant in any 12-month period. For 2026 that maximum is 9.5%, published by the Oregon Department of Administrative Services under the formula in ORS 90.324. I walk that number and the arithmetic behind it in my guide to the Oregon rent increase cap and your DSCR loan.

ORS 90.323(5) then lists exactly two situations where the cap does not apply, and the list is closed. The first is the one this page is about.

1. Newer construction, measured by certificate of occupancy. The unit's first certificate of occupancy issued less than 15 years before the date of the rent-increase notice. A certificate of occupancy is the document a city or county building department issues when a structure is approved for people to live in, so it marks the end of construction rather than the sale date or the year the plans were drawn.
2. Regulated affordable housing. A unit regulated or certified as affordable by a federal, state, or local government, where the rent change either does not increase the tenant's portion or is required by program eligibility or by a change in the tenant's income.

Notice what is absent. Nothing in that subsection turns on how many properties you own, whether the rental is a single-family house, or whether you self-manage. Portfolio size is not part of the test.

The Oregon Rent Cap 15 Year Exemption Clock Runs From the Notice Date

This is the detail that trips people up, and it is the reason the exemption behaves differently from most statutory carve-outs. The statute does not name a fixed year. It measures backward from the date you serve the rent-increase notice, which means the qualifying window slides forward every single day.

Put concretely, a notice served in November 2026 asks whether the certificate of occupancy issued after November 2011. A notice served in November 2027 asks about November 2012. The same building answers differently depending on when you send the paperwork.

These dates are illustrations, not findings about any actual property. The practical takeaway is that an exemption you relied on last year may not be there this year, so the occupancy date belongs in your file where you can find it rather than in your memory.

One more piece of care is worth taking. The exemption is written as a carve-out from the cap statute. Whether every procedural requirement in that same section falls away along with the percentage is a question I would put to an Oregon attorney before relying on it. The conservative practice, and the one careful owners I work with follow, is to give the same written notice on an exempt unit that they would give on a capped one.

Where the Oregon Rent Cap 15 Year Exemption Shows Up in Clackamas County

Statewide rules land unevenly across a county, and this one lands hardest where the housing stock is youngest. In my footprint that means the newer subdivisions and townhome developments rather than the older neighborhoods.

Happy Valley is the clearest example. Much of its rental-eligible inventory went up during the last building wave, so a meaningful share of it may still sit inside the 15-year window today. Wilsonville has a similar profile, with newer attached product and later-phase construction that postdates a lot of the county's housing.

Compare that with the older cores of Milwaukie and Oregon City, where a large portion of the rental stock predates the window by decades. Two rentals at the same price point in the same county can therefore sit on opposite sides of this rule, which is exactly why a blanket assumption about Oregon rent control gets investors into trouble.

For the pricing backdrop on either market, my Happy Valley housing market report and Wilsonville housing market report are the places I would start. If you are buying brand-new rather than resale, my guide to new construction down payments in Happy Valley covers how those purchases are financed differently.

None of this is a substitute for checking the specific address. Age of neighborhood is a hint. The certificate of occupancy is the answer.

Documenting the Certificate of Occupancy Date

If you intend to rely on the exemption, treat the occupancy date as a document you hold rather than a fact you believe. Three sources are worth trying, roughly in this order.

• The city or county building department that issued it. Permits and occupancy records sit with the jurisdiction where the property is located, which for an unincorporated address means Clackamas County rather than a city.
• The seller or builder file. On newer construction the certificate is often still in the original closing package, and a builder will usually have it for a project they completed.
• The property record. County assessment data typically carries a year built, which is useful for triage but is not the same document as a certificate of occupancy and should not be your only support.

Where the date sits close to the boundary, that gap matters. A year-built field and an occupancy date can differ, and the statute names the certificate specifically.

The reason to be careful is spelled out in the statute itself. ORS 90.323(6) makes a landlord who violates the section liable to the tenant for three months' rent plus actual damages, so an increase sent on a mistaken belief in the exemption is an expensive mistake rather than a paperwork correction. This page describes Oregon landlord-tenant statute for planning purposes and is not legal advice.

No, Small Landlords Are Not Exempt From the Oregon Rent Cap

I am putting this here because it is the single most common error in Oregon investor content, and because people who go looking for the 15-year exemption usually find the myth first.

There is no small-landlord exemption from the rent cap. There is no single-family-house exemption either. If you own exactly one rental in Oregon City, you are fully subject to the annual percentage, the 90-day written notice requirement, the once-per-12-months limit, and the rule against raising rent during the first year of a tenancy.

The rule people are thinking of does exist, but it is a different statute doing a different job. The "four or fewer residential dwelling units" threshold lives in ORS 90.427(6)(b), and it exempts only the one-month relocation payment owed when a landlord terminates a tenancy for a qualifying landlord reason. It has nothing to do with how much you may raise the rent.

The reason the first belief causes real damage is that it feels reasonable. An owner acting in complete good faith sends a non-compliant notice, and the penalty does not care about intent.

What the Oregon Rent Cap 15 Year Exemption Means for a DSCR Underwrite

Start with what does not change. A DSCR loan, short for debt service coverage ratio, qualifies the property on its rental income rather than on your personal income. The lender compares qualifying rent from the signed lease or the appraiser's rent schedule against the property's full PITIA, meaning principal, interest, taxes, insurance, and any association dues. My guide to what DSCR ratio you need to qualify walks that calculation, and the parent page on DSCR loans in Clackamas County covers how the product works overall.

The exemption does not change that math at closing, and no lender is going to underwrite differently because a unit sits inside the window. Qualifying is qualifying. Eligibility and terms depend on the program and the property, and any figure you see from me is subject to credit approval and a full loan estimate.

Where it matters is the hold. On a capped unit, a below-market rent repairs slowly, because you may move it once in a 12-month period and only up to the published percentage. On a unit inside the 15-year window, that constraint is not binding while the exemption lasts, so the pace at which a thin ratio can improve is set by the market and the lease rather than by statute.

Two planning notes follow from that. First, build the model so the exemption has an expiration, because it does. A unit near the boundary will convert to a capped unit partway through your hold, and a spreadsheet that assumes unconstrained rent growth for ten years is describing a property that will not exist for ten years. Second, treat the occupancy date as diligence, alongside tenancy age and lease terms, rather than as a nice surprise you discover after closing.

None of this makes newer Clackamas County rentals a different asset class. It makes the occupancy date one more number that deserves a line in the file, and investors who ask for it early have a genuine edge over the ones working from a national template.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Oregon Rent Cap 15 Year Exemption

What is the Oregon rent cap 15 year exemption?

Is the 15 year exemption measured from a fixed year?

Does the exemption apply to small landlords or single-family rentals?

How do I find a property's certificate of occupancy date?

Does the exemption change how a DSCR loan is underwritten?

What happens when a unit ages out of the 15 year window?