Setting a tenancy at market rent since 1 March 2026 requires you to show the rent isn't higher than rents for comparable dwellings, and to give the tenant a statement including details of three tenancies in similar properties from the RTB Rent Register — identified by their registered tenancy numbers. Comparables must be of similar size, type and character, including BER. The Register is built from RTB registration data, updated daily, and searched by Local Electoral Area. Save the results the day you set the rent, and get the notice to the tenant and the RTB the same day or it's invalid. At agency scale the failure isn't the rule — it's five negotiators applying it five ways. TenantSync CRM holds the unit attributes comparables are chosen on and tracks the reset dates across the book, on web, iOS and Android. Free 14-day trial, no card required.
Ask five negotiators in the same agency how they arrived at the rent on their last let and you'll get five answers. One will say the Rent Register. One will say what the identical unit two doors down went for in April. One will say what the landlord wanted. All three lets may have been priced sensibly. Only one of them is evidenced.
That gap — between a sensible rent and a documented one — is what changed on 1 March 2026. The rent itself was always a judgement call. Now the justification is a deliverable, with a specified source, a specified format and a same-day filing deadline attached.
This is a guide, not legal advice
The rent-setting rules changed on 1 March 2026 and are still bedding in, and the position depends on the tenancy's own history. This article explains the general position for private residential tenancies. Confirm the current requirements — and the correct notice for your circumstances — with the RTB, and take advice on a contested rent.
Two different rent decisions, constantly confused
Almost every mistake in this area starts by treating one decision as the other. They are not the same, and they don't share a test.
| Reviewing rent in an existing tenancy | Setting rent at market on a new let or permitted reset | |
|---|---|---|
| The test | The increase is capped at the lower of CPI inflation or 2% a year, measured over the period since the rent was last set. | The rent must not exceed market rent for comparable dwellings in the area, reflecting current local market conditions. |
| The evidence | An arithmetic calculation from the last-set date, the last-set rent and the index. | Three comparable tenancies from the RTB Rent Register, with their registered tenancy numbers. |
| What the tenant gets | A rent review notice showing how the new rent was calculated. | A rent-setting notice with a statement that the rent is not above market rent, including the comparables. |
| Filing | To the RTB, same day as the tenant. | To the RTB, same day as the tenant. |
| Frequency | Not more than once in any 12 months. | At permitted points only — including the six-year cycle boundary. |
The trap for an agency is that both decisions are made by the same people, often in the same week, and the second one carries a research task the first doesn't. A negotiator who has done twenty in-tenancy reviews with a calculator will reach for the calculator on a new let too, because that's the muscle memory. The calculator has nothing to say about market rent.
The 2% cap protects a sitting tenant from an increase. It has no role in pricing a vacant unit. Confusing the two is either an under-priced let for your client, or an unevidenced one.
What the Rent Register actually is — and why it's the source
The RTB Rent Register is not a market survey and it isn't scraped from listings. It's built from the RTB's own tenancy registration data — the registrations you and every other agency file — and it's updated daily. You search it by Local Electoral Area.
Three consequences follow, and they're the reason the rules point at it rather than at Daft or MyHome:
- It shows rents agreed, not rents asked. An advertised rent is an opening position. A registered rent is what a tenant actually pays. As evidence of market rent, they are not in the same category.
- It's someone else's data about you. Your own registrations feed it. The comparables another agency relies on next month may be the lets you registered this month — which is a reasonable argument for registering accurately and on time.
- Local Electoral Area is the unit, not the postal district. This catches agencies more than anything else in the process. "Dublin 8" is not an LEA. Your patch is not an LEA. If your branches cover several LEAs, the negotiator has to search the one the unit sits in, every time.
Know your LEAs before you need them
An agency operating across a city or a county touches multiple Local Electoral Areas, and the boundaries don't follow the mental map negotiators use for pricing. Recording the LEA — or at minimum the Eircode and local authority the LEA derives from — as a field on the unit record, once, removes a recurring lookup and a recurring source of error. Guessing it under time pressure at valuation stage is how a comparable set ends up drawn from the wrong area.
At agency scale, the problem isn't the rule — it's variance
Every negotiator in your agency could describe the three-comparables requirement accurately. That isn't the risk. The risk is that "similar size, type and character" is a judgement, and judgement made independently thirty times a month produces thirty different standards.
Consider what varies without a written standard:
| Decision | What varies between negotiators | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| What counts as "similar" | One matches on bedrooms alone. Another insists on BER band and floor area. A third goes by "feel". | Two lets on the same street get comparable sets that would never both be accepted. |
| Which area is searched | The unit's LEA, the branch's patch, or the postal district. | A comparable from the wrong area isn't a weak comparable — it's the wrong evidence. |
| When the search is run | At valuation, at listing, at offer, or the day the lease is drawn. | The Register moves daily. The date decides what the evidence shows. |
| What's captured | A screenshot, a note of three addresses, or nothing beyond a number in an email. | Registered tenancy numbers are what the statement needs. Addresses alone don't satisfy it. |
| Where it's stored | A negotiator's inbox, a shared drive, or the tenancy file. | When the negotiator leaves, so does the justification. |
| Who files with the RTB | The negotiator on the day, or the office "when they get to it". | Late filing invalidates the notice. This is the highest-frequency failure of the lot. |
None of those variations look like a problem on any individual let. They become a problem in aggregate, at the moment someone asks a portfolio-level question: which of our lets this year could we evidence if we had to? Without a standard, the honest answer is that nobody knows.
One record every negotiator prices from
Eircode, local authority, property type, bedrooms, floor area, BER rating and BER number held per unit — so "similar size, type and character" is assessed from the same facts across your whole book. See it on your own portfolio.
No credit card required · Multi-landlord, multi-branch from day one
The no-fault trap — the one that's genuinely an agency problem
Here is the rule that makes rent setting a systems question rather than a pricing question.
For tenancies created from 1 March 2026, a landlord may re-set to market rent every six years, and a market-rent setting can arise when a new tenancy begins in defined circumstances — for example where the previous tenancy ended because the tenant left of their own choice or breached their obligations. But a landlord cannot re-set to market rent for a new tenancy following a no-fault termination.
Why this breaks in an agency specifically
The availability of a market-rent setting on this let depends on how the previous tenancy ended. In a self-managing landlord's world those are the same person, weeks apart. In an agency they are frequently different people, months apart, possibly in different branches — a property manager served the notice, a negotiator is now pricing the re-let, and nothing in a listing or a valuation prompts either of them to check. Price it at market, serve the statement, and the ground you relied on was never available.
This cannot be solved by training alone, because the person who needs the information isn't the person who has it. It's solved by making how the last tenancy ended a fact on the unit record that the next let is priced against — the same record that already carries the tenancy history, the notice of termination and its stated ground. Our guide to serving notices of termination across a managed book covers the other half of that record.
Comparables are an attribute problem before they're a search problem
"Similar size, type and character, including BER" is a comparison — and a comparison needs both sides. Agencies focus entirely on the Rent Register side and skip the fact that they need their own unit's attributes to be right first.
The attributes that decide comparability:
- Eircode and local authority — what the Local Electoral Area derives from.
- Property type — house, apartment, duplex. A two-bed apartment is not comparable to a two-bed terrace because they share a bedroom count.
- Bedrooms — and, for how a dwelling is actually occupied, bed spaces.
- Floor area — the "size" half of the test, and the one most often unrecorded.
- BER rating — now part of the character assessment, which makes an expired or missing BER a rent-setting problem as well as a letting and minimum-standards one.
An agency that holds these as fields on the unit record can apply a consistent standard. An agency that holds BER certificates in a folder — and floor areas nowhere — is asking negotiators to estimate, and an estimated attribute produces a comparable set that dissolves under examination. It's also a reminder that a lapsed BER now costs you at the pricing stage, not just at advertising: our guide to bulk compliance tracking across a book covers keeping certificates current at portfolio scale.
Your evidence has a shelf life
The Rent Register is updated daily. That single fact has a consequence most agencies haven't internalised: the evidence behind a rent set in March cannot be reproduced in June. Run the same search three months later and you get a different result set, because registrations have been added in the meantime.
So the printout isn't paperwork — it's the only version of the evidence that will ever exist. The RTB's guidance is explicit that you should save a printout of your Rent Register results, because you'll need to submit it with your rent-setting notice.
Capture at the moment of decision, not the moment of paperwork
The natural agency instinct is to do the research at valuation — when you're advising the landlord on a price — and the paperwork weeks later when a tenant is found. That gap is where the evidence goes stale. If the search happens at valuation, save it then and refresh it when the rent is actually set, because the rent you set is the one the statement has to justify.
The rent-setting SOP
Everything above resolves into a written standard. Here's the shape of one — adapt the specifics to your stock, but write it down and apply it identically.
Before the search
- Check the ground is available. How did the previous tenancy end? A no-fault termination removes the market-rent reset. This is a lookup, not a recollection.
- Confirm the unit's attributes — Eircode, local authority and LEA, type, bedrooms, floor area, BER rating and its expiry. Fix anything missing before searching, not after.
The search
- Search the RTB Rent Register for the unit's own Local Electoral Area.
- Apply your written definition of "similar" — for most agency stock, matching on type and bedrooms, with floor area and BER band within a stated tolerance. The point isn't which tolerance you pick; it's that everyone picks the same one.
- Select three comparable tenancies and record the registered tenancy number of each. Select on comparability, not on the rent they support. Three comparables reverse-engineered to justify a number you already chose is the version that fails.
- Save the results the same day, dated, to the tenancy record.
The paperwork
- Produce the statement that the rent is not above market rent, with the three comparables in it.
- Serve it with the rent-setting notice on the tenant.
- File with the RTB the same day — same person, same sitting. Not a handover.
- Store statement, printout and filing receipt together on the tenancy, and diary the next reset point.
Get the new-let rent-setting SOP & comparables worksheet
Book a demo and we'll work through the standard against your own stock — what "similar" should mean for your unit mix, which attributes you're missing, and how the evidence gets stored so any negotiator can produce it.
The six-year reset calendar you don't have yet
For tenancies created from 1 March 2026, the market-rent reset sits at the six-year cycle boundary. That's a long way off — which is exactly why it will be missed.
A reset window that opens once every six years is not something a person remembers. It's a date derived from a tenancy commencement date, and every tenancy you sign now is putting one on a calendar six years out. For an agency signing several hundred tenancies over the next few years, that's several hundred dated events, each one a moment where a landlord client's rent can be brought to market and, if missed, stays where it is for another cycle.
That's the same commencement date that already drives your 30-day RTB registration deadline, your annual renewal and your rent-review eligibility. It's one date doing four jobs, and the only sane way to hold it is on the tenancy record with the others.
What the landlord client actually asks
The commercial version of all this is simpler than the compliance version. A landlord client asks two questions about rent, and only two:
- "Is this the best rent I could get?" — answered well by three comparables from registered tenancies in the same LEA. Answered badly by "that's what the market's doing."
- "Are you sure this is allowed?" — answered by a documented ground, a dated Rent Register printout and a same-day filing receipt.
Both answers come from the same evidence pack. An agency that produces it as a matter of course is doing compliance and client service with one action — and the pack is also what protects you when the client's rent is the one being questioned. Per-client reporting turns that into something you can send rather than something you have to assemble; our guide to per-client reporting for landlord clients covers the wider pattern.
Where TenantSync CRM fits — and where it doesn't
Worth being direct about the boundary.
TenantSync does not search the RTB Rent Register for you
The Rent Register lives on rtb.ie, and choosing which three tenancies are genuinely comparable to your unit is a judgement your negotiator makes, not one a system should make for them. What TenantSync does is hold the record that judgement is made from, and the deadlines it hangs off.
1. The unit record every negotiator prices from
Each property and unit carries the attributes comparability is assessed on: Eircode, local authority, property type, bedrooms, bathrooms, bed spaces, floor area, and the BER rating and BER number. One set of facts, used the same way by every negotiator and every branch, rather than re-estimated per let.
2. Certificates that don't lapse quietly
BER and other compliance certificates are tracked per unit with expiry dates and automatic compliant / upcoming / overdue status, with reminder emails before expiry. Since BER now feeds comparability as well as advertising, a lapsed certificate is a rent-setting problem — and this is where it surfaces before a letting rather than during one.
3. The dates, on one dashboard, scoped to your agency and branch
The tenancy commencement date drives the 30-day RTB registration deadline, the annual renewal, rent-review eligibility and the tenancy's position in its six-year cycle — shown together, date-ordered, across a managed book rather than per-tenancy. Branch managers see their own portfolio; the agency sees everything.
4. The in-tenancy calculation, and a rent review notice
For the other rent decision — an increase on a sitting tenant — the built-in calculator returns the maximum legal rent as the lower of the CPI-indexed figure and a 2% per-annum cap applied pro-rata between the last-set date and the review date, with the newly-built (first available to rent on or after 10 June 2025) and student-specific accommodation cases handled separately. TenantSync's free Notice of Rent Review generator produces the written notice from those figures, with a comparable-dwellings statement, an effective date at least 90 days after service, the calculation shown on the face of the notice, and a prompt that the RTB copy goes via the RTB Service Centre.
Register accurately — you're also the source
The Rent Register is built from tenancy registrations. Every let your agency registers correctly and on time improves the dataset the whole sector prices from, including you. It's a rare case where the compliance obligation and the commercial interest point the same way — and one more reason bulk registration tracking earns its place.
How to get started
- Write the standard down — what "similar size, type and character" means for your stock, and what tolerance you accept on floor area and BER band.
- Audit your unit records for the attributes the standard needs. Floor area and BER are the two most commonly missing.
- Make the ground check a step, not an assumption — how the previous tenancy ended, before the unit is priced.
- Fix the capture point: the Rent Register printout is saved the day the rent is set, dated, to the tenancy.
- Make serving and filing one action by one person, on the same day.
- Diary the six-year reset from every commencement date you sign from here.
- Start your free 14-day trial or book a demo to see the record and the dashboard against your own book.
You can't control whether a rent is questioned. You can control whether every negotiator in the building would answer the same way.
Frequently asked questions
What is the three-comparables rule for setting rent in Ireland?
Since 1 March 2026, a landlord or agent setting or re-setting a tenancy at market rent must be able to show that the rent is not higher than rents for comparable dwellings in the area and that it reflects current local market conditions. In practice that means using the RTB Rent Register to identify three tenancies in properties of similar size, type and character — including BER — and giving the tenant a statement that the new rent is not above market rent which includes the details of those three comparables, identified by their registered tenancy numbers. This is general guidance, not legal advice; confirm the current requirements at rtb.ie.
What is the RTB Rent Register and how does an agent search it?
The RTB Rent Register is a public dataset drawn from the RTB's own tenancy registration system, updated daily, that lets you look up rents paid for tenancies in a given area. It is searched by Local Electoral Area, so the correct search unit is the LEA the unit sits in — not a postal district, a marketing area or the agency's own patch. Because it is built from registrations rather than advertisements, it reflects rents actually agreed rather than rents asked, which is precisely why it is the evidence base the rules point you at.
Does the 2% rent cap apply when I set the rent on a new tenancy?
They are two different decisions. The national rent control that applies to an existing tenancy limits an increase to the lower of CPI inflation or 2% a year, measured over the period since the rent was last set. Setting rent at the start of a new tenancy, or re-setting at a permitted point, is a market-rent question instead: the test is whether the rent exceeds market rent for comparable dwellings, evidenced by three Rent Register comparables. Treating a new let as if the 2% cap governed it — or treating an in-tenancy review as if you could go to market — are the two ends of the same mistake.
When can a landlord re-set rent to market rent?
For tenancies created from 1 March 2026, a landlord may re-set to market rent every six years — at the cycle boundary of the Tenancy of Minimum Duration. A market-rent reset can also arise when a new tenancy begins in defined circumstances, for example where the previous tenancy ended because the tenant left by choice or breached their obligations. Critically, a landlord cannot re-set to market rent for a new tenancy that follows a no-fault termination. That last rule is the one that catches agencies, because the person pricing the new let is often not the person who handled the end of the previous tenancy.
Why does BER affect which properties count as comparable?
Because the comparables you rely on must be properties of similar size, type and character, and BER is part of that character assessment. Practically, this turns rent-setting into an attribute problem: you cannot select comparables consistently across a portfolio unless you actually hold the BER rating for each of your own units, alongside the Eircode, property type, bedroom count and floor area. An agency that keeps BER certificates in a folder rather than as a field on the unit record will end up guessing, and a guessed attribute produces a comparable set that cannot be defended.
How long is a Rent Register search valid as evidence?
There is no stated shelf life, but the Register is updated daily from the RTB's tenancy registration system, which means the results you see today are not the results someone will see if they run the same search in three months. The evidence that matters is the state of the Register at the moment you set the rent. The RTB's guidance is to save a printout of your Rent Register results and submit it with your rent-setting notice — so capture it on the day, store it against the tenancy, and do not plan to reconstruct it later.
Does the rent-setting notice have to be sent to the RTB?
Yes, and on the same day it goes to the tenant. Rent-setting and rent review notices must be served on the tenant and sent to the RTB on the same day; a notice that does not reach the RTB that day is invalid. For an agency this is an operational point rather than a legal one: the failure mode is a negotiator serving a notice at a property on Friday afternoon and the office filing it on Monday. Make serving and filing a single action by one person.
What goes wrong when several negotiators set rents in the same agency?
Variance, not ignorance. Five negotiators will interpret similar size, type and character five slightly different ways, search different areas, capture evidence at different points and store it in different places. Individually each let looks fine. Across a book you have no consistent standard, no way to answer a landlord client's question about how their rent was arrived at, and no way to tell which lets would survive scrutiny. The fix is a written rent-setting standard — what similar means for your stock, who runs the search, when the printout is captured, where it is stored and who files with the RTB — applied the same way every time.
What evidence should an agency keep for each new let?
Five things, together on the tenancy record: the unit's own attributes as they stood when the rent was set (Eircode, Local Electoral Area, type, bedrooms, floor area, BER); the three comparables with their registered tenancy numbers; the dated Rent Register printout or export; the statement given to the tenant; and the RTB filing receipt showing the same-day submission. Held together, that is a complete answer to how the rent was arrived at. Held in five places, it is five things to find under pressure.
How does TenantSync CRM support rent setting across an agency book?
It holds the record the process runs on, rather than searching the Rent Register for you. Each property and unit carries the attributes comparables are selected on — Eircode, local authority, property type, bedrooms, bathrooms, bed spaces, floor area, and BER rating and BER number — so the same facts are used by every negotiator. Compliance items and certificates are tracked per unit with expiry dates, so a lapsed BER surfaces before a letting rather than during one. Rent-review eligibility and the tenancy's position in its six-year cycle are tracked from the commencement date on the same compliance dashboard as the 30-day RTB registration deadline and the annual renewal, scoped by agency and branch. For in-tenancy increases the built-in calculator returns the maximum legal rent as the lower of CPI-indexed and 2% per annum pro-rata, and the free Notice of Rent Review generator produces a written notice with a comparable-dwellings statement, a 90-day effective date and a prompt for the RTB copy. TenantSync does not search the RTB Rent Register and does not choose your comparables — you do that on rtb.ie and record the result. Free 14-day trial, no card required.
Sources
- Setting and reviewing private rents from 1 March 2026, Residential Tenancies Board
- Guide to rent setting notices, Residential Tenancies Board
- Guide to rent review notices, Residential Tenancies Board
- Rental law changes from 1 March 2026, Residential Tenancies Board
- Changes to the rules for renting from March 2026, Citizens Information
Positions stated are the general position at the time of writing. The 2026 rules are still bedding in — confirm the current requirements at rtb.ie before setting or serving.