Rate tables › LA City RSO › Deposit interest
LA City deposit interest rate
The City of Los Angeles security deposit interest rate is 3.03% for this calendar year. A new rate takes over on January 1, and interest is owed on every deposit you have held for at least a year.
Source: LAMC 151.06.02 via LAHD Bulletin #44: Interest Payments on Security Deposits (rev. 01/13/2026) Verified August 9, 2026
The figures behind this
Applies January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2026
Simple interest, set each calendar year by the Rent Adjustment Commission, on every deposit held at least one year. An owner may instead pay the actual interest the bank paid on the deposit, and must then hand the tenant the bank statement showing it. During the tenancy you pay the accrued interest either as a direct payment or as a credit against rent: LAMC §151.06.02(C) says you choose one of the two and must tell the tenant your choice in writing, and you may pay monthly or yearly. When the tenancy ends, §151.06.02(D) sends any unpaid accumulated interest back at the same time and in the same manner as the deposit itself. The RSO does not require deposit interest on mobile home park spaces. §151.06.02(D), read verbatim in the city's code library (2026 Rev. 8 compilation) on August 9, 2026, sends unpaid accumulated interest back ‘at the same time and in the same manner as required for return of security deposits in California Civil Code Section 1950.5(f)’. That cross-reference is stale in the code's own text: since January 1, 2026 (AB 414) the 21-day return-and-itemize provision is §1950.5(h), and (f) is the pre-move-out inspection. The rule is unchanged: same time, same manner as the deposit. Only the subdivision letter moved.
Source: LAMC 151.06.02 via LAHD Bulletin #44: Interest Payments on Security Deposits (rev. 01/13/2026) Verified August 9, 2026
The rate, year by year
| Year | Rate | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 3.03% | LAMC 151.06.02 via LAHD Bulletin #44: Interest Payments on Security Deposits (rev. 01/13/2026) · Verified August 9, 2026 |
| 2025 | 4.32% | LAMC 151.06.02 via LAHD Bulletin #44: Interest Payments on Security Deposits (rev. 01/13/2026) · Verified August 9, 2026 |
What to do
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January 1
New LA City security deposit interest rate published
The Rent Adjustment Commission sets the deposit interest rate for the new calendar year. LAMC §151.06.02(B)(1)(a) has the Commission adopt it by November 30 and publish it, and the rate it adopts runs January 1 through December 31. Your ledger switches to the new rate on January 1.
The rate moves every year: it fell from 4.32% in 2025 to 3.03% in 2026.
Source: LAMC 151.06.02 via LAHD Bulletin #44: Interest Payments on Security Deposits (rev. 01/13/2026) Verified August 9, 2026
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January 31
LA City deposit interest for last year: pay it, and put your choice in writing
LAMC §151.06.02(C), as Bulletin #44 restates it, gives you two choices to make and one of them has to be in writing: whether the accrued interest goes to the tenant as a direct payment or as a credit against rent, and whether you pay it monthly or yearly. If you pay yearly, this is the reminder to pay the year that just closed and to have told the tenant, in writing, which of the two methods you use.
Unpaid interest does not go away. When the tenancy ends it all comes due at once, with the deposit, in the same manner the Civil Code requires for returning a deposit, and by then the rate has moved every year and the arithmetic is a decade long.
About this date: This date is ours, not LAHD's. LAMC §151.06.02(C) lets you pay monthly or yearly and fixes no annual due date. We anchor the yearly option to January 31, the month the new rate is published, so the year that just closed gets settled before the new one starts.
Source: LAMC 151.06.02 via LAHD Bulletin #44: Interest Payments on Security Deposits (rev. 01/13/2026) Verified August 9, 2026
What we do not hold
- Bulletin #44 sets both the deposit-interest rate and how it has to be paid, and attributes the rule to LAMC 151.06.02. The city's live code host refuses automated requests, so we read the section in a 2020 compilation of Chapter XV: the payment-method rule is subsection C and the end-of-tenancy rule is subsection D. We cite the bulletin, which is current, and name the subsections from the compilation, which may not be.
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