SB 91 California: Landlord Rules, Rent Relief, and 2026 Status

California Senate Bill 91, signed by Governor Gavin Newsom on January 29, 2021, extended the state’s COVID-19 eviction moratorium through June 30, 2021 and set up the framework to distribute $2.6 billion in federal rental assistance.¹ Every eviction protection it created has since expired, and the underlying statutes (Code of Civil Procedure sections 1179.01 through 1179.07) were repealed effective July 1, 2025.² What can still reach you today is the unpaid rent itself, which landlords may pursue as ordinary civil debt.

What SB 91 Did While It Was in Effect

The core rule was simple. If you couldn’t pay rent because of a COVID-19 financial hardship, you couldn’t be evicted for that nonpayment as long as you gave your landlord a signed declaration of financial distress. The declaration had to be returned within 15 days of receiving a pay-or-quit notice, not counting weekends and court holidays.³

Financial distress was defined broadly: job loss, reduced hours, higher out-of-pocket costs for essential workers, health expenses, and childcare burdens from school closures or caring for sick family all counted.

The covered window ran from March 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021, and it was split into two sub-periods with different obligations:

Protected time period (March 1, 2020 – August 31, 2020): A tenant who submitted a hardship declaration could not be evicted for nonpayment. The rent remained owed as a debt but could not be used as grounds for eviction.
Transition time period (September 1, 2020 – June 30, 2021): The declaration was still required, and the tenant also had to pay at least 25 percent of each rental payment demanded during this window by the end of the covered period to keep full eviction protection.²

SB 91 was explicit that protection from eviction did not erase the debt. The required notice language told tenants directly: “You will still owe this money to your landlord and can be sued for the money, but you cannot be evicted from your home if you comply with these requirements.”³

Rules SB 91 Placed on Landlords

Landlords weren’t just barred from filing certain evictions. SB 91 rewrote how they had to communicate with tenants and what they could charge.

Any pay-or-quit notice served during the covered period had to spell out the exact amounts owed, the dates each amount became due, and the tenant’s right to submit a hardship declaration. It had to give the tenant at least 15 days (excluding weekends and holidays) to respond rather than the usual three. A separate informational notice explaining the full scope of tenant protections had to accompany it.³

Late fees on COVID-19 rental debt were prohibited for any tenant who had submitted a hardship declaration. Landlords also could not raise fees for existing services or start charging for services that had previously been free, closing off the workaround of recouping losses through side charges.²

Selling or assigning unpaid COVID-19 rental debt to a third-party collection agency was blocked until July 1, 2021, later extended through September 30, 2021 by AB 832.⁴ A compliant tenant would not suddenly find their debt in the hands of an aggressive buyer.

The Rental Assistance Money

SB 91 built the framework for California to distribute $2.6 billion in federal rental assistance.¹ Under the original terms, the program paid 80 percent of a tenant’s unpaid rent accrued between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021, but only if the landlord agreed to accept it as payment in full, effectively forgiving the remaining 20 percent. If the landlord refused to participate, the tenant could still apply, but the payment dropped to just 25 percent of the unpaid balance.²

AB 832 rewrote those terms in June 2021. Assistance jumped to 100 percent of unpaid rental debt for all eligible households regardless of landlord participation, and anyone who had already received the 80 percent payment was to be topped up to 100 percent.⁴ The program is no longer accepting applications.

COVID Rent Became Civil Debt, Not Eviction Grounds

One of SB 91’s most consequential moves was to push unpaid COVID-era rent out of the eviction system and into ordinary civil debt collection. A landlord could not evict a compliant tenant over that debt. They had to recover it through the courts like any other money owed.

SB 91 initially blocked landlords from filing small claims actions on COVID-19 rental debt before August 1, 2021. AB 832 moved that date to November 1, 2021 and gave small claims court special jurisdiction over these cases through October 1, 2025.⁴ California’s standard small claims limit is $12,500 for individuals.⁵

AB 832 added a further hurdle. Before filing any unlawful detainer action based on nonpayment of COVID-era rental debt, the landlord had to submit a sworn statement that they had applied for rental assistance and been denied. A landlord who skipped that step could not get a court summons issued. That requirement stayed in force through September 30, 2024.⁴

What’s Left in 2026

The eviction protections are gone. The statutory chapter was repealed on July 1, 2025.² The federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program’s period of performance ended September 30, 2025 and is now in closeout.⁶

COVID-era rental debt did not vanish with the repeal. A landlord who never collected can still pursue an outstanding balance in ordinary civil court, subject to California’s general statute of limitations for contract-based claims. The special small claims jurisdiction and the pre-filing requirements that AB 832 layered on top of that process have expired, so those cases now proceed on standard civil rules.

California tenants continue to have separate, ongoing protections under AB 1482, the Tenant Protection Act of 2019, which runs through January 1, 2030. That law caps annual rent increases at 5 percent plus the local cost-of-living change, or 10 percent, whichever is lower. It also requires landlords to show “just cause” to terminate a tenancy once a tenant has lived in the unit at least 12 months, and for no-fault reasons like an owner move-in, it requires relocation assistance equal to one month’s rent.⁷ Those rules are separate from SB 91 and were not affected by the 2025 repeal.

1
Office of Governor Gavin Newsom. Governor Newsom Signs Legislation to Extend Eviction Moratorium and Assist Tenants and Small Property Owners Impacted by COVID-19
2
LegiScan. California Senate Bill 91 – COVID-19 Relief: Tenancy: Federal Rental Assistance
3
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure 1179.03
4
California Legislative Information. AB 832 – COVID-19 Relief: Tenancy
5
California Courts Self Help. Small Claims in California
6
U.S. Department of the Treasury. Emergency Rental Assistance Program
7
California Legislative Information. AB 1482 – Tenant Protection Act of 2019