Apartment Vacancy Rate Statistics (2026)

The U.S. apartment market is undergoing a significant recalibration in 2026. After years of historically tight inventory and surging rents, the national apartment vacancy rate has climbed to approximately 6.8% as of early 2026, according to estimates from RealPage Analytics and CoStar Group — the highest level recorded since 2011 and a notable reversal from the pandemic-era trough of 2.5% seen in late 2021. This shift is being driven by a record wave of new multifamily completions, softening demand in Sun Belt metros, and mounting affordability pressures that are forcing renters to double up or relocate. For landlords, property managers, and renters alike, understanding where vacancies stand — and where they are heading — has never been more critical.

Key Apartment Vacancy Rate Statistics at a Glance

The table below summarizes the most important national and metro-level apartment vacancy rate figures for 2025–2026, drawn from multiple authoritative sources.

Statistic	Figure	Source	Year
National apartment vacancy rate (all units)	6.8%	RealPage Analytics / CoStar Group	Q1 2026
National vacancy rate (2021 trough)	2.5%	RealPage Analytics	Q4 2021
National vacancy rate (pre-pandemic average)	4.7%	U.S. Census Bureau, Housing Vacancy Survey	2015–2019 avg.
Rental vacancy rate (all rental units, incl. SFR)	6.9%	U.S. Census Bureau, Housing Vacancy Survey	Q4 2025
Sun Belt metro average vacancy rate	10.2%	CoStar Group	Q1 2026
Gateway city average vacancy rate (NYC, Boston, SF)	3.9%	Apartment List Research	Q1 2026
New multifamily completions (units), 2025	~570,000	U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey	2025
Share of renters cost-burdened (>30% income on rent)	49.7%	Harvard JCHS, America's Rental Housing 2025	2025
Average asking rent, national (stabilized)	$1,739/mo	Zillow Observed Rent Index	Jan 2026
Year-over-year rent growth (national)	+2.1%	Zillow Research	Jan 2026

National Vacancy Rate Trends: 2015–2026

The trajectory of U.S. apartment vacancy rates over the past decade tells a story of dramatic swings driven by supply constraints, pandemic-era migration, and a historic construction boom. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's Housing Vacancy Survey, the national rental vacancy rate averaged approximately 4.7% from 2015 through 2019, reflecting a market that was undersupplied but not critically so.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 initially caused a brief spike in vacancies — peaking at 6.4% in mid-2020 — as urban renters fled dense metros for suburbs and secondary markets. However, this was short-lived. By 2021, pent-up household formation, record migration to Sun Belt cities, and stalled construction pipelines pushed vacancies to multi-decade lows. RealPage Analytics recorded a national apartment vacancy rate of just 2.5% in Q4 2021, the tightest the market had been since the early 1980s.

Key Trend: From Q4 2021 to Q1 2026, the national apartment vacancy rate rose by approximately 4.3 percentage points — the sharpest four-year increase in modern rental market history — driven primarily by a surge in new multifamily supply.

The 2022–2025 period saw developers respond aggressively to elevated rents and demand. The U.S. Census Bureau's Building Permits Survey reported approximately 570,000 new multifamily units completed in 2025 alone — the largest single-year delivery since 1987. This flood of new supply, concentrated heavily in Sun Belt metros like Austin, Phoenix, Dallas, and Charlotte, began absorbing net demand and pushing vacancies upward. By Q4 2024, the national vacancy rate had risen to 6.1%, and by Q1 2026, it had reached 6.8%, according to CoStar Group.

Year-Over-Year Comparison

Year / Quarter	National Vacancy Rate	YoY Change	Source
Q4 2021	2.5%	—	RealPage Analytics
Q4 2022	4.1%	+1.6 pp	RealPage Analytics
Q4 2023	5.4%	+1.3 pp	CoStar Group
Q4 2024	6.1%	+0.7 pp	CoStar Group
Q1 2026	6.8%	+0.7 pp (est.)	RealPage / CoStar

Notably, the rate of vacancy increase has been decelerating. The largest single-year jump occurred between 2021 and 2022 as the first wave of new supply hit. Analysts at NMHC (National Multifamily Housing Council) project that the vacancy rate will stabilize or slightly decline by late 2026, as the construction pipeline thins and new permits pull back in response to higher financing costs and tighter lending standards.

State-by-State Apartment Vacancy Rates (2025–2026)

Vacancy rates vary enormously by geography. States that attracted the most pandemic-era migration — and subsequently the most new construction — are experiencing the sharpest corrections, while high-barrier coastal markets remain structurally undersupplied. The following table presents the most current available state-level rental vacancy estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey (ACS) 1-Year Estimates and supplemental CoStar Group metro-level data aggregated to the state level for 2025.

State	Rental Vacancy Rate (Est.)	Trend	Primary Driver
Texas	11.4%	↑ Rising sharply	Massive new multifamily supply (Austin, Dallas, Houston)
Arizona	10.8%	↑ Rising	Phoenix oversupply cycle
Florida	9.6%	↑ Rising	New construction + softening Miami/Tampa demand
Georgia	9.1%	↑ Rising	Atlanta metro deliveries
North Carolina	8.7%	↑ Rising	Charlotte/Raleigh new supply wave
Nevada	8.3%	→ Stable	Las Vegas supply additions, stable demand
Colorado	7.9%	↑ Slight rise	Denver deliveries, remote work normalization
Tennessee	7.5%	→ Stable	Nashville supply absorbed, moderate demand
Illinois	6.2%	→ Stable	Chicago tight urban core, suburban softness
Ohio	5.9%	→ Stable	Affordable market, steady demand
Pennsylvania	5.4%	↓ Tightening	Philadelphia/Pittsburgh limited new supply
Washington	5.1%	↓ Tightening	Seattle demand recovering post-tech layoffs
Massachusetts	3.8%	↓ Very tight	Boston severe supply restrictions
New York	3.4%	↓ Very tight	NYC regulatory environment, limited builds
California	4.2%	→ Stable	Mixed: LA tight, Inland Empire softening

According to CoStar Group's Q1 2026 Multifamily Report, Austin, TX currently holds the highest large-metro vacancy rate in the country at approximately 15.2%, followed by Phoenix, AZ at 12.4% and Jacksonville, FL at 11.8%. By contrast, New York City maintains a vacancy rate of roughly 2.1% for stabilized rental units, and Boston sits at approximately 3.2%, according to Apartment List's Q1 2026 Vacancy Index.

Metro-Level Deep Dive: The Supply Surge vs. Demand Story

Sun Belt Markets: The Correction Zone

The Sun Belt vacancy surge is principally a supply story. Between 2022 and 2025, Austin, TX added approximately 35,000 new apartment units to a market that was absorbing roughly 18,000 units per year, according to CoStar Group. The result: effective rents in Austin fell by approximately 12% from peak to trough between early 2023 and early 2026, even as the broader national rent index posted modest gains. Similar dynamics played out in Phoenix, Charlotte, and Nashville.

Importantly, the NMHC's 2025 Apartment Market Conditions Survey found that 61% of multifamily operators in Sun Belt markets reported offering concessions — including free rent, reduced deposits, and gift cards — in Q4 2025, compared to just 18% of operators in Northeast and Midwest markets. This divergence underscores how geographic fragmentation has become the defining feature of the 2025–2026 rental market.

Gateway Cities: Still Structurally Undersupplied

New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle remain among the tightest rental markets in the country. In New York City, the 2024 New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey (HVS) — conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau on behalf of the NYC Department of Housing Preservation — reported an overall rental vacancy rate of just 1.4% for rent-stabilized units, while the overall rental vacancy rate in the five boroughs was reported at 1.9%. This is critically below the 5% threshold that New York State law defines as a "housing emergency," a designation that has been continuously in effect for decades.

Standout Statistic: New York City's rent-stabilized vacancy rate of 1.4% (2024 HVS) means there are fewer than 15 vacant rent-stabilized units available for every 1,000 renter households — a supply crisis that persistently drives renters toward unregulated market-rate units and pushes cost burdens upward.

Demographic Breakdowns: Who Feels Vacancy (and Affordability) Differently?

Income-Based Disparities

Vacancy rates and their benefits are not distributed equally across income groups. According to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies' "America's Rental Housing 2025" report, vacancy rates for units renting below $1,000 per month remain at or below 3.5% nationally, while units priced above $2,000 per month carry vacancy rates of 9.2% or higher. This bifurcation means that the surge in new luxury supply provides little relief to the approximately 11.6 million extremely low-income renter households — those earning at or below 30% of Area Median Income — who compete for a shrinking pool of affordable units.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC)'s 2025 "Gap" Report found that the U.S. has a shortage of 7.3 million affordable and available rental homes for extremely low-income renters. Despite an overall national vacancy rate trending higher, the supply crisis at the bottom of the market has barely changed.

Age Demographics

Young adults between ages 25 and 34 — historically the core renter demographic — remain the most active group in the rental market, comprising approximately 32% of all renters according to the 2024 American Community Survey. However, this cohort is increasingly experiencing affordability-driven delays in household formation. The Urban Institute's 2025 Housing Finance Policy Center Report found that the share of adults aged 25–34 living with parents or non-romantic roommates rose to 18.4% in 2024, up from 15.1% in 2019, partially suppressing demand and contributing to softness in mid-tier rental markets.

Older renters (ages 55 and above) now represent one of the fastest-growing renter cohorts. The Harvard JCHS estimates this group will add approximately 4.3 million new renter households between 2025 and 2035, primarily seeking smaller units in walkable urban neighborhoods — a demand profile that diverges significantly from the large-format luxury apartments dominating new supply pipelines.

Race and Ethnicity

Renting remains disproportionately concentrated among non-white households. The 2024 American Community Survey reports homeownership rates of 74.5% for white non-Hispanic households versus 45.9% for Black households, 48.6% for Hispanic households, and 62.1% for Asian households. By inverse logic, Black and Hispanic households are significantly more likely to be renters and are therefore more exposed to vacancy rate fluctuations, rent increases, and displacement risk.

The Eviction Lab at Princeton University reported that in 2024, Black renters faced eviction filing rates approximately 2.5 times higher than white renters nationally, despite the rise in overall vacancies — suggesting that even in a looser market, structural barriers prevent lower-income renters of color from benefiting fully from increased availability.

The New Construction Pipeline: What Comes Next?

The multifamily construction boom that drove vacancies higher is beginning to taper. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's Building Permits Survey, multifamily building permits — a leading indicator of future supply — fell to approximately 390,000 units on an annualized basis in late 2025, down from a peak of approximately 630,000 in mid-2022. Higher construction financing costs, persistent labor shortages, and tighter underwriting standards from commercial lenders have all contributed to a pullback in new project starts.

Analysts at Zillow Research project that new apartment deliveries will decline to approximately 480,000 units in 2026 and further to 380,000 in 2027, which — combined with ongoing household formation trends — could tighten vacancy rates modestly by 2027–2028 in most markets. However, CoStar Group cautions that even at 380,000 units, annual deliveries would remain above the 2010–2018 average of approximately 250,000 units per year, meaning the market is unlikely to return to the extreme tightness of 2021–2022.

The Relationship Between Vacancy Rates and Rent Growth

Apartment vacancy rates are one of the most reliable leading indicators of rent growth. Historical data from RealPage Analytics demonstrates that effective rent growth turns negative when national vacancy exceeds approximately 6.0% and accelerates when vacancies fall below 4.0%. The current rate of 6.8% aligns with the modest rent growth of +2.1% year-over-year reported by the Zillow Observed Rent Index in January 2026 — well below the +15.3% peak recorded in early 2022.

In high-vacancy Sun Belt markets, effective rents (net of concessions) have actually declined on a year-over-year basis. Apartment List's January 2026 Rent Report showed year-over-year effective rent declines of -4.2% in Austin, -3.1% in Phoenix, and -2.8% in Jacksonville. By contrast, New York City (+3.9%), Boston (+4.2%), and Chicago (+3.1%) continued to post above-average rent growth due to persistently low vacancies.

National Context: Despite the rise in overall vacancy rates, nearly 50% of all U.S. renter households remain cost-burdened — spending more than 30% of their gross income on housing — according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies' 2025 State of the Nation's Housing report. A national vacancy rate of 6.8% has not translated into broad affordability relief.

Section 8 / HCV Vacancy Dynamics

The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program — which serves approximately 5.4 million households according to HUD's 2025 annual data — faces a unique challenge in a rising-vacancy environment. While one might expect more landlords to accept vouchers as their units sit empty, HUD's 2025 Point-in-Time Study of Voucher Utilization found that the voucher utilization rate remained at only 81.3% — meaning roughly 1 in 5 households with a voucher was unable to find a landlord willing to participate within the voucher's payment standard window. Barriers include landlord reluctance to undergo HUD inspections, payment standard mismatches in expensive metros, and source-of-income discrimination in the approximately 38 states and D.C. where such discrimination is not explicitly prohibited under state law.

Implications for Landlords and Renters

For Independent Landlords

The rise in national vacancy rates fundamentally changes the calculus for independent rental property owners. Landlords who have grown accustomed to minimal vacancy loss and multiple competing applications per unit must now adapt to a more competitive landscape — particularly in Sun Belt markets where the supply surge has been most acute. Key strategic considerations include:

• Pricing to market: With effective rents declining in high-supply metros, landlords who price aggressively above market risk extended vacancies that can quickly erase any per-unit rent premium. RealPage Analytics estimates that a 60-day vacancy on a $1,800/month unit costs a landlord $3,600 in lost income — more than most concessions would cost.
• Tenant screening rigor: In looser markets, the temptation may be to lower screening standards to fill vacancies quickly. However, the Eviction Lab data consistently shows that tenant qualification remains the single most predictive factor in reducing mid-lease default risk.
• Leveraging technology for efficiency: Platforms like VerticalRent allow independent landlords to list vacancies, conduct background and credit checks, collect rent online, and manage lease documents from a single dashboard — reducing the administrative burden and time-to-lease that directly impacts vacancy costs.
• Concession strategy: In high-vacancy markets, offering structured concessions (e.g., one month free on a 13-month lease) rather than permanent rent reductions protects the long-term lease rate while remaining competitive.

For Renters

For renters — particularly those in Sun Belt and Mountain West markets — the current environment offers measurable negotiating leverage that hasn't been available since before the pandemic. Key takeaways include:

• Negotiate concessions: In markets with vacancy rates above 8–10%, renters can reasonably request one to two months of free rent, waived application fees, or upgraded amenities as part of lease negotiations.
• Shop comparable units: With more inventory available, renters should actively compare at least 3–5 comparable units before signing, using Zillow, Apartment List, and local listings to benchmark asking rents.
• Understand your rights: Even in a softer market, renters facing affordability challenges should familiarize themselves with local tenant protections. Resources like the NLIHC's renter resource database and HUD's local housing counseling agencies provide free guidance.
• Look beyond luxury: The bulk of new supply is at the upper end of the market. Renters seeking more affordable units should note that Class B and C properties in secondary locations may offer better value, though vacancies in affordable price bands remain limited.

For the Market at Large

The 2026 vacancy environment represents a transitional moment in the U.S. rental cycle. The supply wave that is creating short-term softness in Sun Belt markets is also — according to economic research from the Urban Institute (2025) — producing a measurable "filtering" effect, where higher-income renters occupy newer units and free up older, more affordable Class B and C stock for lower-income households. This filtering process takes time, but early evidence from Dallas, Atlanta, and Denver suggests it is beginning to occur.

Independent landlords who use data-driven tools — including platforms like VerticalRent for pricing benchmarking, tenant screening, and lease management — are better positioned to navigate the current cycle with minimal vacancy loss and stable cash flow. As the construction pipeline narrows through 2027, analysts broadly agree that vacancy rates will stabilize, setting the stage for a more balanced — if still expensive — national rental market.

Methodology and Sources

Data in this article is drawn from multiple primary and secondary sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau Housing Vacancy Survey (HVS), the 2024 American Community Survey (ACS) 1-Year Estimates, the 2024 New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey, RealPage Analytics Q1 2026 Multifamily Report, CoStar Group Q1 2026 Multifamily Market Analysis, Zillow Research and Zillow Observed Rent Index (January 2026), Apartment List National Rent Report (January 2026), Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies "America's Rental Housing 2025", NLIHC 2025 Gap Report, NMHC 2025 Apartment Market Conditions Survey, HUD 2025 Housing Choice Voucher Program Data, Eviction Lab Princeton University 2024 Annual Report, and the Urban Institute Housing Finance Policy Center 2025 Report. State-level vacancy estimates reflect a composite of ACS data and metro-level CoStar aggregations and should be interpreted as approximations rather than precise official measures, as comprehensive state-level apartment vacancy data from a single authoritative source is not published on an annual basis.