Amends the residential landlord and tenant act to prohibit the use of algorithmic renting-setting software that relies on nonpublic competitor data to determine rental prices or occupancy levels for residential dwelling units in Rhode Island.

## Summary of Rhode Island Bill: Banning Algorithmic Rent-Setting Software

This bill would have changed Rhode Island's residential landlord and tenant law to ban landlords and property managers from using certain types of computer software to set rental prices. Specifically, it targeted algorithmic pricing tools that use private, nonpublic data from competing landlords and rental properties to recommend what rent to charge or what occupancy levels to aim for. These software programs work by gathering confidential pricing and vacancy information from multiple landlords in a market and then using that shared data to suggest rental prices — a practice that critics argue can drive rents up artificially by functioning similarly to price-fixing among competitors.

The bill would have affected residential landlords, property management companies, and tenants across Rhode Island. For landlords and property managers, it would have meant they could no longer rely on these data-driven pricing tools that draw on competitors' private information when deciding how much to charge for apartments and rental homes. For tenants, the goal was to protect them from potentially inflated rents that could result when landlords collectively feed their data into the same software system, which then recommends higher prices across the board.

It is worth noting that this bill was ultimately withdrawn at the sponsor's request in March 2026, meaning it did not become law. It had been introduced and referred to the House Judiciary Committee, where a hearing was scheduled, but the sponsor pulled the bill before it advanced further in the legislative process.