Subletting Clause
in Your Lease
What it actually means, what District of Columbia law says, what's specific to Washington - and exactly what to do. In plain English.
Quick Summary - What You Need to Know
- D.C. Code § 42-3505.55 opens by letting the lease shut the door: a housing provider may, "in its sole and absolute discretion", prohibit subletting or assigning a lease, either in part or in full, "provided, that the prohibition is included in the lease".
- Where the lease allows subletting subject to the provider's reasonable consent, or is silent about it, consent may be conditioned on your replacement meeting all of the provider's reasonable rental qualification guidelines, which the provider must furnish to you upon request.
- Those two sentences are the whole section. It has no subsections, and our District record read it in full without finding a reply deadline or any rule making silence a yes.
- The swap has a ceiling. § 42-3505.10(b)(4) caps a replacement fee at the amount permitted as an application fee, 14 DCMR § 4307.9 repeats it, and § 4307.4 makes the Rental Housing Commission publish that year's limit before February 1.
- In a rent-stabilized unit the sublet cannot be marked up: § 42-3502.06(a) provides that no tenant may sublet a rental unit at a rent greater than that tenant pays the housing provider.
Understanding the Subletting Clause
Subletting in Washington is settled by a District statute that points straight back at your lease. D.C. Code § 42-3505.55 lets a housing provider prohibit subletting or assigning outright, in part or in full, so long as the prohibition is included in the lease. Read that paragraph in your own lease before you read anything else here.
Where your lease allows subletting on reasonable consent, or says nothing at all, the second half of the same section takes over: the provider may test your replacement against its reasonable rental qualification guidelines, and must furnish them to you on request. What the section never does is name a date by which the answer has to arrive. Open the current text of the sections below before you act on any of this.
What renters assume
A tidy rule circulates in rental guidance written for the Washington area: your housing provider has 10 days to answer a sublet request, and if nobody answers, silence counts as consent. It is an easy rule to plan around, and the counting starts the day the email goes out.
What is actually true
Our District record read D.C. Code § 42-3505.55 in full and it contains no such rule. The 10 days that does exist is § 42-3505.10(g)(2), repeated at 14 DCMR § 4307.15, and it is the provider's deadline to answer a prospective tenant who disputes the basis of an adverse action on a rental application. Same number, different question, and no deemed consent in either section.
Count the rows before reading anything into them. Sixteen cities sit on that chart and one of them carries a number: New York City, where a landlord must answer within 30 days. Eleven rows are labelled no statute: Austin, Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta, Phoenix, Denver, Miami, Nashville, Philadelphia, Boston and Las Vegas. Three rows read no deadline: Chicago, Portland and Washington.
Washington's is the one label on that chart that names what fills the gap, and the reason is worth a second look. The District did not leave this question alone. The Council wrote D.C. Code § 42-3505.55, a section whose entire subject is subletting and assignment, and what it says is that a housing provider may prohibit both outright, provided the prohibition is included in the lease. Our District record read the section in full: what it withholds is a clock, not a rule. The empty bar on Washington's row is therefore the shape of a decision the Council made, and the document that decision sends you to is the one already in your hands.
Plain English Version
The District put its answer to this question in writing, and the answer is that your lease gets to decide. Read your sublet paragraph first. If it bans subletting, § 42-3505.55 stands behind that ban so long as the ban is in the document; if it allows subletting on reasonable consent, or says nothing at all, the same section lets your housing provider screen your replacement against qualification guidelines it has to show you when you ask.
District of Columbia Law on Subletting Clause
- D.C. Code § 42-3505.55 opens by letting the lease shut the door: "A housing provider may, in its sole and absolute discretion, prohibit subletting of the premise or assigning a lease, either in part or in full; provided, that the prohibition is included in the lease." The discretion is tied to that proviso - the prohibition has to be in the lease.
- The same section's second sentence carries the only consent standard the District writes: "Where the lease provision allows subletting subject to the housing provider's reasonable consent or where the lease is silent regarding subletting, the housing provider may condition its consent on the prospective subtenant meeting all of the housing provider's reasonable rental qualification guidelines; provided, that the housing provider furnishes the guidelines to the tenant upon request." Those two sentences are the entire section - it has no subsections, and it names no number of days for the housing provider's answer.
- The fee for the swap is capped. D.C. Code § 42-3505.10(b)(4): "When a housing provider permits a tenant to find a replacement tenant, assign the lease, or sublet, a housing provider may require the outgoing tenant to pay a replacement fee, which shall not exceed the amount permitted as an application fee under this subsection." The regulation repeats it at 14 DCMR § 4307.9 and supplies the arithmetic: § 4307.5 sets the application fee limit at fifty dollars multiplied by the CPI-U for the calendar year preceding the application divided by the 2022 CPI-U of 295.792, and § 4307.4 makes the Rental Housing Commission publish that year's limit before February 1.
- A sublet cannot be marked up in a rent-stabilized unit. The last sentence of D.C. Code § 42-3502.06(a): "No tenant may sublet a rental unit at a rent greater than that tenant pays the housing provider." That sentence sits in the Rent Stabilization Program subchapter, and § 42-3502.05(a) exempts listed units - among them a rental unit in a housing accommodation newly constructed under a building permit issued after December 31, 1975, and a housing accommodation of 4 or fewer rental units whose provider has filed a claim of exemption - from "§§ 42-3502.06 through 42-3502.16", so the markup bar does not reach an exempt unit.
D.C. Code § 42-3505.55; D.C. Code § 42-3505.10(b)(4); D.C. Code § 42-3502.06(a); 14 DCMR § 4307.9 - statutes change; verify the current text for your situation.
The District writes this clause into the Rental Housing Act itself. D.C. Code § 42-3505.55 opens by letting the lease shut the door: "A housing provider may, in its sole and absolute discretion, prohibit subletting of the premise or assigning a lease, either in part or in full; provided, that the prohibition is included in the lease." The discretion and the proviso travel together. A ban that is nowhere in your lease is not a ban that sentence hands your provider.
The second sentence is where a renter with a silent or permissive lease lives. Where the lease allows subletting subject to the provider's reasonable consent, or where the lease is silent about subletting, the provider "may condition its consent on the prospective subtenant meeting all of the housing provider's reasonable rental qualification guidelines; provided, that the housing provider furnishes the guidelines to the tenant upon request." That second proviso is the useful half for you. Until the guidelines are in your hands you are being measured against a standard you cannot read.
Those two sentences are the entire section. It carries no subsections, and our District record read it in full: it names no number of days for the housing provider's answer and no consequence for silence. The clock, if you have one, is a term of your contract.
The price of the swap does have a ceiling, and it is written down twice. D.C. Code § 42-3505.10(b)(4) provides that when a housing provider permits a tenant to find a replacement tenant, assign the lease, or sublet, it may require the outgoing tenant to pay a replacement fee "which shall not exceed the amount permitted as an application fee under this subsection". 14 DCMR § 4307.9 repeats the cap and 14 DCMR § 4307.5 supplies the arithmetic: fifty dollars multiplied by the CPI-U for the calendar year preceding the application, divided by the 2022 CPI-U of 295.792. You do not have to run that yourself. 14 DCMR § 4307.4 makes the Rental Housing Commission publish the year's limit before February 1, so the figure your provider names is one you can check against a published number.
One further sentence reaches the money, and it sits in the rent stabilization subchapter rather than in the sublet section. The last sentence of D.C. Code § 42-3502.06(a) reads: "No tenant may sublet a rental unit at a rent greater than that tenant pays the housing provider." Work out whether it reaches your building before you rely on it either way. § 42-3502.05(a) exempts listed units from "§§ 42-3502.06 through 42-3502.16", and that list includes a rental unit in a housing accommodation newly constructed under a building permit issued after December 31, 1975, and a housing accommodation of 4 or fewer rental units whose provider has filed a claim of exemption. The markup bar does not reach an exempt unit.
District of Columbia Tenant Protections
The protections a Washington renter has on this clause are written down, and each one is a sentence you can point at. D.C. Code § 42-3505.55 ties a housing provider's sole and absolute discretion to a proviso: the prohibition on subletting or assignment has to be included in the lease, so the lease is where that ban has to be shown to you.
The same section carries a duty that runs the other way as well, because where your lease allows subletting on reasonable consent or is silent, consent may be conditioned on your replacement meeting all of the provider's reasonable rental qualification guidelines only where the provider furnishes those guidelines to you upon request.
The fee has a ceiling with arithmetic behind it: D.C. Code § 42-3505.10(b)(4) caps a replacement fee at the amount permitted as an application fee, 14 DCMR § 4307.9 repeats the cap, 14 DCMR § 4307.5 sets the application fee limit at fifty dollars multiplied by the CPI-U for the calendar year preceding the application divided by the 2022 CPI-U of 295.792, and 14 DCMR § 4307.4 requires the Rental Housing Commission to publish that year's limit before February 1. In a rent-stabilized unit, § 42-3502.06(a) adds that no tenant may sublet at a rent greater than that tenant pays the housing provider, subject to the units that § 42-3502.05(a) exempts.
Read the current text of those Code sections and of 14 DCMR § 4307 before relying on any of them.
What's Specific to Washington
Figures are the state rule, or the stronger city ordinance where one exists. Verify the current law for your own situation before relying on it.
Washington is not a city sitting inside a state, so this page has no second layer to add on top of the first. The Council of the District of Columbia wrote D.C. Code § 42-3505.55, the Rental Housing Commission wrote 14 DCMR § 4307 under the same Act, and District agencies enforce both. There is no state legislature above the city and no county in between, and no separate municipal ordinance to look up once you have read the Code section.
Being in the Code is not the same as being in force, and the District marks that difference in the text itself, which is worth knowing before you rely on any section here. § 42-3505.55 was added by D.C. Law 21-210 effective February 18, 2017, and the Council's page for it carries no applicability or funding caveat. Two subsections of § 42-3505.10, (b-3) and (b-4), read "Not Funded" - and the replacement-fee cap at (b)(4) is not one of those two. So the sublet rule and the fee cap above are both operative text, and the Code itself is where that status is marked.
A short sublet runs into a separate gate that has nothing to do with your sublet clause. D.C. Code § 30-201.02(d) requires that "The property at which the short-term rental is located shall be the host's primary residence", and the definition chain is the part that decides it for a renter. § 30-201.01(4) defines primary residence as property "eligible for the homestead deduction pursuant to § 47-850", and § 47-849(2)(A) builds "homestead" on a residence "owned in whole or in part by the individual". The routes through that definition which do not run on ownership are narrow and named: a special needs trust, a cooperative shareholder or member, and, under § 47-850(i), an occupant holding a land lease from a community land trust. Our District record carries no day count for what makes a stay short-term, so do not assume a threshold you have not read.
Here is exactly what our District record read, so you can see the edges of it. On code.dccouncil.gov: §§ 42-3505.55, 42-3505.10, 42-3502.06, 42-3502.05, 42-3501.03, 30-201.01, 30-201.02, 30-201.06, 47-802, 47-849 and 47-850, plus the chapter index of Chapter 35 and the section index of Subchapter V-B. On dcregs.dc.gov: the Office of Documents' own text of 14 DCMR § 4307, effective 10/10/2025, plus the official chapter index of Title 14 and the section indexes of Chapters 3, 41, 42 and 43. Those last are indexes rather than every section body, so a rule tucked into a section whose heading gives no hint of it has not been ruled out.
§ 42-3505.55 ties a provider's sole and absolute discretion to a proviso: the prohibition has to be included in the lease. Find the paragraph before you accept a no.
Our District record read § 42-3505.55 in full and it fixes no number of days, so any reply window you have was written by your landlord's drafter and not by the Council.
The statute backs that clause rather than softening it, so the moment to argue is before you sign. § 42-3505.55 lets a provider prohibit both, in part or in full.
§ 42-3505.10(b)(4) caps it at the application fee limit, which 14 DCMR § 4307.4 has the Rental Housing Commission publish before February 1. Ask for that figure.
Sources
The law this guide relies on, and where to read it. Statutes change, so confirm the current text before you act on it.
- D.C. Code § 42-3505.55; D.C. Code § 42-3505.10(b)(4); D.C. Code § 42-3502.06(a); 14 DCMR § 4307.9 on code.dccouncil.gov, District of Columbia's own publication of its statutes.
Red Flags to Watch Out For
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A sublet ban you cannot find in the lease
§ 42-3505.55 gives the provider sole and absolute discretion to prohibit subletting, provided the prohibition is included in the lease. A ban delivered at the counter is not a ban in the document.
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Qualification standards nobody will show you
Where consent is conditioned on the provider's reasonable rental qualification guidelines, § 42-3505.55 requires those guidelines to be furnished to the tenant upon request. Being screened against an unseen standard is the wrong end of that sentence.
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A replacement fee with no number attached
§ 42-3505.10(b)(4) caps the fee at the amount permitted as an application fee, and 14 DCMR § 4307.5 is the arithmetic behind that amount. An open-ended administrative charge sits outside a cap that has a published figure.
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A promised answer with no date on it
Our District record read § 42-3505.55 in full and found no day count and no rule making silence a yes. A clause that promises a decision but names no date gives your provider a window with no far edge.
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Wording that prices the sublet above your rent
§ 42-3502.06(a) provides that no tenant may sublet a rental unit at a rent greater than that tenant pays the housing provider. Check § 42-3502.05(a) for whether your unit is exempt before treating that sentence as settled either way.
Your Rights as a Washington Tenant
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The ban has to be in your lease
§ 42-3505.55 conditions the provider's sole and absolute discretion on a proviso: "that the prohibition is included in the lease". The document is where a refusal has to come from.
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You can ask for the qualification guidelines
Where your lease allows subletting on reasonable consent or is silent, § 42-3505.55 lets consent be conditioned on the guidelines only where the provider furnishes them to you upon request.
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The replacement fee has a published ceiling
§ 42-3505.10(b)(4) caps it at the application fee limit and 14 DCMR § 4307.4 requires the Rental Housing Commission to publish that limit before February 1, so the number is checkable.
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A rent-stabilized sublet cannot be marked up
§ 42-3502.06(a): no tenant may sublet at a rent greater than that tenant pays the housing provider. § 42-3502.05(a) exempts listed units from that subchapter, so check your building first.
What To Do - Step by Step
Read your sublet paragraph first
The District's statute defers to it. Find whether consent is required, whether assignment is banned too, and what the swap is priced at, because § 42-3505.55 sends you straight back to that text.
Check that any ban is actually in the document
§ 42-3505.55 makes the prohibition effective "provided, that the prohibition is included in the lease". If the paragraph is silent, you are in the second sentence of the section, not the first.
Ask for the rental qualification guidelines in writing
The provider must furnish them upon request. Get them before you go looking for a replacement, so you screen against the same standard your provider will.
Put your own date on the request, and drop the 10-day rule
Our District record fixes no deadline in § 42-3505.55. The 10 days in § 42-3505.10(g)(2) answers a rental applicant disputing an adverse action, not your sublet request.
Get the published fee limit before you agree to a number
14 DCMR § 4307.4 has the Rental Housing Commission publish that year's application fee limit before February 1, and § 42-3505.10(b)(4) caps your replacement fee at it.
Work out whether rent stabilization reaches you, then read the current text
§ 42-3502.05(a) exempts listed units, among them a post-December 31, 1975 building and a provider of 4 or fewer units who has filed a claim of exemption. Confirm the current text of these sections and of 14 DCMR § 4307 before relying on them.