The Keep Massachusetts Home campaign collected 124,000 signatures, surpassing the threshold required for a rent control initiative to appear on the November 2026 ballot.

Now, ballot signatures must be certified by local election officials and at least 74,574 of them submitted to the Secretary of State’s office before Dec. 3.

If approved by voters, the rent cap would block yearly rent increases greater than 5% or the annual increase in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower.

“Over the past few months, thousands of renters and homeowners across the state stood outside grocery stores and shopping malls, spoke to neighbors at soccer games and school dropoffs and organized their communities to sign for rent control — because we believe that everyone in Massachusetts should be able to afford a place to call home,” said Rose Webster-Smith, director of the housing advocacy group Springfield No One Leaves. “Everywhere we went, we heard about how high rents are displacing workers and seniors from our communities, forcing people to work multiple jobs just to pay the rent and making it impossible for young families to save money to achieve the dream of owning a home.”

Massachusetts residents voted against rent control the last time it was on the ballot, in 1994, and a similar measure proposed by Boston Mayor Michelle Wu in 2023 failed to reach the ballot.