Breaking your California rental lease is not different than in any other state. Simply said, your lease is a legal contract that you had signed and should you decide to break it, then you’d have pay your landlord a lease break fee, as stated in your leasing agreement.   Is it smart to break your lease? Giving up and paying your landlord the lease break fee should be your absolute last resort.  Your landlord will probably advise you to find a qualified replacement tenant who’s wiling to take over the remaining months left on your lease.  If you do that, then you don’t have to go thru any lease break process and this will in fact be a very mutual and win-win situation for all three parties: you, new lessee taking over your short term lease and the landlord.  Landlord-tenant law in California If your landlord for any reason would be giving you some hard time regarding this whole process, i’d suggest you read up on the landlord-tenant California law where you can find a lot of beneficial information. It has all the detailed information about your security deposit, small claims court, California termination eviction laws, etc.