Security of tenure is a precondition for livelihood security of urban poor and low-income residents and often determines access to basic urban services and housing. Existing forms of tenure types or arrangements are mostly based on formal or legal recognition. Traditionally, tenure security has been often viewed from de jure rather than de facto constructs. However, some recent studies and global perceptions suggest a more nuanced approach emphasizing the need to conceptualize tenure security using perceived or subjective factors and also to look beyond the formalization of property rights. Sustainable development goals also recognize perceived rights to land as secure. In view of this, the paper aims to conceptualize perceived tenure security through a combination of identified factors. For this purpose, various concepts and best practices for perceived tenure security were reviewed. Further, the paper develops a conceptual framework ‘PST Pyramid of Influence’ based on the identified factors for assessing the perceived tenure security to the urban poor.