Free Idaho Residential Lease Agreement

▶ Watch walk-through

A configurable Idaho residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to Idaho Code 6-321, the tenant’s action at 6-320, and the renumbered rent and fee sections at 55-304 and 55-305.

Idaho Idaho Code 6-321 No Deposit Cap Free PDF 2026 Edition

An Idaho residential lease agreement is not governed by a landlord-tenant act, because Idaho does not have one. Idaho never adopted the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, and the rules that do exist are scattered across three chapters: Idaho Code Title 6, chapter 3, which is the eviction chapter and also happens to contain the security deposit rule at 6-321, the tenant’s repair action at 6-320, treble damages at 6-317 and attorney fees at 6-324; and Title 55, chapters 2 and 3, which supply the one-month notice to end a periodic tenancy at 55-208, the rent-increase notice at 55-304 and the limit on fees at 55-305. Three facts drive this page. Idaho sets no deposit cap but deems every non-rent payment a deposit. Idaho has no landlord-entry statute for a dwelling. And Idaho has no abandoned-property statute for a dwelling either. Where the statute is silent, the lease is the whole of the law.

Complete the fields below to generate an Idaho residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, and the generated lease cites the controlling Idaho section at each point — including the two provisions that exist only because the lease creates them. Before handing over keys, run proper tenant screening. Pair the signed lease with an Idaho move-in / move-out checklist, which matters more here than in most states: with a statutory bar on deducting for normal wear and tear and a statutory definition of what that means, a dated condition record is what makes a deduction defensible.

Three chapters, none of them called a landlord-tenant act. Idaho is one of a small group of states that never adopted the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, and unlike most of them it did not write a replacement. What it has instead is a set of provisions added to existing chapters over about fifty years, which is why an Idaho lease question so often has an answer in an unexpected place.

Idaho Code Title 6, chapter 3 is headed Forcible Entry and Unlawful Detainer. It is the eviction chapter — and it is also where the security deposit rule lives, at 6-321. The tenant’s action for repairs is at 6-320, service of the tenant’s notice at 6-323, the treble-damages provision at 6-317, the attorney-fee provision at 6-324, the definition of unlawful detainer at 6-303, service of the landlord’s notice at 6-304, and the judgment and restitution rules at 6-316. Two recent additions sit in the same chapter: 6-303A, which shields dismissed eviction records, and 6-310A, a 2025 remedy against unauthorised occupants.

Idaho Code Title 55, chapter 2 supplies the two sections that end a periodic tenancy: 55-208, termination of a tenancy at will, and 55-209, which bars the landlord from reentering before the notice period runs out. Title 55, chapter 3 holds the money rules — 55-304 for a change of terms or a rent increase, 55-305 for the limit on fees, 55-306 for the 2025 preemption of local rent, fee and deposit ordinances, and 55-307 for a tenant’s right to remove fixtures. Title 55, chapter 20 is the Manufactured Home Residency Act, a genuinely separate regime for rented lots that includes the only entry provision in Idaho law, at 55-2007(3)(e).

Outside those chapters, three sections still matter to a lease: 9-505, the statute of frauds, which requires a lease longer than one year to be in writing; 28-22-105, which sets what may be charged on a dishonoured check; and 6-2606, part of the Clandestine Drug Laboratory Cleanup Act, which obliges an owner to clean a contaminated property and keep it vacant until certified, though it imposes no tenant disclosure. Our Idaho landlord-tenant laws guide maps the whole set.

No. Idaho sets no maximum at all. Idaho Code 6-321 contains no cap, and since 2025 no Idaho city can supply one either: Idaho Code 55-306 bars a local governmental unit from enacting, maintaining or enforcing an ordinance or resolution that would otherwise regulate rent, fees or deposits charged for leasing private residential property. Guidance that tells an Idaho landlord to check the local ordinance for a deposit limit is describing a possibility the legislature closed.

What constrains the number is the market and the reasonableness standard in Idaho Code 55-305, which applies to any fee imposed on a residential tenant. In practice most Idaho landlords take one month’s rent, and a deposit far out of line with the rent invites the argument that it is a disguised penalty rather than security. But there is no figure in the statute to point at, and any page telling you Idaho caps deposits at one month is inventing it. See our Idaho security deposit laws guide.

Not in the way most Idaho templates assume. This is the single most consequential sentence in Idaho deposit law, and it is the first sentence of the section: amounts deposited by a tenant with a landlord for any purpose other than the payment of rent shall be deemed security deposits (Idaho Code 6-321(1)).

Read it carefully. It does not say a landlord may not charge a move-in fee. It says the label does not matter. Call it a nonrefundable cleaning fee, an administration fee, a pet fee, a redecoration charge or a key deposit — if it is not rent, Idaho deems it a security deposit, and the rest of the section then applies to it. On termination and surrender, all amounts held by the landlord as a security deposit shall be refunded to the tenant, except amounts necessary to cover the contingencies specified in the deposit arrangement.

So the operative question in Idaho is not whether a fee is labelled nonrefundable. It is whether the deposit arrangement specifies the contingency that the retention covers. A lease that names cleaning as a contingency the deposit secures, and a landlord who then actually incurs a cleaning cost beyond normal wear and tear, is on solid ground. A lease that simply prints the words “nonrefundable cleaning fee” and names no contingency has, on the face of 6-321(1), taken a security deposit and given itself no basis to keep it. That is why the form above asks you to list the contingencies, and why the generated lease prints them as the deposit arrangement.

Twenty-one days if no time is fixed by agreement, and in any event within thirty days after surrender. Idaho Code 6-321(2) sets both numbers, and almost every summary of Idaho law reports only the first. The consequence of reading the whole subsection is a drafting choice: a lease that fixes a period gets that period, up to a ceiling of thirty days; a lease that is silent gets twenty-one.

The itemization requirement is stricter than most states and is worth quoting: any refunds in an amount less than the full amount deposited by the tenant shall be accompanied by a signed statement itemizing the amounts lawfully retained by the landlord, the purpose for the amounts retained, and a detailed list of expenditures made from the deposit. Three separate things are required — the amounts, the purpose of each, and a detailed list of what was actually spent — and the statement must be signed. A one-line note saying “cleaning and repairs” satisfies none of the three. Build it with our Idaho security deposit itemization form, and send the balance with an Idaho security deposit return letter.

Two more limbs of the section deserve attention. Under 6-321(1) the landlord shall not retain any part of a security deposit to cover normal wear and tear, and Idaho defines the term rather than leaving it to argument: deterioration that occurs based upon the use for which the rental unit is intended, and without negligence, carelessness, accident, or misuse or abuse of the premises or contents by the tenant, members of the household, or their invitees or guests. And under 6-321(3), if the property changes ownership during a tenancy, the new owner is liable for refund of the deposit — a buyer who does not collect the deposits at closing has bought the liability without the money.

Third-party managers, since 2021, and no ranking Idaho template mentions it. Idaho Code 6-321(4) provides that a security deposit for a residential rental premises managed by a third-party manager of a landlord shall be maintained in a separate account at a federally insured financial institution, and that the account shall be maintained separate from the third-party agent’s operating account.

The exemptions are equally specific and are the reason most small Idaho landlords are outside the rule. The requirement does not apply to a property owner; to managers who have common members or principals of the property owner entity; to a real estate licensee; or to a nonprofit business organization established under chapter 30, title 30, Idaho Code. An owner who manages personally is exempt. A management company that is not a licensee and shares no principals with the owner is not. The form above records which situation applies, so the lease states it on its face.

Serve a three-day notice, then sue under Idaho Code 6-320. Idaho has no codified warranty of habitability and no statutory list of landlord duties. What it has is a cause of action, and the section lists the six grounds on which it may be brought:

• Failure to provide reasonable waterproofing and weather protection of the premises.
• Failure to maintain in good working order electrical, plumbing, heating, ventilating, cooling or sanitary facilities supplied by the landlord.
• Maintaining the premises in a manner hazardous to the health or safety of the tenant.
• Failure to return a security deposit as and when required by law.
• Breach of any term of the lease materially affecting the health and safety of the tenant.
• Failure to install approved smoke detectors in each dwelling unit under the landlord’s control.

The fourth ground is the one landlords underestimate. A deposit dispute in Idaho is not a small-claims argument about a hundred dollars of carpet cleaning; it is a 6-320 action, and 6-320 actions carry the multiplier described below.

The procedural precondition is absolute and is where most tenant claims fail. Under Idaho Code 6-320(d), before a tenant shall have standing to file an action under this section, he must give his landlord three (3) days written notice, listing each failure or breach upon which his action will be premised and written demand requiring performance or cure. Only if a listed failure has not been performed or cured within three days after service may the action be commenced. The notice must list each failure — a general complaint about the condition of the unit does not support a claim about a specific defect that was never listed.

Service of that notice is governed by Idaho Code 6-323: personally on the landlord or the landlord’s agent; or, if the landlord or agent is absent from the usual place of business, by leaving a copy with an employee there; or by United States Postal Service certified mail, return receipt requested. The certified-mail route is the one that produces a receipt, and a receipt is what fixes the start of the three days. One exclusion applies: under 6-320(e) the section does not reach tracts of land of five acres or more used for agricultural purposes. Our Idaho habitability laws guide covers the grounds in more detail.

No, with exactly one exception. Idaho gives a residential tenant no general repair-and-deduct right and no general right to withhold rent while a defect goes unrepaired. Several ranking pages describe an Idaho repair-and-deduct remedy; what they are describing is the smoke-detector provision in 6-320(a)(6), which is narrow and procedural, generalised into something Idaho law does not contain.

The practical consequence is severe and worth stating plainly for tenants. A tenant who stops paying rent to force a repair is in default under Idaho Code 6-303(2), and the landlord may serve a three-day notice to pay or quit. The unrepaired defect is not a defence to that notice. The correct sequence is the opposite one: keep paying, serve the 6-320(d) three-day notice, and sue if the failure is not cured. Under 6-320(c) the court may award damages, order specific performance of the obligation, and award costs and disbursements.

Then comes the part the SERP omits entirely. Idaho Code 6-317 provides that where a landlord or tenant recovers damages for a forcible or unlawful entry or detention, or for an action brought pursuant to section 6-320, judgment may be entered for three times the amount at which the actual damages are assessed. Because failure to return a deposit as and when required by law is itself a 6-320 ground, an Idaho deposit that is returned late, or returned short without the signed itemization, carries treble exposure. That is the enforcement mechanism Idaho chose instead of the per-violation penalties other states write into a deposit statute, and it is why Idaho’s thin deposit rule is not a toothless one.

Installation, verification at move-in, tenant maintenance, and a seventy-two-hour deduction remedy. Idaho Code 6-320(a)(6) is the most detailed landlord duty in Idaho law and the only place the statute authorises a tenant to take money off the rent.

The landlord must install approved smoke detectors in each dwelling unit, including mobile homes, under the landlord’s control. Upon commencement of a rental agreement, the landlord shall verify that smoke detectors have been installed and are in good working order in the dwelling unit. The tenant must then maintain them in good working order during the rental period. An approved detector is defined: a battery-operated device capable of detecting visible or invisible particles of combustion, bearing a label or other identification issued by an approved testing agency having a service for inspection of materials and workmanship at the factory during fabrication and assembly.

If the landlord or the landlord’s assignee fails to install working detectors, the tenant may send written notice by certified mail, return receipt requested, stating that if working smoke detectors are not installed within seventy-two hours of receipt of the letter, the tenant may install them and deduct the cost from the next month’s rent. Detectors bought by the tenant and deducted from rent become the landlord’s property and may not be removed from the premises when the tenant leaves.

One absence is worth recording, because a national template will get it wrong in both directions. Idaho Code 6-320(a)(6) names smoke detectors only. There is no Idaho statute requiring a carbon monoxide alarm in a residential rental. A landlord who supplies one does so voluntarily; a lease that promises one has created a contractual duty that Idaho law did not impose.

None by statute — and the citation you will see quoted for the contrary does not exist. There is no landlord access or entry section anywhere in Idaho Code Title 6, chapter 3, or in Title 55, chapters 2 and 3. We read the section lists of all three chapters to confirm it rather than inferring it from silence.

What makes Idaho different from the other silent states is the confidence with which the gap gets filled by secondary sources. Several summaries, including AI-generated answers, state that Idaho Code 55-2204 governs a landlord’s right of entry. There is no section 55-2204. Title 55, chapter 22 is the Underground Facilities Damage Prevention act, and its numbering runs from 55-2203 straight to 55-2205. A rule about digging near buried utilities has been repeated into existence as a rule about entering apartments.

The one entry provision that genuinely exists in Idaho law is Idaho Code 55-2007(3)(e), an implicit term of a rental agreement under the Manufactured Home Residency Act: the landlord has the right of entry upon the lot for maintenance of utilities, protection of the community and periodic inspection, but shall not, except in an emergency or on suspected abandonment, otherwise have the right of entry to the lot without the resident’s consent. It applies to a rented lot in a manufactured home community. It does not reach a house or an apartment, and it does not set a notice period even where it does apply.

So in Idaho, any notice a tenant receives before entry exists only because the lease created it. A lease silent on entry leaves the question to general property principles and to whatever the parties can argue afterwards, which serves neither side. The form above therefore asks you to choose a notice period, and the generated lease creates it as an enforceable contractual term with an emergency exception — and note the sting in the tail: once the term is in the lease, a breach of it that materially affects the tenant’s health and safety becomes a ground under 6-320(a)(5). See Idaho landlord entry laws, and document each visit with a dated Idaho notice to enter form.

Whatever the lease says, because Idaho has no abandoned-property statute for a dwelling. This is the second gap, and it is less well known than the entry gap because guidance tends to paper over it with a number that sounds statutory. There is no Idaho notice period, no storage duty, no valuation threshold and no sale procedure for the belongings a residential tenant leaves in a house or apartment.

Two provisions come close without covering the case. Idaho Code 6-316(2) operates only after a judgment for possession: a residential tenant then has seventy-two hours to remove and vacate, and after that period plus three days the sheriff restores possession and may remove any remaining property of the tenant without further compensation, with the court able to award the landlord reasonable removal costs on a finding of good cause. Idaho Code 55-2009A and the sections following it set out a detailed abandonment, lien and sale procedure — for a manufactured home in a park, not for a tenant’s furniture in a rented duplex.

Between those two lies the ordinary case: the tenant hands back the keys and leaves half the garage behind. Idaho fixes nothing about it. The lease therefore has to, which is why the form above asks for a collection period and the generated lease sets out a notice-and-collection procedure, ties the cost of removal and storage to the deposit contingencies, and states the post-judgment sequence separately so the two are not confused.

Thirty days for residential property — and that is a 2024 change most coverage has not caught up with. Idaho Code 55-304 sets two different periods for two different things, and conflating them is the most common error on the Idaho SERP.

Under 55-304(1), in a lease from month to month the landlord may change the terms of the lease on written notice given at least fifteen days before the expiration of the month, to take effect at the expiration of the month. The subsection also carries an unusual self-executing effect: the notice, when served, of itself operates and be effectual to create and establish, as a part of the lease, the terms, rent and conditions specified in the notice if the tenant continues to hold the premises after the month expires. Holding over is acceptance.

Under 55-304(2), added in 2024, that fifteen-day rule is overridden for residential property: the landlord shall provide the tenant written notice of any increase in the amount of rent charged, or of the landlord’s intention of nonrenewal of the lease, at least thirty days before the nonrenewal, or before the increase is intended to take effect. Note that the thirty-day rule covers non-renewal as well as rent, and that it is not limited on its face to month-to-month tenancies.

And note the number again: this section is 55-304, not 55-307. It was renumbered by 2025 Idaho Session Laws chapter 65, and 55-307 is now the fixtures section. Serve the increase with an Idaho rent increase notice, or end the tenancy with an Idaho notice of non-renewal; our Idaho rent increase laws guide covers the sequence.

Reasonable ones, written into the lease. Idaho Code 55-305 — renumbered from 55-314 by the same 2025 act — is a short section that does a lot of work, and it took effect for rental agreements entered into or renewed on or after July 1, 2023.

Subsection (1) is the standard: any fees imposed on a residential tenant, including fees for the late payment of rent, shall be reasonable. There is no fixed cap and no statutory grace period, so a fee is defensible if it bears a sensible relationship to the landlord’s actual loss and indefensible if it looks like a penalty.

Subsection (2) is the trap. An owner may not charge a residential tenant a fee, fine, assessment, interest or other cost in an amount greater than that agreed upon in the rental agreement, or that is not included in the rental agreement at all — unless the rental agreement is oral, or the agreement is written and the owner provides the tenant a written thirty day notice of the change. A written lease that omits a fee is a lease that cannot charge it today; the landlord has to give thirty days notice first. Subsection (4) closes with a clarification that nothing in the section limits the amount that can be charged for rent, which is Idaho drawing a firm line between rent and everything else — the same line 6-321(1) draws for deposits.

Separately, Idaho Code 28-22-105 governs a dishonoured check: interest at 12% per annum from the date of dishonour, plus a cost of collection not exceeding twenty dollars or the face amount of the check, whichever is less; or a set fee not exceeding twenty dollars where a written agreement or a posted notice gave notice of the charge. Our Idaho late fee laws guide covers the drafting, and an Idaho late rent notice documents the demand.

With one month’s written notice, and the rule binds the tenant too. Idaho Code 55-208 provides that a tenancy or other estate at will, however created, may be terminated by the landlord giving notice in writing to the tenant, in the manner prescribed by the code of civil procedure, to remove from the premises within a period of not less than one month specified in the notice; or by the tenant giving notice in writing to the landlord that the tenant will be vacating on a date specified in the notice, but not less than one month from the date of notice.

Two features are easy to miss. First, Idaho states the period in months, not days, so on a short month a thirty-day notice can fall short of one month. Second, subsection (2) — added in 2002 — imposes the same one-month obligation on the tenant. A tenant who gives two weeks notice on a month-to-month tenancy in Idaho has not complied with 55-208.

Idaho Code 55-209 supplies the discipline: after such notice has been served, and the period specified by such notice has expired, but not before, the landlord may reenter, or proceed according to law to recover possession. A landlord who files an unlawful detainer action before the month runs has filed too early. Serve it with an Idaho tenant notice to vacate; see Idaho lease termination laws and our Idaho breaking-lease guide.

Three days, in writing, under Idaho Code 6-303 — but which three-day notice depends on the ground. The section defines unlawful detainer by a tenant for a term less than life, and the grounds are worth separating because only one of them is curable:

• Holdover. Continuing in possession after the term expires without the landlord’s permission. For a tenancy at will the 55-208 notice must have terminated it first.
• Nonpayment of rent — 6-303(2). Continuing in possession after default in payment of rent and three days written notice requiring its payment. Use an Idaho 3-day notice to pay rent or quit.
• Breach of another covenant — 6-303(3). Neglect or failure to perform other conditions or covenants of the lease, after three days written notice requiring performance. The tenant may cure within those three days and save the lease. Use an Idaho notice to cure or quit.
• Assignment, subletting or waste — 6-303(4). Doing any of those contrary to the covenants of the lease terminates the lease, and the landlord may recover possession after three days notice to quit. This one is not curable; an Idaho unconditional quit notice is the right instrument.
• Controlled substances — 6-303(5). Where any person is, or has been, engaged in the unlawful delivery, production or use of a controlled substance on the premises during the term.

Service is governed by Idaho Code 6-304 and has three tiers, in order. Deliver a copy to the tenant personally. Or, if the tenant is absent from both the place of residence and the usual place of business, leave a copy with a person of suitable age and discretion at either place and send a copy through the mail addressed to the tenant at the place of residence. Or, if neither place can be ascertained and no such person can be found, affix a copy in a conspicuous place on the property, deliver a copy to a person residing there if one can be found, and send a copy through the mail addressed to the tenant at the place where the property is situated. Posting alone is never enough; the mailed copy is part of the service. See Idaho eviction notice laws.

The losing party — by statute, not by lease clause, and only if the notice said so. Idaho Code 6-324 is short and consequential: in any action brought under the provisions of this chapter, except in those cases where treble damages are awarded, the prevailing party shall be entitled to an award of attorney fees.

Two qualifications sit on the face of it. The first is the treble-damages carve-out: where the court awards three times actual damages under 6-317, the fee entitlement does not apply, so a tenant who wins big on a 6-320 claim trades the fee award for the multiplier. The second is the one that costs landlords real money: for attorney fees to be awarded in cases requiring the three (3) days’ notice as set forth in section 6-303 2., Idaho Code, it shall be necessary that the three (3) days’ notice advise the tenant that attorney fees shall be awarded to the prevailing party.

In other words, a pay-or-quit notice that omits that single sentence forfeits the fee award in the resulting case, no matter what the lease says. This is a notice-drafting rule masquerading as a fee statute, and no competitor notice template we examined carries the sentence. It also makes Idaho different from every state processed in this project so far: the entitlement is statutory and runs to whichever side wins, so the optional fee clause in the form above is drafted only to cover disputes that fall outside Title 6, chapter 3, and is reciprocal in any event.

Seventy-two hours. Idaho Code 6-316(2) provides that where judgment is for the landlord and for possession of the premises, a residential tenant shall have seventy-two hours to remove and vacate; a commercial tenant, or a tenant of a tract of five acres or more, has seven days, or longer if the court grants it on good cause. That is one of the shortest post-judgment windows in the country, and it is a reason Idaho tenants should treat a three-day notice as urgent rather than as an opening position.

After that removal period plus three days, the sheriff restores possession to the landlord and may remove any remaining property of the tenant without further compensation. On a finding of good cause the court may award the landlord reasonable costs and expenses of removal not otherwise provided for in the chapter. Under 6-316(1), where the ground was a lease breach, a rent default or controlled-substance use, the judgment also declares the lease forfeited.

Two newer provisions belong here. Idaho Code 6-303A, added in 2024, shields from public disclosure the records of an unlawful detainer case filed on or after January 1, 2025 — with no petition required — where the entire case was dismissed, no appeal is pending, and three years have passed since filing, or where the parties stipulated to shielding and filed the stipulation. It changes what a background check will surface for a dismissed Idaho filing. And Idaho Code 6-310A, added in 2025, gives an owner a sheriff-executed remedy against a person who unlawfully entered and remains in a residential property. It expressly does not reach a person who is a tenant under a valid rental agreement, and a person wrongfully removed under it may recover actual damages, treble damages equal to three times fair market rent, court costs and attorney fees. It is a squatter remedy, not an eviction shortcut, and using it against a tenant is expensive.

None under state law. Idaho imposes no residential lease disclosure of its own — no radon notice, no flood-risk disclosure, no bed bug notice, no mold disclosure, no asbestos notice, no shared-utility disclosure and no landlord identification requirement. Idaho sits alongside Arkansas at the very bottom of the national disclosure table.

Two Idaho statutes are regularly mistaken for lease disclosures and are not. The Property Condition Disclosure Act in Idaho Code Title 55, chapter 25 requires a property condition disclosure form, but it operates between a transferor and a transferee on a sale of residential real property; it does not reach a lease. And the Clandestine Drug Laboratory Cleanup Act at Idaho Code 6-2606 requires an owner notified by a law enforcement agency of a clandestine drug laboratory on the property to meet the department’s cleanup standards, and provides that the property shall remain vacant until the owner receives a certificate that the standards have been met. That is a real and serious Idaho obligation — it is simply not a disclosure to a prospective tenant, and it means an Idaho landlord in that position may not re-let at all until certified.

Federal law supplies the only lease requirement: the lead-based paint disclosure under 42 U.S.C. 4852d for any dwelling built before 1978, with the EPA pamphlet and any known records or reports. Our Idaho lead-based paint disclosure form handles it. Assistance animals are governed by federal fair housing law rather than an Idaho statute; see our Idaho pet and assistance animal guide.

We rendered the eight pages currently ranking for this query and compared each factual claim against the statute it cites. These are the errors that repeat, and they are the reason this page exists.

• Citing 55-307 for a rent increase. That section is now Removal of fixtures by tenant. The rent-increase and change-of-terms rule is 55-304.
• Citing 55-314 for the fee limit. Renumbered to 55-305 by the same 2025 act.
• Reporting a single Idaho rent-increase period. There are two: fifteen days to change month-to-month terms, thirty days for a residential rent increase or nonrenewal.
• Citing 55-2204 for landlord entry. No such section exists. Idaho has no landlord-entry statute for a dwelling.
• Reporting a flat twenty-one-day deposit deadline. The statute says twenty-one days if no time is fixed by agreement and, in any event, thirty days.
• Treating a “nonrefundable” fee as outside the deposit rules. 6-321(1) deems every non-rent payment a security deposit.
• Omitting the third-party trust-account duty. Added to 6-321(4) in 2021, with four specific exemptions.
• Describing a general Idaho repair-and-deduct right. The only deduction is the smoke-detector remedy in 6-320(a)(6).
• Omitting the three-day precondition in 6-320(d). Without it a tenant has no standing at all.
• Omitting treble damages under 6-317. It is the reason the deposit rule bites.
• Omitting the 6-324 notice precondition. A pay-or-quit notice that does not warn about fees forfeits the fee award.
• Quoting a fixed Idaho abandoned-property holding period. None exists for a dwelling; what exists is a best practice.
• Missing 6-303A and 6-310A entirely. Both are 2024 and 2025 additions that change how an Idaho tenancy ends and what it leaves on a record.

• Printing a “nonrefundable” fee with no contingency named. Under 6-321(1) it is a security deposit, and nothing justifies keeping it.
• Assuming a deposit cap exists. Idaho has none, and 55-306 stops a city from adding one.
• Leaving the refund deadline out of the lease. Silence selects twenty-one days, which is often shorter than a landlord expects.
• Sending a one-line deduction summary. 6-321(2) requires a signed statement with the purpose of each amount and a detailed list of expenditures.
• Deducting for worn carpet or faded paint. 6-321(1) bars any retention for normal wear and tear and defines the term.
• Handing management to an agent without opening a separate account. 6-321(4) attaches the moment a third-party manager holds the deposit.
• Telling an Idaho tenant to withhold rent. There is no such right, and the tenant will be in default under 6-303(2).
• Skipping the smoke-detector verification at move-in. 6-320(a)(6) requires it and 6-317 makes failure expensive.
• Promising a carbon monoxide alarm because a national template does. Idaho requires none; promising one creates a duty.
• Leaving entry out of the lease. With no statutory default, silence means no agreed notice at all.
• Leaving abandoned property out of the lease. Same problem: outside a judgment, Idaho supplies nothing.
• Giving thirty days notice to end a month-to-month tenancy. 55-208 says one month, which on a thirty-one-day month is longer.
• Filing before the notice period expires. 55-209 says the landlord may reenter or proceed “but not before”.
• Omitting the attorney-fee warning from a three-day notice. 6-324 makes it the precondition of any fee award.
• Using the 6-310A occupant remedy against a tenant. It excludes tenants and exposes the owner to treble damages.
• Importing radon, flood or bed bug disclosures. Idaho requires no state lease disclosure at all.

A well-drafted lease decides who wins a dispute; screening decides whether there is one. Idaho puts unusual weight on the lease, because the statutory floor beneath it is thin and two of the most common flashpoints — entry and property left behind — have no statutory answer at all. The same thin floor cuts both ways: Idaho’s post-judgment window is seventy-two hours, but getting to judgment still costs time and money, and 6-317 means a procedural slip on a deposit can be trebled. Verifiable income, a clean payment history, and no prior eviction filings remain the strongest predictors of a quiet tenancy — and note that under 6-303A a dismissed Idaho filing may now be shielded, so a screening report should be read alongside, not instead of, the applicant’s own account. Our tenant screening report covers credit, eviction filings, criminal background, and employment verification, and our Idaho tenant screening laws guide covers what you may ask and charge. Screen first, then paper the tenancy with this lease.

Published by Tenant Screening Background Check

Established 2004 · 20+ Years · All U.S. States & Territories · Statute-Based · Attorney-Reviewed

A Private Eye Reports™ service trusted by landlords, property managers, and attorneys.