Free Washington DC Landlord Forms
Every District of Columbia landlord form we publish, organised by the stage of the tenancy it belongs to, each one paired with the DC Code section behind it — starting with the notice period that changed on the last day of 2025.
Every form linked on this page is free, fillable in your browser, and downloadable as a PDF with no account, no membership and no paywall. District tenancies run on the Rental Housing Act of 1985, and the first thing to get right is where it lives: DC Code Title 42, CHAPTER 35, §§ 42-3501.01 and following. Chapter 32 is the older notice-to-quit and ejectment chapter, and a great many guides cite it by mistake.
The short version
- Nonpayment — the pre-filing notice dropped from thirty days to TEN days on 31 December 2025.
- You cannot file at all if the unpaid rent is under six hundred dollars. That threshold is permanent, not a pandemic rule.
- There is no no-cause eviction in DC. The tenant is protected “notwithstanding the expiration of the lease”.
- A residential landlord cannot end a month-to-month tenancy on thirty days’ notice. That power belongs to the tenant alone.
- Entry — forty-eight hours’ written notice, nine to five, not Sundays or federal holidays.
- Deposit — one month, in an interest-bearing account, with two clocks totalling up to seventy-five days.
- Late fees — five per cent, after a mandatory five-day grace period, and never a ground for eviction.
- You may not file for possession without a valid registration and a current licence.
Thirty Days Became Ten — and the Statute Contradicts Itself
Since 31 December 2025, the pre-filing notice for nonpayment is TEN days, not thirty. The RENTAL Amendment Act of 2025 struck “at least 30 days” from § 42-3505.01(a-1)(1) and inserted “at least 10 days”. Nearly every page on the District results still says thirty, and two separate search summaries we checked insisted the requirement was thirty and that no ten-day rule existed. It does.
But here is the genuine complication, and we are not going to smooth it over. The prescribed notice language at (a-1)(2) — the wording the statute tells you to put in the notice — still tells the tenant they have thirty days. The 2025 act amended the operative period and did not conform the model wording. Whether that is a drafting remnant or deliberate is unresolved.
What this means in practice: ten days is the statutory minimum, but a landlord who uses the statutory wording verbatim is telling the tenant thirty. That is why our DC notice to pay rent or quit is built on the thirty-day figure: it is the conservative reading, it matches the prescribed language, and no tenant can complain of being given longer. If you intend to rely on the ten-day minimum, have a DC attorney look at your notice first.
| Requirement | Detail |
|---|---|
| Minimum rent threshold | The landlord “shall not issue such notice if the amount of rent that the tenant has failed to pay is less than $600”, and § 16-1501(b) mirrors it as a bar on filing. This comes from the 2022 Eviction Record Sealing Authority and Fairness in Renting Amendment Act — it is permanent law, not an expired pandemic measure |
| Notice contents | The total amount owed; a ledger of rent charges and payments for the delinquency period, attached; a statement of the right to remain if paid in full; and contact details for the Office of the Tenant Advocate and the Landlord Tenant Legal Assistance Network |
| Service — both, not either | (A) certified mail or a tracked delivery service with return receipt requested; AND (B) hand delivery to the unit or posting on the front door |
| Late fees cannot ground it | “the nonpayment of a late fee shall not be the basis for an eviction” |
There Is No No-Cause Eviction in the District
This is the structural fact that makes DC unlike almost anywhere else, and it is stated in the statute itself: “no tenant shall be evicted from a rental unit, notwithstanding the expiration of the tenant’s lease or rental agreement, so long as the tenant continues to pay the rent to which the housing provider is entitled” (§ 42-3505.01(a)(1)).
A lease expiring is not a ground. The grounds are exhaustive:
| Ground | Notice | Subsection |
|---|---|---|
| Nonpayment of rent | 10 days pre-filing (see above) | (a-1) |
| Violation of an obligation of the tenancy | 30 days, with an express right to cure — possession is recoverable only if the violation is not corrected within the thirty days | (b) |
| Illegal act (general) | 30 days | (c)(1) |
| Illegal act that is a dangerous crime or crime of violence | 10 days, plus a court hearing on an expedited basis within 20 days of filing. New for cases filed after 31 December 2025 | (c)(2) |
| Owner’s personal use and occupancy | 90 days | (d) |
| Contract of sale for the purchaser’s personal use | 90 days | (e) |
| Alterations or renovations that cannot safely be done while occupied | 120 days, plus an approval process, a 21-day tenant comment window and a relocation plan | (f) |
| Substantial rehabilitation | 120 days | (h) |
| Demolition | 180 days | (g) |
| Discontinuance of housing use | 180 days | (i) |
| Condominium or co-operative conversion | Not until 90 days after the tenant received notice of the intention to convert, and not before the 60-day opportunity-to-purchase period expires | (j) |
Three procedural rules attach to all of them.
Notices for every reason other than nonpayment must be served on BOTH the tenant AND the Rent Administrator.
Every notice to quit must be served in English AND Spanish (§ 42-3206) — and where the landlord knows the tenant’s primary language is another language covered by § 2-1933, the notice must be in that language too.
Dismissal for a defective notice is now discretionary. The 2025 act changed “shall dismiss” to “may, in its discretion when weighing the prejudice to all parties, dismiss”. Do not read that as permission to be careless — read it as removing your guarantee of a second chance if a tenant’s own notice is defective.
After a no-fault eviction under (d), (e) or (i), the landlord may not demand or receive rent for that unit for twelve months, and the damages for breaching that bar are relocation costs plus the greater of last month’s rent or the HUD small-area fair market rent, multiplied by the months elapsed, capped at twelve.
Every Washington DC Landlord Form, by Stage of the Tenancy
An alphabetical list is the least useful arrangement, because a landlord arrives knowing what has happened, not what the document is called. The index below is ordered by where you are in the tenancy.
Starting the tenancy
- Washington DC residential lease agreement — the master document, and the place to record the deposit terms, the maximum late fee (which the lease must state), and the rent-control status of the unit.
- Lead-based paint form — required by federal law for any dwelling built before 1978, and the District layers its own requirements on top.
- Move-in / move-out condition checklist — the record behind any deduction, and the natural companion to the pre-return walk-through described below.
During the tenancy
- Notice to enter the property — § 42-3505.51, forty-eight hours in writing, between nine in the morning and five in the afternoon, not Sundays or federal holidays.
- Rent increase notice — and note it is more than sixty calendar days, not thirty. See below; the counting rule is unusual.
- Late rent notice — a courtesy reminder. Remember the five-day grace period and the five per cent ceiling.
When the tenant breaches
- Notice to pay rent or quit — the § 42-3505.01(a-1) pre-filing notice. Read the box above on the ten-versus-thirty conflict before you serve it.
- Notice to cure or quit — thirty days for a violation of an obligation of the tenancy, with a genuine right to cure.
- Unconditional quit notice — for the illegal-act grounds, including the expedited dangerous-crime route.
Ending the tenancy without fault
- Notice of non-renewal — use it for the ninety, one-hundred-and-twenty or one-hundred-and-eighty day statutory grounds. There is no general no-cause route, so the ground has to be one of the listed ones.
- Tenant notice to vacate — thirty days, and in the District this is genuinely the tenant’s document. See the next section.
After the tenant moves out
- Security deposit itemisation — the itemised statement of repairs and other uses and the cost of each, due on the second clock.
- Security deposit return letter — the covering document for either the payment or the notice of intent to withhold.
The Month-to-Month Notice Runs One Way Only
A residential landlord in the District has no power to end a month-to-month tenancy on thirty days’ notice. Section 42-3202(b) is drafted so that a residential tenancy “may be terminated by a 30-day notice in writing only from the tenant to the housing provider”. The tenant’s notice must expire on the first day of the first month at least thirty days after the notice.
A residential landlord must instead use one of the § 42-3505.01 grounds. The thirty-day notice, either party, applies to commercial month-to-month tenancies under § 42-3202(a).
This is the single most common DC error we see in template leases imported from other jurisdictions.
Entry: Forty-Eight Hours, and Real Hours
The District does have an entry statute — § 42-3505.51, in force since February 2017 — and it is more prescriptive than most.
- Forty-eight hours’ written notice, or shorter if the tenant agrees in writing.
- Nine in the morning to five in the afternoon, not Sundays and not federal holidays, unless otherwise agreed.
- Electronic notice is permitted (email or text) — but if the tenant does not give a written acknowledgment, the landlord must also provide a paper notice.
- Permitted purposes are enumerated: safety of the property; examining the unit; repairs, alterations, renovations or improvements; agreed services and maintenance; showings to prospective purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workmen or contractors; and government-ordered work.
- Emergency entry without notice is permitted for the protection or preservation of the premises or the safety of persons.
- The remedy is an injunction plus damages for breach of quiet enjoyment.
See our Washington DC landlord entry laws guide.
Security Deposits: Two Clocks, Not One
“Forty-five days to return the deposit” is a collapsed version of the rule. The District runs two consecutive clocks under 14 DCMR:
Clock one — 45 days. Within forty-five days of termination the landlord must either tender payment or notify the tenant in writing of an intent to withhold, personally or by certified mail to the last known address (§ 309.1).
Clock two — a further 30 days. “The owner, within 30 days after notification to the tenant… shall tender a refund of the balance… and at the same time give the tenant an itemized statement of the repairs and other uses to which the monies were applied and the cost of each” (§ 309.2).
Total lawful exposure is therefore up to seventy-five days, not forty-five — provided you use the first clock properly.
| Rule | Value |
|---|---|
| Cap | One month’s rent, chargeable once (14 DCMR § 308.2) |
| Where it is held | A mandatory separate interest-bearing account at a DC financial institution, federally or state insured, held in trust for the sole purpose (§ 308.3) |
| Posting duty | An annual posting in the lobby AND the rental office stating where deposits are held and the prevailing rate for each six-month period (§§ 308.6, 308.7) |
| Interest — not an average | “not less than the statement savings rate then prevailing on January 1st and on July 1st for each 6-month period (or part thereof) of the tenancy” — the rate at the specific institution holding the escrow, accruing from the date the tenant actually paid (§ 311.1). The landlord may retain up to thirty per cent of excess interest above that rate for administration |
| No interest under twelve months | Payable only “upon termination of any tenancy of a duration of twelve (12) months or more” — a tenancy-duration test, not a lease-length test, and “twelve or more”, not “more than twelve” (§ 311.2) |
| Non-compliance | Prima facie evidence that the tenant is entitled to full return plus interest (§ 309.3) |
| Bad faith → treble | Bad faith is defined as a “frivolous or unfounded refusal… motivated by a fraudulent, deceptive, misleading, dishonest, or unreasonably self-serving purpose and not by simple negligence, bad judgment, or an honest belief” (§ 309.5). Unpaid interest carries treble for bad faith plus a civil fine up to five thousand dollars per wilful violation |
| Pre-return walk-through | The landlord may examine the unit within three days (excluding Saturdays, Sundays and holidays) before or after termination, on written notice of the time and date at least ten days beforehand (§§ 310.1 to 310.4) |
See our Washington DC security deposit laws guide.
Rent Increases: More Than Sixty Days, and Two Different Caps
The rent increase notice has been more than sixty days since 28 November 2023 — not thirty. And it is not a flat count: “No rent increases… shall be effective until the first day on which rent is normally paid occurring more than 60 calendar days after the notice of the increase is given to the tenant” (§ 42-3509.04(b)). The clock runs to the first normal rent-payment day after sixty days, which is usually longer than sixty days.
If the unit is rent stabilized, two further constraints apply, and both are routinely miscited.
| Item | Rule | Current figure |
|---|---|---|
| General adjustment | The “plus two per cent” is NOT in § 42-3502.06. That section sets a CPI-W-only adjustment with a ten per cent ceiling. The plus two per cent and the operative ten per cent cap for occupied units are in § 42-3502.08(h)(2)(A) | 4.1% for Rent Control Year 2026 (1 May 2026 to 30 April 2027), on a CPI-W of 2.1% |
| Elderly or disabled tenants | The old § 42-3502.06(f) and (g) are repealed. The live provision is § 42-3502.24. The cap is the least of the general adjustment, the most recent Social Security cost-of-living adjustment, or five per cent. Age sixty-two or over; disability per the ADA | 2.1% for Rent Control Year 2026 |
| Frequency | No increase until a full twelve months have elapsed since any prior increase | — |
| Vacancy increase | Ten per cent if the previous tenant occupied ten years or less; twenty per cent if more than ten years. Requires registration, and the provider must tell the new tenant the rent at commencement and the increases over the preceding three years | — |
On the tenant side, the Mayor shall not require documentation in fewer than thirty days and shall not require a description of the disability. See our Washington DC rent increase laws guide.
Is Your Unit Even Rent Controlled? Two Dates, Not One
The exemption turns on two different dates attached to two different documents, and they are constantly conflated.
New construction is exempt if the building permit was issued after 31 December 1975.
Newly created units in an existing structure are exempt if covered by a certificate of occupancy for housing use issued after 1 January 1980.
An anti-demolition proviso removes the exemption where construction required demolishing a covered accommodation, unless the new units exceed those demolished.
The small landlord exemption is also narrower than its headline. Four or fewer rental units, yes — but also owned by not more than four natural persons, and none of them may hold an interest, directly or indirectly, in ANY other rental unit in the District. That last condition disqualifies most small portfolio owners. A claim of exemption must be filed with the Rent Administrator, and ownership changes reported in writing within thirty days.
Registration and Licensing Are Preconditions to Filing
Section 16-1501(c) bars the courthouse door. A person aggrieved “shall not file a complaint seeking restitution of possession… without a valid rental registration or claim of exemption pursuant to § 42-3502.05, and a current license for rental housing… as certified at the time of filing and documented at the initial hearing.” It is waivable for extenuating circumstances such as a medical emergency, an agency delay, or a tenant denying access for a pre-licence examination.
Documentation of a current rental business licence is required again at the time of filing a writ of restitution (§ 42-3505.01(q)).
Separately, 14 DCMR 4101.9 provides that an unregistered provider may not take any upward adjustment in the rent ceiling, any increase in the rent charged, or “any of the benefits which accrue to the housing provider of rental units exempt from the Rent Stabilization Program”. Failing to register does not merely risk a fine — it can cost you the exemption you were relying on.
Serving Notices and the Court Stage
A notice to quit is served in English and Spanish, personally if the tenant can be found; failing that, on a person of proper age on the premises; and in their absence, posted conspicuously — with a copy mailed first class within three calendar days of posting. A posted notice also requires a photograph with a readable timestamp submitted to the court.
Certified mail is not authorised by § 42-3206 for a notice to quit. It appears elsewhere — in the deposit-withholding notice, and as one prong of the nonpayment notice — but not there.
The summons must be served at least fourteen days before the initial hearing, personally or on a person above sixteen residing on or in possession of the premises, or by posting (only where the defendant has left the District or cannot be found) plus first-class mail within three calendar days plus the timestamped photograph. Section 16-1502 was rewritten effective 31 December 2025, so anything published before 2026 on District summons service is stale.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Court | Superior Court of the District of Columbia, Civil Division, Landlord and Tenant Branch. The complaint must be “under oath verified” by the person aggrieved or an agent or attorney with knowledge of the facts |
| Complaint forms | Form 1A nonpayment, residential · 1B violation of obligations or other grounds, residential · 1C nonpayment plus other grounds · 1D commercial · 1S summons · Form 2 / CV-459 Notice of Intention to Seek a Writ of Restitution |
| Right of redemption | A judgment for possession on nonpayment is permanently stayed if the tenant pays the full redemption amount before the eviction is completed; the court states the sum on the record |
| Small claims | Ten thousand dollars, exclusive of interest, attorney fees, protest fees and costs. “An action which affects an interest in real property may not be brought in the Branch” — a possession case cannot go to Small Claims |
| Weather bar | No eviction below thirty-two degrees, during precipitation, or above ninety-five degrees — the heat prong is new, effective 16 April 2026, and turns on the National Weather Service’s eight in the morning prediction for National Airport |
| Property after eviction | The tenant gets twenty-one days’ notice confirming the eviction date, and the property stays accessible for seven days afterwards with no rent or service fee, then is deemed abandoned |
| Retaliation | A rebuttable presumption if the landlord acts within six months of protected tenant activity, rebuttable only by clear and convincing evidence |
We publish those court form numbers with a caveat. The District courts’ website blocked every automated attempt to read it, so the form identifiers, the filing fee and the forty-eight-hour writ wait are all sourced from search results rather than from the court’s own pages. We also found no form number at all for the Writ of Restitution and will not invent one. Verify against the live site before filing.
For the same reason we do not publish an add-days-for-mailing rule for District landlord and tenant practice. The relevant court rules could not be retrieved, and we are not going to guess at a three-day buffer that may not apply.
Late Fees, and What the District Prohibits
- Five per cent — “a housing provider may charge a late fee of no more than 5% of the full amount of rent due by a tenant”.
- A mandatory five-day grace period — chargeable only if the rent is unpaid “within 5 days, or any longer grace period that may be provided in the lease”.
- The lease must state the maximum late fee chargeable.
- No interest on a late fee. No deduction from a subsequent rent payment. Only one late fee per late payment. No fee on a subsidy-payer’s portion. And no eviction for nonpayment of a late fee.
- Unpaid lawful late fees may be deducted from the deposit at the end of the tenancy, and the invoice is payable within thirty days.
- The civil fine for a late-fee violation runs from one hundred to five thousand dollars per violation.
See our Washington DC late fee laws guide.
What Changed, What Expired, and What Is Not Law Yet
| Act | Effective | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| RENTAL Amendment Act of 2025 | 31 December 2025 | Nonpayment notice thirty to ten days; “shall dismiss” to discretionary dismissal; the dual service method; the ten-day notice plus twenty-day expedited hearing for a dangerous crime or crime of violence; and a rewrite of §§ 16-1501(c) and 16-1502 |
| Emergency Rental Assistance Program Reform Amendment Act of 2025 | 18 July 2025 | Made the assistance-programme stay discretionary rather than mandatory. This is permanent law, not expired pandemic law |
| Extreme Heat Eviction Protection Amendment Act of 2026 | 16 April 2026 | Added the ninety-five degree bar |
| Fairness and Stability in Housing Amendment Act of 2024 | 2 May 2025 | Reformed voluntary agreements (still permitted with seventy per cent or more of tenants, but with far heavier filing requirements) and repealed the certificates-of-assurance section entirely |
| Rental Housing Registration Data Integrity Temporary Amendment Act of 2026 | 11 June 2026 — temporary, expires around 22 January 2027 | Owners of exempt units must submit current monthly rent, rents for the prior two calendar years, and utilities and services information — at registration only, with no ongoing annual reporting |
| Fair Housing Practices Amendment Act of 2026 | PROJECTED 4 September 2026 — NOT YET LAW | Still in congressional review with no law number. It would add a forty-five-day post-tenancy notice of alleged unpaid amounts with photographic documentation and a dispute procedure, bar referral to debt collectors absent evidence of service sixty days prior, and from 1 January 2027 bar separate billing of common-area and vacant-unit utilities. Do not treat it as current law |
All of the District’s pandemic-era eviction law has expired — every measure was either an emergency act lasting ninety days or a temporary act lasting two hundred and twenty-five days, and none survives. The filing moratorium was self-limiting, tied to the public health emergency, which ended on 25 July 2021, and § 16-1501 now contains no moratorium at all.
But two things that look like pandemic law are permanent and must not be lumped in with it: the six-hundred-dollar filing threshold and the rental assistance stay.
One bill is worth naming because it is so easily confused with the act that did pass: B26-141, the Eviction Reform Amendment Act of 2025, is NOT law. It proposed overlapping changes to the ones the RENTAL Act actually enacted. Do not cite it as authority.
Which District Form Do I Need?
- First, check your registration and licence. Without both, you cannot file at all.
- The tenant owes rent. Check the amount — under six hundred dollars, you cannot issue the notice or file. Otherwise the pre-filing notice, served by certified or tracked mail and by hand delivery or door posting, with the ledger attached.
- The tenant has broken an obligation of the tenancy. Thirty days, with a real right to cure, and serve the Rent Administrator too.
- There has been an illegal act. Thirty days generally; ten days plus an expedited hearing where it is a dangerous crime or crime of violence.
- You want the unit for yourself, or you are selling, renovating, demolishing or withdrawing it. Ninety, one hundred and twenty or one hundred and eighty days depending on the ground — and remember the twelve-month re-rent bar afterwards.
- The lease has simply expired. That is not a ground in the District.
- You need to get into the property. Forty-eight hours in writing, nine to five, not Sundays or federal holidays.
- The tenant has moved out. Forty-five days to pay or to notify an intent to withhold; then thirty more to pay the balance with the itemised statement.
How to Fill Out a District Notice to Pay Rent or Quit
- Confirm the arrears exceed six hundred dollars. Below that, the notice may not be issued.
- Name every tenant and describe the premises as the lease does.
- State the total amount owed and attach a ledger of rent charges and payments for the delinquency period. The ledger is required, not optional.
- State the right to remain if the balance is paid in full.
- Include the Office of the Tenant Advocate and Landlord Tenant Legal Assistance Network contacts.
- Decide the period deliberately. Ten days is the statutory minimum; the prescribed wording says thirty. Take advice before relying on ten.
- Serve it both ways — certified mail or tracked delivery with return receipt, and hand delivery or door posting.
- Record the date it was provided. The complaint must affirm it, and the tenant may challenge it.
What Happens If the Form Is Wrong
The distinctively District failure is filing without a valid registration or a current licence. It is not a defect in the notice at all — it is a bar on filing, certified at the time of filing and documented again at the hearing.
The second is serving only one way. The nonpayment notice needs a tracked or certified mailing and a hand delivery or door posting.
The third is a landlord’s thirty-day notice to end a month-to-month tenancy, which does not exist in residential District law.
And the fourth is on the deposit: treating forty-five days as the whole rule, and so missing that the itemised statement and the balance are due on a second clock thirty days later.
What This Page Does Not Have
We would rather scope this honestly than promise documents we do not host. District landlords also commonly want a rental application, a month-to-month agreement, a sublease, a roommate agreement and a commercial lease. Those are not published here as District-specific forms.
We have also deliberately omitted: a form number for the Writ of Restitution; any add-days-for-mailing rule; any District cap on a landlord’s returned-cheque fee, which we could not find and will not assume; and a definitive answer on the ten-versus-thirty day conflict. On one further point we simply cannot say either way — the licensing section that § 16-1501(c) cross-references is marked repealed while carrying a note that the repeal “has not been implemented”. We will not state flatly that it is repealed, nor that it is in force.
Two research traps worth passing on, because they will catch you too.
The DC Law Library serves “(Perm)” duplicate sections — for example a parallel page for § 42-3505.01 carrying a small banner reading “This codification is not the most current” and returning the superseded thirty-day figure. Search engines land on them.
And the District has a category that has no analogue in most states: “subject to appropriations”. A provision can be enacted and effective and still not operative. Check the applicability note on every section before relying on it — at least two provisions relevant to deposits are on the books but not implemented.
Common District Landlord Form Mistakes
- Filing without a valid registration or a current licence.
- Issuing a nonpayment notice for arrears under six hundred dollars.
- Serving the nonpayment notice one way instead of both.
- Attaching no ledger to the nonpayment notice.
- Giving a landlord’s thirty-day notice on a month-to-month tenancy. That power is the tenant’s alone.
- Treating lease expiry as a ground. It is not.
- Forgetting to serve the Rent Administrator on every non-rent ground.
- Omitting the Spanish version of a notice to quit.
- Using certified mail for a notice to quit, which § 42-3206 does not authorise.
- Entering after five, on a Sunday, or on a federal holiday.
- Collapsing the deposit rule to forty-five days.
- Paying deposit interest on a tenancy under twelve months, or computing it as an average rather than at the institution’s statement savings rate re-set each January and July.
- Giving thirty days’ notice of a rent increase. It is more than sixty calendar days, counted to the next normal rent-payment day.
- Citing § 42-3502.06 for the plus two per cent, or § 42-3502.06(f) for the elderly cap. The live provisions are §§ 42-3502.08(h)(2)(A) and 42-3502.24.
- Conflating the two rent-control exemption dates. Building permit after 1975; certificate of occupancy after 1980.
- Assuming the small landlord exemption is just a unit count. No owner may hold an interest in any other rental unit in the District.
Free Fillable Forms Versus the Paid District Form Sites
The District has the deepest results page of any jurisdiction in this project, because its required-notice regime is unusually heavy and every ranking page expands to cover it. The deepest measured ranker runs to about two thousand three hundred and fifty words, and the hub-shaped page that competes most directly is barely half that.
What none of them explains is the licensing precondition to filing — and that is the single most consequential thing a District landlord can get wrong, because it stops the case before the merits are ever reached.
Every form linked from this page is free, fills in the browser, and downloads as a finished PDF. There is no account, no trial and no upsell attached to the documents themselves. What we ask in return is straightforward: if you are about to hand keys to someone, run the screening first — and note that the District bars any criminal-history inquiry before a conditional offer, and afterwards allows only specified crimes within the past seven years.
Washington DC Landlord Forms: FAQ
How many days is the DC notice before filing for unpaid rent?
Ten days since 31 December 2025 — the RENTAL Amendment Act of 2025 struck “at least 30 days” and inserted “at least 10 days” in § 42-3505.01(a-1)(1). But the prescribed notice language at (a-1)(2) still says thirty days, because the act did not conform it. Ten is the statutory minimum; a landlord using the statutory wording is telling the tenant thirty. Take advice before relying on ten.
Can a DC landlord file for eviction over any amount of unpaid rent?
No. The landlord “shall not issue such notice if the amount of rent that the tenant has failed to pay is less than $600”, and § 16-1501(b) mirrors that as a bar on filing. It comes from a 2022 act and is permanent law, not an expired pandemic measure.
Is there a no-cause eviction in the District of Columbia?
No. Section 42-3505.01(a)(1) protects the tenant “notwithstanding the expiration of the tenant’s lease or rental agreement, so long as the tenant continues to pay the rent to which the housing provider is entitled”. The grounds are exhaustive, and lease expiry is not one of them.
Can a DC landlord end a month-to-month tenancy on thirty days’ notice?
No, not for a residential tenancy. Section 42-3202(b) gives the thirty-day notice “only from the tenant to the housing provider”. A residential landlord must use one of the § 42-3505.01 grounds. The thirty-day notice by either party applies to commercial month-to-month tenancies under § 42-3202(a).
How much notice must a DC landlord give before entering?
Forty-eight hours’ written notice, or shorter if the tenant agrees in writing, and entry only between nine in the morning and five in the afternoon, not on Sundays or federal holidays, unless otherwise agreed (§ 42-3505.51). Electronic notice is permitted, but absent a written acknowledgment a paper notice must also be given. The remedy for breach is an injunction plus damages for breach of quiet enjoyment.
What is the security deposit cap in the District?
One month’s rent, chargeable once (14 DCMR § 308.2), held in a mandatory separate interest-bearing account at a District financial institution, in trust for that sole purpose.
How long does a DC landlord have to return a security deposit?
Two clocks totalling up to seventy-five days. Within forty-five days of termination the landlord must either tender payment or notify the tenant in writing of an intent to withhold (§ 309.1). Then within thirty days after that notification the landlord must tender the balance and at the same time give an itemised statement of the repairs and other uses and the cost of each (§ 309.2).
How is interest on a DC security deposit calculated?
Not as an average. It is “not less than the statement savings rate then prevailing on January 1st and on July 1st for each 6-month period (or part thereof) of the tenancy” — the rate at the specific institution holding the escrow, accruing from the date the tenant paid. No interest is owed at all where the tenancy lasted under twelve months, and the test is the tenancy’s duration, not the lease length.
How much notice does a DC rent increase need?
More than sixty calendar days since 28 November 2023 — and it is not a flat count. No increase is effective “until the first day on which rent is normally paid occurring more than 60 calendar days after the notice”, which is usually longer than sixty days (§ 42-3509.04(b)).
What is the current DC rent control increase for 2026?
4.1% for Rent Control Year 2026, running 1 May 2026 to 30 April 2027, on a CPI-W of 2.1%. For elderly or disabled tenants the cap is 2.1% — the least of the general adjustment, the most recent Social Security cost-of-living adjustment, or five per cent. The plus-two-per-cent formula is in § 42-3502.08(h)(2)(A), not § 42-3502.06, and the elderly cap is in § 42-3502.24, the old subsections having been repealed.
Can a DC landlord file for possession without registering?
No. Section 16-1501(c) bars filing “without a valid rental registration or claim of exemption… and a current license for rental housing… as certified at the time of filing and documented at the initial hearing”, subject to a waiver for extenuating circumstances. Documentation of a current licence is required again when filing a writ of restitution. Separately, an unregistered provider forfeits rent increases and the benefits of any exemption under 14 DCMR 4101.9.
What is the late fee limit in Washington DC?
Five per cent of the full amount of rent due, and only after a mandatory five-day grace period or any longer period the lease provides. The lease must state the maximum fee. No interest on a late fee, no deduction from a subsequent rent payment, only one fee per late payment, no fee on a subsidy-payer’s portion, and nonpayment of a late fee can never be a ground for eviction.
Related Washington DC Guides
- Washington DC landlord-tenant laws — the full statutory overview.
- Washington DC security deposit laws — the two clocks and the interest rule.
- Washington DC lease termination laws — the grounds, and who may give notice.
- Washington DC breaking lease laws — early termination and the re-rent bar.
- Washington DC rent increase laws — rent control, caps and coverage.
- Washington DC late fee laws — five per cent and the grace period.
- Washington DC landlord entry laws — forty-eight hours and permitted hours.
- Washington DC habitability laws — repair duties and tenant remedies.
- Washington DC pet and ESA laws — pets, deposits and assistance animals.
- Washington DC tenant screening laws — the conditional-offer rule and the seven-year window.
Published by Tenant Screening Background Check · Editorial Team
Established 2004. Our editorial team has spent two decades helping landlords and property managers run lawful tenant screening and follow state landlord-tenant codes across all fifty states. Two separate search summaries told us the District’s nonpayment notice was thirty days and that no ten-day rule existed. We resolved it by reading the amending act’s own striking-and-inserting language — which is also how we found that the prescribed notice wording was never conformed, a conflict we report rather than paper over.
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Last reviewed 2026. This page is general information about District of Columbia landlord-tenant law, not legal advice. The nonpayment notice period changed on 31 December 2025 and the statute’s own prescribed wording was not conformed, so the ten-versus-thirty day question is genuinely unresolved and warrants advice. The District courts’ website blocked automated access, so form numbers and fees here are secondary. Some District provisions are enacted and effective yet not operative because they are subject to appropriations. Confirm the current requirements with the Landlord and Tenant Branch or with a District attorney before you serve a notice or file a case.
