Free Arkansas Residential Lease Agreement

▶ Watch walk-through

A configurable Arkansas residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to the 2021 quality standards at Ark. Code Ann. 18-17-502, the small-landlord deposit exemption, and the two-business-day defect form that decides compliance.

Arkansas Ark. Code 18-17 2021 Standards Free PDF 2026 Edition

An Arkansas residential lease agreement is governed by the Arkansas Residential Landlord-Tenant Act of 2007 at Ark. Code Ann. 18-17-101 and following — and Arkansas is the state where the lease itself matters most, because the statutory floor beneath it is the lowest in the country. Two facts drive everything on this page. First, Arkansas did acquire habitability standards: Act 1052 of 2021 implied six quality standards into every lease entered into or renewed after November 1, 2021, which means the widely repeated line that Arkansas has no habitability requirement is out of date. Second, the remedy attached to those standards is unusually narrow — the tenant may terminate after thirty days’ notice, and may not withhold or offset rent. Add the small-landlord exemption that removes most Arkansas landlords from the deposit rules entirely, and the complete absence of any statutory entry rule, and you have a state where a generic template leaves both sides badly informed.

Complete the fields below to generate an Arkansas 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 Arkansas section at each point — including the two questions that decide whether the deposit rules bind you. Before handing over keys, run proper tenant screening. Pair the signed lease with an Arkansas move-in / move-out checklist, which in this state does double duty: it is both your condition record and, if you use it as the statutory defect form, your route to deemed compliance.

Yes — since November 1, 2021. Act 1052 of 2021 added Ark. Code Ann. 18-17-502, which implies into every residential lease entered into or renewed after that date a requirement that the dwelling have, both when possession is delivered and throughout the term: an available source of hot and cold running water; an available source of electricity; a source of potable drinking water; a sanitary sewer system and plumbing conforming to applicable building and housing codes in existence at the time of installation; a functioning roof and building envelope; and a functioning heating and air conditioning system, to the extent that system served the premises when the lease was entered into.

Two limits sit on the face of the statute and are worth knowing precisely. The standards do not apply to a lease to purchase or a lease with a purchase right. And they are suspended where performance is temporarily prevented by an act of God, the failure of public utility service, or other force majeure — the statute names epidemics and pandemics that cause work stoppages, labour or material shortages, or required social distancing, which tells you when it was drafted.

Where the standards do apply they are strong in one respect: under 18-17-502(b) they supersede any contrary provision of an oral or written lease, unless the tenant agrees in writing to renovate, remodel or complete construction of the dwelling. A landlord cannot contract out of them. Section 18-17-502(h) adds that the section does not relieve a landlord from complying with any stricter housing standard imposed by a local government, so a city code can require more. Our Arkansas habitability laws guide covers the standard in more detail.

It is how an Arkansas landlord becomes deemed compliant with all six standards, and it appears in no competitor template. Ark. Code Ann. 18-17-502(c) provides that a landlord is deemed to be in compliance if the landlord supplies the tenant, at the time possession is available, a written form with which to list any defect in the six standards, and the tenant either:

• signs the form without noting a defect and takes possession; or
• fails to return the form to the landlord within two business days.

Read that second limb carefully, because it does the real work. A tenant who receives the form and does nothing hands the landlord the safe harbour by inaction. Two business days is a very short window, and it is the most consequential deadline in Arkansas residential tenancy law for both sides — a landlord who does not supply the form gives up the protection entirely, and a tenant who does not return it loses the ability to complain about conditions that existed at move-in.

The section also deems the landlord compliant as to defects arising after possession where the tenant delivered written notice but the noncompliance either could not be remedied because the tenant refused entry to correct it, or was caused by the deliberate or negligent act or omission of the tenant, a member of the tenant’s family, another occupant or visitor, or any person other than the landlord or the landlord’s agent.

Terminate — and that is all. Under Ark. Code Ann. 18-17-502(d) the tenant delivers written notice of the noncompliance to the landlord by certified mail, or any other method the lease provides, specifying the acts and omissions constituting the noncompliance. If the payment of rent is current, the noncompliance is not excused under the deemed-compliance rules, and the landlord does not remedy it within thirty calendar days after receiving that notice, the tenant’s sole remedy is to terminate the lease without penalty and receive a refund of any recoverable security deposit.

The word “sole” is the statute’s, not ours. Section 18-17-502(d)(3) then states the point in the negative: nothing in the chapter excuses a tenant from paying rent, and a tenant shall not offset or withhold rent for any alleged or actual violation of the implied quality standards. Arkansas provides no repair-and-deduct remedy. Any guidance describing rent withholding or repair-and-deduct for an Arkansas tenant is describing another state’s law, and a tenant who follows it will simply be in arrears.

Two further boundaries: 18-17-502(f) provides that nothing in the chapter expands a landlord’s tort liability beyond the limits set by Ark. Code Ann. 18-16-110, and the same subsection preserves the landlord’s remedies on a tenant default. The statute gives the tenant an exit, not leverage.

Two months’ periodic rent — if the deposit rules apply to that landlord at all. Ark. Code Ann. 18-16-304 provides that a landlord may not demand or receive a security deposit, however denominated, in an amount or value in excess of two months’ periodic rent.

But the far more important provision is Ark. Code Ann. 18-16-303, and it is missing from every ranking Arkansas page we examined. The deposit subchapter does not apply to dwelling units owned by an individual where that individual, their spouse and minor children, and any partnerships, corporations or other legal entities formed for the purpose of renting dwelling units of which they are officers, owners or majority shareholders, own or collectively own five or fewer dwelling units. The exemption does not extend to units where management tasks — particularly rent collection — are performed by a third party for compensation.

The practical effect is large. A great many Arkansas landlords own one, two or three houses and manage them personally, and for them the two-month cap and the sixty-day accounting are simply not statutory obligations. Handing a third party the rent collection turns them back on. This form asks both questions and states the answer on the face of the lease, so neither side is guessing. Where the exemption applies, the generated lease still commits the landlord contractually to a sixty-day itemized accounting — a term the tenant can enforce as contract even though no statute requires it. See our Arkansas security deposit laws guide.

Sixty days, where the subchapter applies. Ark. Code Ann. 18-16-305 requires that within sixty days of termination of the tenancy, property or money held by the landlord as security be returned to the tenant, and that the landlord deliver an itemized written notice of any deductions for unpaid rent or damages, together with the remainder of the amount due, sixty days after termination of the tenancy and delivery of possession by the tenant.

Sixty days is long by national standards — Arizona’s equivalent runs in fourteen business days and Alaska’s in fourteen calendar days on a clean move-out. Tenants should not read a delay of a few weeks as a breach, and landlords should not read the generous window as licence to be casual: the itemization is still required, and it is what makes a deduction defensible. Build it with our Arkansas security deposit itemization form.

None by statute — and that is not an oversight in this page. The Arkansas Residential Landlord-Tenant Act contains no section governing a landlord’s access to the dwelling unit. There is no statutory notice period, no statutory limit on hours, and no statutory prohibition on abusing the right of access of the kind that Alabama, Alaska and Arizona all codify.

That has a direct drafting consequence: in Arkansas, any notice the tenant receives before entry exists only because the lease creates it. A lease that is silent on entry leaves the question to general property principles and to whatever the parties can argue after the fact, which serves neither side. Competitor pages frequently assert a twenty-four-hour Arkansas notice rule; there is no Arkansas source for it. The form above therefore asks you to choose an entry notice period, and the generated lease creates it as an enforceable contractual term with an emergency exception. See Arkansas landlord entry laws, and use a dated Arkansas notice to enter form to document each visit.

Ark. Code Ann. 18-17-401 provides that rent is payable without demand or notice at the time and place agreed upon by the parties. Unless written notice states otherwise, rent is payable at the dwelling unit, with periodic rent payable at the beginning of each month or rental term. The same section confirms that a landlord and tenant may include in a rental agreement any terms and conditions not prohibited by the chapter or another rule of law.

Arkansas sets no statutory grace period and no cap on late fees. There is no residential late-fee statute at all. The lease must state the fee for it to be chargeable, and the practical limit is judicial: a fee out of proportion to the landlord’s actual loss invites challenge as an unenforceable penalty rather than a reasonable estimate of damages. Our Arkansas late fee laws guide covers the drafting, and Arkansas rent increase laws covers changing rent on a periodic tenancy.

Arkansas has three different notice periods in this area and ranking pages routinely blur them together. They are not alternatives to be picked at random; they belong to different procedures.

• Five days — Ark. Code Ann. 18-17-701. If rent is unpaid when due and the tenant fails to pay within five days from the date due, the landlord may terminate the rental agreement. This is the contract-termination step.
• Three days — Ark. Code Ann. 18-60-304. A person commits unlawful detainer by, among other things, failing to pay rent when due and, after three days’ notice to quit and demand made in writing, refusing to vacate. This is the civil possession route, and it is the one a landlord should use.
• Ten days — Ark. Code Ann. 18-16-101. The criminal failure-to-vacate statute.

The unlawful detainer statute also reaches a tenant who wilfully holds over after the term ends, who holds property unlawfully after written demand for its return, who fails to maintain the premises in a safe, healthy or habitable condition, or who permits the premises to become a nuisance. Our Arkansas three-day notice to pay rent or quit and notice to cure or quit cover the civil track, and Arkansas eviction notice laws covers the sequence.

Arkansas is the only state where it can be. Under Ark. Code Ann. 18-16-101, if after ten days’ written notice from the landlord the tenant wilfully refuses to vacate and surrender possession, the tenant is guilty of a misdemeanour, punishable on conviction by a fine of between one dollar and twenty-five dollars per offence, with each day of continued occupancy constituting a separate violation.

The statute remains on the books and has been the subject of sustained constitutional criticism and litigation over many years, and prosecutorial practice varies considerably by county. We state it because a page about Arkansas leases that omits it is incomplete, and because a tenant facing such a notice needs to know what they are looking at. We also state the practical advice plainly: a landlord should proceed by civil unlawful detainer under Ark. Code Ann. 18-60-304 rather than by criminal complaint. The civil route delivers possession, which is what a landlord actually wants; the criminal route delivers a small fine and a great deal of risk.

For a tenancy without a fixed term, Ark. Code Ann. 18-17-704 sets the periods. Either party may terminate a week-to-week tenancy by written notice given at least seven days before the termination date specified in the notice, and a month-to-month tenancy by written notice given at least thirty days before the termination date specified in the notice. Arkansas sets no separate rent-increase notice period, so a rent change on a periodic tenancy is accomplished by giving that same notice and offering new terms. See Arkansas lease termination laws and our Arkansas breaking-lease guide.

The other exit worth knowing is the quality-standards termination discussed above: written notice, thirty calendar days to remedy, then termination without penalty and return of the deposit. It is the only statutory escape route Arkansas gives a tenant for conditions, and it requires the tenant’s rent to be current.

Arkansas has no URLTA-style list of prohibited provisions. What it has instead is a general anti-waiver rule at Ark. Code Ann. 18-17-502(g): except as otherwise provided by the chapter, a landlord or tenant shall not agree in a lease or rental agreement to waive or forego any of the rights, duties or remedies available under the chapter. Alongside it, 18-17-502(b) provides that the implied quality standards supersede any contrary provision of an oral or written lease, unless the tenant agrees in writing to renovate, remodel or complete construction of the dwelling.

Together those mean a clause disclaiming the six standards, or purporting to give up the thirty-day termination remedy, is ineffective. What Arkansas does not do is regulate the attorney-fee clause. Unlike Alabama and Alaska, which prohibit a tenant-pays-landlord fee clause outright, and unlike Arizona, which permits only a reciprocal prevailing-party award, Arkansas takes no position: a fee clause is a matter of contract. The optional clause in the form above is nonetheless drafted to run to the prevailing party in both directions, because a one-sided clause is the kind of term a court is most likely to scrutinise and the least likely to be worth defending.

None under state law. Arkansas 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, and no landlord identification requirement of the kind Alabama, Alaska and Arizona all impose. Arkansas is the shortest disclosure list in the country.

Federal law supplies the only 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 Arkansas lead-based paint disclosure form handles it.

One genuinely Arkansas-specific provision sits near the disclosure question. Under 18-17-502(e), nothing in the chapter or in a lease may prohibit a tenant from correctly installing, at the tenant’s own expense, a battery-powered or plug-in smoke or carbon monoxide detector. If the tenant does install one, the tenant is solely responsible for determining that it is operational, maintaining it in working order, and any damage or repairs caused by its installation or removal. A lease clause forbidding tenant-installed detectors would be ineffective.

• Believing Arkansas has no habitability requirement. Act 1052 of 2021 implied six standards into every lease entered or renewed after November 1, 2021.
• Not supplying the defect form. It is the only route to deemed compliance under 18-17-502(c), and it costs nothing.
• Missing the two-business-day window. A tenant who does not return the form hands the landlord the safe harbour by inaction.
• Telling an Arkansas tenant to withhold rent. Expressly forbidden by 18-17-502(d)(3). There is no repair-and-deduct in Arkansas.
• Assuming the deposit cap applies. Ark. Code Ann. 18-16-303 exempts owners of five or fewer units unless a third party collects rent for compensation.
• Handing rent collection to a manager without re-checking. Doing so switches the deposit rules back on.
• Printing a twenty-four-hour entry notice as Arkansas law. There is no Arkansas entry statute; the lease must create the term.
• Leaving entry out of the lease entirely. With no statutory default, silence means no agreed notice at all.
• Confusing the five-day, three-day and ten-day notices. They belong to termination, civil unlawful detainer and the criminal statute respectively.
• Using the criminal statute as an eviction tool. It delivers a small fine, not possession, and carries real risk.
• Importing radon, flood or bed bug disclosures. Arkansas requires no state disclosure at all.
• Applying the quality standards to a lease-to-own. The statute excludes a lease to purchase or a lease with a purchase right.

A well-drafted lease decides who wins a dispute; screening decides whether there is one. Arkansas puts more weight on the lease than any other state, because the statutory floor beneath it is so low — and the same feature that gives a landlord latitude also means a bad tenancy has fewer statutory off-ramps. Verifiable income, a clean payment history, and no prior eviction filings remain the strongest predictors of a quiet tenancy. Our tenant screening report covers credit, eviction filings, criminal background, and employment verification. 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.