Free Florida Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable Florida residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to Fla. Stat. ch. 83, Part II as it reads today — 24-hour repair-entry notice, the 15 / 30-day deposit accounting, and the 2025 flood-risk disclosure.

Florida Fla. Stat. ch. 83 No Deposit Cap Free PDF 2026 Edition

A Florida residential lease agreement is the written contract that sets the term, the rent, and the deposit for a dwelling unit governed by Part II of Chapter 83 of the Florida Statutes, the Florida Residential Landlord and Tenant Act. Florida law fills in a great deal that the lease does not say — and, more importantly, overrides anything the lease says that conflicts with it. A Florida landlord may charge any security deposit amount, because the state sets no cap, but must state how the deposit is held and must meet a two-track accounting deadline of fifteen days to refund in full or thirty days to send a certified-mail notice of intention to impose a claim. Repair entry requires twenty-four hours notice, not twelve. A month-to-month tenancy now ends on thirty days notice, not fifteen. And since 2025 a lease with a term of one year or longer requires a separate flood-risk disclosure document. The generator below builds a lease that reflects each of those rules as they read today.

Complete the fields below to generate a Florida residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, including the utility allocations and each disclosure you check. The generated lease cites the controlling Florida statute at each point, so the parties can see which terms come from the contract and which come from Chapter 83. Before handing keys to anyone, run proper tenant screening — the lease governs the relationship, but screening decides whether you want the relationship at all. Pair the signed lease with a Florida move-in / move-out checklist so the deposit accounting at the end of the tenancy rests on documented condition rather than memory.

Florida recognizes several distinct rental arrangements, and the type drives the notice rules that end it. A fixed-term lease runs for a stated period, most often twelve months, and ends on its own terms — though Fla. Stat. 83.575 lets the lease require advance notice of whether the tenancy will continue. A month-to-month tenancy has no end date and renews each period until either party gives thirty days notice. Under Fla. Stat. 83.46(2), when a lease does not specify a duration, the duration is determined by the period for which rent is payable: weekly rent creates a week-to-week tenancy, monthly rent a month-to-month tenancy, and yearly rent a year-to-year tenancy. That default is why an oral agreement to pay monthly rent is a month-to-month tenancy by operation of law even though nobody wrote anything down.

Beyond the basic two, a room or roommate agreement covers a tenant renting a single room in an occupied dwelling; a sublease passes a tenant’s interest to a subtenant while leaving the original tenant liable to the landlord, and is only permitted where the lease allows it; and a lease-to-own or lease-option agreement adds a purchase right on top of a tenancy and should be drafted with counsel, because the purchase terms fall outside Chapter 83 entirely. Two categories sit outside this form altogether. A vacation or transient rental of short duration is governed by Chapter 509 rather than Chapter 83 Part II, and a commercial lease is governed by Part I of Chapter 83, which gives a commercial tenant far fewer statutory protections than a residential one. Do not use a residential lease for a storefront or a short-term vacation rental.

One Florida-specific wrinkle deserves attention: a unit inside a condominium or homeowners association may be subject to association approval, screening fees, and rules that bind the tenant independently of the lease. Chapters 718 and 719 permit associations to require approval of a lease and, in many communities, to charge a transfer or screening fee. A landlord who signs a lease before the association approves the tenant risks having to unwind it. Check the declaration and the association’s rules before the lease is executed, and attach the association’s rules as an addendum so the tenant is on notice of them.

At a minimum a Florida residential lease should identify the parties and the premises, state the term, state the rent and when it is due, state the deposit and how it is held, allocate utilities and maintenance, and carry the required disclosures. Florida does not prescribe a form lease, so the statute works by supplying defaults and by voiding provisions that conflict with it. That makes the drafting question less “what must the lease say” and more “what will the statute say if the lease is silent, and can the lease change it?”

Some terms the lease can freely set: the deposit amount, the late fee and any grace period, whether pets are allowed, whether the tenant carries renters insurance, and how utilities are split. Some terms the lease can set only within limits: end-of-lease notice must fall between thirty and sixty days under Fla. Stat. 83.575, and an early-termination fee under Fla. Stat. 83.595(2)(a) may not exceed two months’ rent and may not require more than sixty days notice, and is only enforceable if both parties signed a separate addendum choosing that remedy. And some terms the lease cannot set at all: it cannot waive the twenty-four-hour repair-entry notice, cannot waive the deposit accounting deadlines, cannot waive the tenant’s right to attorney fees, and cannot waive any other right or remedy created by Part II of Chapter 83. Fla. Stat. 83.47 makes such a provision void and lets the aggrieved party recover actual damages for its inclusion.

Florida requires four lease-related disclosures, and one of them is federal. The list is much shorter than most templates suggest, and the templates that pad it with California-style disclosures also tend to omit the two that Florida genuinely mandates.

Radon gas — Fla. Stat. 404.056(5). Every residential rental agreement in Florida must carry a radon notification, and the statute prescribes the wording. At least one document executed at or before the rental agreement must state: “RADON GAS: Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that, when it has accumulated in a building in sufficient quantities, may present health risks to persons who are exposed to it over time. Levels of radon that exceed federal and state guidelines have been found in buildings in Florida. Additional information regarding radon and radon testing may be obtained from your county health department.” Transient occupancy of forty-five days or less is excepted. This is the disclosure most commonly missing from generic templates, and it is the one Florida actually requires by name.

Landlord identification — Fla. Stat. 83.50. The landlord must disclose in writing, at or before the beginning of the tenancy, the name and address of the landlord or of the person authorized to receive notices and demands on the landlord’s behalf. It sounds administrative, but it is load-bearing: every statutory notice a tenant serves travels to that address, and a landlord who never supplied one has weakened its own position on service.

Security deposit — Fla. Stat. 83.49. Within thirty days after receiving a deposit or advance rent, the landlord must give written notice stating how the money is held, the interest rate if any, when interest is paid, and the name and address of the depository. The statute also prescribes a disclosure telling the tenant that advance rents may be transferred to the landlord’s account as they come due and that the tenant must give a new address at move-out so deposit notices can be sent.

Flood risk — Fla. Stat. 83.512. Created by chapter 2025-166, this is the newest requirement and the one almost no competing template covers. For any lease with a term of one year or longer, the landlord must give the prospective tenant a flood-risk disclosure at or before execution, in a separate document. The statutory language warns that renters insurance does not cover flood damage and encourages the tenant to discuss separate flood coverage with an insurance agent, and the form asks the landlord to state whether the property has flooded during the landlord’s ownership, whether a flood insurance claim has been filed, and whether flood assistance has been received. The remedy has teeth: if the landlord fails to give the disclosure and the tenant then suffers substantial loss or damage to personal property from flooding, the tenant may terminate the lease on thirty days written notice. Because the statute requires a separate document, printing the language inside the lease body does not satisfy it.

Lead-based paint — federal, 42 U.S.C. 4852d. Any dwelling built before 1978 requires the federal disclosure, the EPA pamphlet, and any known records or reports. This is not a Florida rule but it applies in Florida, and it carries federal penalties.

What Florida does not require may matter more, because it is where the padded templates go wrong. There is no Florida statute mandating a bed bug disclosure, a mold disclosure, an asbestos disclosure, a methamphetamine contamination disclosure, a military ordnance proximity disclosure, or a Proposition 65-style hazardous substances warning — those come from California and other states. Nor does Florida require a landlord sex-offender registry notice in a residential lease. And the fire protection disclosure for buildings over three stories, which many Florida templates still print with a citation to Fla. Stat. 83.50, was removed from that statute in 2013; the current section 83.50 addresses only the landlord’s name and address. Including a voluntary disclosure is harmless, but citing a repealed statute for it is not: it signals a document nobody has read against current law.

Florida sets no cap on a residential security deposit. A landlord may ask for one month, two months, or more, and Fla. Stat. 83.49 says nothing about the amount. What the statute regulates instead is custody and accounting, and it regulates both strictly.

On custody, a landlord holding a deposit or advance rent has exactly three lawful options under Fla. Stat. 83.49(1). The money may sit in a separate non-interest-bearing account in a Florida banking institution, held for the tenant’s benefit and not commingled with the landlord’s funds. It may sit in a separate interest-bearing account, in which case the tenant is entitled to either 70%-5% of the annualized average interest rate payable on that account or 5% per year simple interest, at the landlord’s election. Or the landlord may post a surety bond with the clerk of the circuit court and pay the tenant 5% per year simple interest. Whichever option applies, the landlord must tell the tenant in writing, within thirty days of receiving the money, which one it is and where the money is.

On accounting, Florida runs the distinctive two-track clock described above: fifteen days to return the deposit in full if the landlord imposes no claim, or thirty days to mail a written notice of intention to impose a claim by certified mail to the tenant’s last known address, itemizing the reason and amount of each deduction. The tenant then has fifteen days from receipt to object in writing. The consequence of missing the thirty-day deadline is the harshest rule in Florida deposit law: the landlord forfeits the right to impose any claim on the deposit, however real the damage, and must return it — leaving only a separate lawsuit as a remedy. If you are sending that accounting, the Florida security deposit itemization form builds the itemized statement, and the deeper rules are collected in our Florida security deposit laws guide.

Since July 2023, Fla. Stat. 83.491 has offered an alternative: a landlord may let the tenant pay a recurring fee in lieu of a security deposit. The statute is heavily conditioned. The landlord must disclose in writing that the fee is not a security deposit and does not absolve the tenant of any lease obligation, that the tenant may choose to pay a deposit instead at any time, whether the fee is refundable, and what each option costs. The fee may not be increased during the term. The tenant may terminate the fee arrangement by paying the deposit amount, and the landlord may not report that adversely. And a landlord may not use the applicant’s choice of the fee option against them during screening. The option can lower a tenant’s move-in cost substantially, but a landlord offering it must paper it correctly.

Rent is payable without demand or notice at the beginning of each rent payment period unless the lease says otherwise, under Fla. Stat. 83.46(1). Rent is apportionable from day to day, which is what makes a prorated first or last month lawful. Florida provides no statutory grace period: if rent is due on the first, it is late on the second unless the lease creates a grace period. Many leases create a three-day or five-day grace period as a practical matter, and that is a contract term, not a statutory right.

On late fees, Florida is unusual in providing no cap and no statutory framework at all. Some states cap the fee at a percentage of rent; Florida does not. That has two consequences. The first is that the lease must state the fee for it to be chargeable — there is no default late fee to fall back on. The second is that the only real limit is judicial: an excessive fee can be challenged as unconscionable under Fla. Stat. 83.45, which permits a court to refuse to enforce the provision, or as an unenforceable penalty rather than a genuine estimate of the landlord’s loss. Keeping the fee proportionate to actual costs is the practical defense.

One citation error is worth naming because it appears in so many Florida lease templates and ranking articles: Fla. Stat. 83.808 does not govern residential late fees. Part III of Chapter 83 is the Self-Storage Facility Act, and section 83.808 sits inside it. A residential lease citing 83.808 for its late-fee clause is citing the wrong body of law entirely. The same goes for citing Fla. Stat. 83.43 as a late-fee authority; section 83.43 is the definitions section of the residential act and creates no fee rule.

At least twenty-four hours for repairs, and only between 7:30 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. Fla. Stat. 83.53(2) defines “reasonable notice” for the purpose of repair as notice given at least twenty-four hours prior to entry, and “reasonable time” as the window between 7:30 in the morning and 8:00 at night. This is the single most frequently mis-stated rule in Florida lease templates, which routinely print twelve hours.

The statute also lists the circumstances in which the landlord may enter without that notice: with the tenant’s consent; in case of emergency; when the tenant unreasonably withholds consent; or when the tenant is absent from the premises for a period of time equal to one-half the time for periodic rental payments. Separately, the landlord may enter at any time for the protection or preservation of the premises — the hurricane-shutter and burst-pipe case. What the landlord may not do is abuse the right of access or use repeated entries to harass the tenant. And because Fla. Stat. 83.47 voids any provision waiving a statutory right, a lease clause purporting to grant unlimited entry or to waive the notice is unenforceable no matter who signed it. Our Florida notice to enter form produces a dated notice that documents compliance.

Fla. Stat. 83.51 places the structural and habitability burden on the landlord. The landlord must comply with applicable building, housing, and health codes, or where no such codes apply, must maintain the roof, windows, doors, floors, steps, porches, exterior walls, foundations, and other structural components in good repair and capable of resisting normal forces and loads, and keep the plumbing in reasonable working condition. Screens must be installed at the start of the tenancy and repaired as needed annually. Working smoke detection devices must be installed at the commencement of the tenancy.

For apartments and other multi-unit dwellings, section 83.51(2)(a) adds duties that cannot be shifted to the tenant: extermination of rats, mice, roaches, ants, wood-destroying organisms, and bed bugs; locks and keys; the clean and safe condition of common areas; garbage removal and outside receptacles; and functioning facilities for heat during winter, running water, and hot water. For a single-family home or duplex, the calculus changes: the parties may agree in writing to shift several of those items to the tenant. That is why the property type field in the form above is not cosmetic — it determines which allocations the lease can lawfully make.

Fla. Stat. 83.52 sets the tenant’s side: comply with code obligations, keep the occupied portion clean and sanitary, remove garbage properly, keep plumbing fixtures clean and in repair, operate electrical, plumbing, heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning systems reasonably, refrain from destroying or defacing the premises, and behave in a way that does not unreasonably disturb neighbors.

When the landlord does not repair, the tenant has a defined path rather than a self-help right. Under Fla. Stat. 83.60(1)(b), before withholding rent the tenant must deliver written notice to the landlord specifying the noncompliance and stating the intention not to pay rent for that reason, and seven days must elapse. Only then does material noncompliance become a defense to a possession action for nonpayment. And a tenant who raises any defense other than payment in an eviction case must generally deposit the accrued rent into the court registry; failing to do so within five business days waives every defense except payment and hands the landlord a default. Tenants routinely lose winnable repair cases on that procedural point. A dated Florida maintenance request form creates the written record the statute assumes.

It depends on whether the tenancy has a specific duration. For a tenancy without a specific term, Fla. Stat. 83.57 sets the notice periods: not less than sixty days before the end of an annual period for year-to-year; thirty days for quarter-to-quarter; thirty days before the end of a monthly period for month-to-month; and seven days for week-to-week. The month-to-month figure is the one to watch, because Florida’s older rule was fifteen days and a great many templates, and even some current articles, still print fifteen.

For a lease with a specific duration, Fla. Stat. 83.575 governs. The lease may require the tenant to give notice before vacating at the end of the term, but it may not require less than thirty days or more than sixty days, and the landlord must give the tenant the same courtesy when it does not intend to renew. If the lease imposes liquidated damages for failing to give that notice, the landlord must notify the tenant in writing of the obligation and of all applicable fees within fifteen days before the notice period begins. A tenant who holds over after the term without giving the required notice may be liable for an additional one month’s rent.

If a tenant breaks the lease early, Fla. Stat. 83.595 gives the landlord four options: treat the lease as terminated and retake possession, ending the tenant’s further liability; retake possession for the tenant’s account and hold the tenant liable for the difference, while making a good-faith effort to relet; stand by and do nothing, holding the tenant liable for rent as it comes due; or charge liquidated damages or an early termination fee. That last option is available only if both parties signed a separate addendum choosing it, and the fee may not exceed two months’ rent and may not require more than sixty days notice of early termination. Our Florida breaking-lease laws guide walks through when a tenant may leave without liability.

Two statutory early-exit rights sit on top of that. A servicemember may terminate under Fla. Stat. 83.682 with thirty days written notice, accompanied by a copy of the official orders or a commanding officer’s written verification, on permanent change of station orders requiring a move of thirty-five miles or more, premature or involuntary discharge, orders into government quarters, or temporary or state active duty orders of more than sixty days requiring a move of thirty-five miles or more — and is liable only for rent prorated to the effective date. And under Fla. Stat. 83.512, a tenant who never received the required flood disclosure and then suffers substantial loss to personal property from flooding may terminate on thirty days written notice.

Florida requires a written pre-suit notice, and which notice depends on the breach. For unpaid rent, Fla. Stat. 83.56(3) requires a three-day notice demanding the rent or possession — and the three days exclude Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays, which is the counting rule landlords most often get wrong. Serve it a day early and the eviction can be dismissed. For a curable material noncompliance, such as an unauthorized pet or occupant or failing to keep the unit clean and sanitary, section 83.56(2)(b) requires a seven-day notice to cure; if the same conduct recurs within twelve months, the landlord may terminate without offering another chance to cure. For a non-curable breach — intentional destruction of the premises, or continued unreasonable disturbance of neighbors — section 83.56(2)(a) allows a seven-day unconditional notice of termination. Notices may be delivered by mail, by hand, by leaving a copy at the residence if the tenant is absent, or electronically where Fla. Stat. 83.505 applies. Our Florida three-day notice to pay rent or quit handles the nonpayment case with the correct day counting.

What a Florida landlord may never do is take possession without going through the court. Fla. Stat. 83.67 prohibits shutting off or interrupting any utility service, changing the locks or otherwise denying the tenant access, removing outside doors, locks, roof, walls, or windows except for maintenance, and removing the tenant’s personal property except after surrender, abandonment, or a lawful eviction. A landlord who does any of it is liable for actual and consequential damages or three months’ rent, whichever is greater, plus costs and attorney fees. Self-help eviction is the single most expensive mistake available to a Florida landlord.

Two separate questions arise at the end of a tenancy: whether the unit was abandoned, and what to do with the belongings. On abandonment, Fla. Stat. 83.59(3)(c) provides that absent actual knowledge, a tenant is presumed to have abandoned the dwelling unit if absent for a period equal to one-half the time for periodic rental payments — roughly fifteen days on a monthly tenancy. The presumption does not apply if rent is current or if the tenant gave the landlord written notice of an intended absence. Acting on a mistaken abandonment assumption while rent is paid is how landlords end up on the wrong side of section 83.67.

On the belongings, Fla. Stat. 715.104 through 715.109 supply the procedure. The landlord gives written notice describing the property well enough for the owner to identify it, stating where it may be claimed and that storage costs may apply. The tenant then has ten days to reclaim if the notice was personally delivered, or fifteen days if it was mailed, counted from the date of mailing. Locked trunks, valises, and similar containers may be described generically without inventorying the contents. Unclaimed property may then be sold or otherwise disposed of under the remaining sections. A lease may adopt the statutory procedure by reference, which puts the tenant on notice of the deadline before it ever matters.

Fla. Stat. 83.47 voids any rental agreement provision that purports to waive or preclude a right, remedy, or requirement of Part II of Chapter 83, or that purports to limit either party’s liability arising under law. Including such a provision is not merely ineffective: if either party suffers because it was included, the aggrieved party may recover actual damages. In practice the clauses that fail are familiar ones — a waiver of the deposit accounting deadlines, a blanket consent to entry without notice, a waiver of the tenant’s right to attorney fees, an agreement that the landlord may change the locks on nonpayment, or a waiver of the landlord’s maintenance duties in an apartment building.

Attorney fees deserve their own note. Under Fla. Stat. 83.48, in any civil action brought to enforce the lease or Part II of Chapter 83, the prevailing party may recover reasonable attorney fees and court costs from the non-prevailing party — and that right may not be waived in a lease agreement. A one-sided fee clause favoring only the landlord does not survive contact with this section. Fla. Stat. 83.64 adds an anti-retaliation rule: a landlord may not discriminatorily raise rent, cut services, or bring or threaten a possession action primarily in retaliation for a tenant complaining to a government agency about a code violation, organizing or joining a tenant organization, complaining to the landlord under section 83.56(1), terminating as a servicemember, or exercising fair housing rights. Good cause — genuine nonpayment or a genuine lease violation — remains a defense.

No. Florida requires neither subscribing witnesses nor notarization for a residential lease, regardless of the length of the term. This is worth stating plainly because it is probably the most persistent myth in Florida lease drafting. Fla. Stat. 689.01 generally requires two subscribing witnesses for an instrument creating an estate or interest in land for a term of more than one year — and then says, in the same sentence, that “no subscribing witnesses shall be required for a lease of real property or any such instrument pertaining to a lease of real property.” That lease exception was added by chapter 2008-35. A pre-2008 form book, or a template copied from one, will still tell you a Florida lease over one year needs two witnesses. It does not.

Nothing prevents the parties from adding witnesses or a notary block voluntarily, and for a long-term or high-value lease some landlords still do. But an unwitnessed, un-notarized Florida residential lease signed by both parties is fully enforceable, and a tenant should not be told otherwise as a condition of moving in.

• Printing a twelve-hour entry notice. Fla. Stat. 83.53(2) requires twenty-four hours for repair entry. A landlord relying on a twelve-hour clause is entering without lawful notice, and the clause is void under section 83.47 anyway.
• Printing a fifteen-day month-to-month termination notice. The period is thirty days under Fla. Stat. 83.57(3). A short notice does not end the tenancy, and an eviction filed on it can be dismissed.
• Citing Fla. Stat. 83.808 or 83.43 for late fees. Section 83.808 belongs to the self-storage act; section 83.43 is the definitions section. Florida has no residential late-fee statute at all.
• Omitting the radon disclosure. Fla. Stat. 404.056(5) prescribes the exact wording and applies to essentially every residential rental agreement. It is the most commonly missing required disclosure in Florida leases.
• Burying the flood disclosure in the lease. Fla. Stat. 83.512 requires a separate document for leases of one year or longer. A clause inside the lease does not comply, and non-compliance can hand the tenant a termination right after a flood loss.
• Never sending the deposit-holding notice. The written notice of how and where the deposit is held is due within thirty days of receiving the money under Fla. Stat. 83.49(2), not at move-out.
• Missing the thirty-day claim notice. The forfeiture rule is absolute: no timely certified-mail notice, no claim against the deposit, regardless of how well documented the damage is.
• Counting the three-day notice wrong. Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays do not count. Serving a day early is the most common reason a Florida eviction gets dismissed on the papers.
• Writing an early-termination fee into the lease body. Fla. Stat. 83.595(2)(a) requires a separate addendum signed by both parties, caps the fee at two months’ rent, and limits required notice to sixty days.
• Demanding two witnesses. Fla. Stat. 689.01 exempts leases from the subscribing-witness requirement. Insisting on it signals a template written before 2008.
• Using a residential lease for a vacation rental or a storefront. Short-term transient rentals fall under Chapter 509 and commercial tenancies under Part I of Chapter 83; neither is governed by the residential act.
• Signing before the condominium or homeowners association approves. Chapters 718 and 719 let many associations approve or reject a tenant and charge a screening fee. Approval comes before execution, not after.

A well-drafted lease decides who wins a dispute; screening decides whether there is a dispute. The strongest predictors of a quiet tenancy are the ones visible before the lease is signed: verifiable income, a clean payment history, and no prior eviction filings. Because Florida gives a landlord no rent-withholding shortcut and no self-help remedy — every removal runs through the county court under Fla. Stat. 83.59 — the cost of placing the wrong tenant in Florida is measured in months. Our tenant screening report covers credit, eviction filings, criminal background, and employment verification. Screen first, then paper the tenancy with this lease.

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