Is there a security deposit limit in Mississippi?

No. Mississippi sets no statutory maximum on a residential security deposit. Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-21 governs how a deposit is held, what may be deducted, how deductions must be itemized, when the balance is returned and what happens if it is kept in bad faith - but it imposes no cap of any kind. The amount is a matter of agreement, which is why the lease should state it precisely.

What happens if a Mississippi landlord wrongfully keeps a deposit?

Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-21(4) provides that retention of a deposit in violation of the section and with absence of good faith may subject the landlord, or the landlord's transferee, to damages not to exceed two hundred dollars in addition to any actual damages. Separately, 89-8-21(2) makes the tenant's claim to the deposit prior to the claim of any creditor of the landlord.

What must a Mississippi landlord maintain?

Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-23(1) requires the landlord at all times during the tenancy to comply with applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety, and to maintain the dwelling unit, its plumbing and its heating or cooling system in substantially the same condition as at the inception of the lease, reasonable wear and tear excluded. That is a substantially-the-same-condition duty measured from move-in, not a general warranty of habitability.

Can a Mississippi tenant repair and deduct?

Yes, under Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-15, and only on five conditions. The tenant must give written notice of a specific and material defect and wait 30 days; the expense must not exceed one month's rent; the tenant must not have used the remedy in the preceding six months; the tenant must be current in rent; and the tenant must have complied with 89-8-25. Reimbursement is due within 45 days of receipted bills and may be offset against future rent.

How much notice must a Mississippi landlord give before entering?

None by statute. The Mississippi Residential Landlord and Tenant Act runs from 89-8-1 to 89-8-45 and contains no section governing landlord access. There is no statutory notice period, no limit on hours and no statutory bar on abusing access. Any notice requirement exists only because the lease creates it, which makes an express entry clause materially more important in Mississippi than in states with a statutory default.

What notice comes before an eviction in Mississippi?

Three days for nonpayment of rent under Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-13(5)(a), and fourteen days with a right to cure for any other material noncompliance under 89-8-13(3). A separate three-day notice applies to a tenant holding over after a fixed term expires under 89-8-17. Sources that cite 89-7-27 for a residential eviction are citing the wrong chapter - that section applies only to premises not constituting a dwelling unit.

Can a Mississippi eviction notice be sent by email or text?

Only if the party being notified has agreed in writing to be notified that way. Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-13 and 89-8-17 both permit notice by email or text message on that express condition. The lease is the natural place to record the written agreement, and without it the notice must be in writing in the ordinary sense.

How much notice ends a Mississippi month-to-month tenancy?

Thirty days before the termination date, under Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-19(3). A week-to-week tenancy takes at least seven days under 89-8-19(2). Section 89-8-19(4) then removes the notice requirement entirely where the landlord or tenant has committed a substantial violation of the rental agreement or the chapter that materially affects health or safety.

Can a Mississippi landlord charge double rent for a holdover?

Yes, unless the lease says otherwise. Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-45 lets a landlord charge double the rent for the time a tenant continues in possession after a definite term expires and notice to vacate - but only if not contradicted by the rental agreement. Because the statute expressly yields to the lease, holdover damages in Mississippi are a drafting election rather than a fixed rule.

Does Mississippi protect tenants against retaliation?

Barely. Mississippi has no standalone retaliation statute. The only retaliation language in the whole Act sits inside Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-17(2), which lets a landlord demand a rent increase after a fixed term expires provided the action did not have the dominant purpose of retaliation for the tenant's actions authorized under the chapter, and the landlord received written notice of each condition concerned. There is no presumption period, no damages provision and no general retaliatory-eviction defence.

Which lease clauses are unenforceable in Mississippi?

Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-5 is the prohibited-provisions section. A landlord or tenant may not agree to waive or forego any of the rights, duties or remedies under the chapter except as the chapter allows; and no rental agreement may authorize any person to confess judgment on a claim arising out of it, or agree to exculpate or limit the landlord's liability for the landlord's own willful misconduct. Attorney fees are not mentioned, so a fee clause is a matter of contract.

What disclosures does Mississippi require in a residential lease?

None under state law. The Mississippi Residential Landlord and Tenant Act contains no disclosure section at all - no radon, flood, mold, asbestos, bed bug or landlord identification requirement. Federal law adds the lead-based paint disclosure for housing built before 1978. Any Mississippi template carrying state disclosure blocks was written for another jurisdiction.

What happens to a Mississippi lease when the tenant dies?

Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-29, the Derrick Beard Act, provides that any cosigner of a residential lease may terminate, and is presumed to have terminated, the lease before its expiration upon the death of the lessee or of all lessees. A cosigner who chooses not to terminate must notify the lessor within thirty days. Liability remains for rent owed before the death, rent for the remainder of that thirty-day period, and restoration of the premises. Any attempted waiver of the right is void and unenforceable.

How long does a Mississippi tenant have to move out after an eviction judgment?

Seven days from the date of the judgment, unless the court finds a shorter or longer period justified by an emergency or other compelling circumstances, under Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-39(1). After a warrant of removal is executed the landlord must allow the tenant reasonable access for seventy-two hours to remove personal property. A warrant is not executed merely by posting it on the door - officers must remove the occupants and place the landlord in physical possession.

Does a Mississippi lease need to be notarized or witnessed?

No. Mississippi requires no subscribing witnesses and no notarization for a residential lease. A lease for a longer term than one year must be in writing and signed by the party to be charged to satisfy the statute of frauds at Miss. Code Ann. 15-3-1(c). A lease of one year or less may be oral, though in a state this thin on statutory defaults an oral lease leaves both sides with almost nothing to point at.

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Free Mississippi Residential Lease Agreement

Mississippi residential lease agreement walk-through

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A configurable Mississippi residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-1 and following — no deposit cap, the 45-day accounting at 89-8-21, and the double-rent holdover your lease can contradict.

Mississippi Miss. Code 89-8 2026 Session Checked Free PDF 2026 Edition

Updated Q3 2026 By Tenant Screening Background Check Editorial Team Scope Mississippi ~13 min read

A Mississippi residential lease agreement is governed by the Mississippi Residential Landlord and Tenant Act at Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-1 through 89-8-45 — one of the thinnest landlord-tenant schemes in the country, and for that reason one of the states where the lease itself does the most work. Mississippi sets no maximum security deposit. It has no landlord-entry statute at all. It requires no lease disclosure of any kind. It caps no late fee and grants no grace period. It has no standalone retaliation statute. On every one of those questions the honest answer is the same: the statute is silent, so the lease governs. That is not a gap in this page — it is the single most important thing a Mississippi landlord or tenant needs to understand, and it is why the elections in the form below are written as deliberate choices rather than boilerplate.

Mississippi Lease Rules at a Glance

Security Deposit Cap

None

Deposit Accounting

45 Days*

Entry Notice

None by Statute

Month-to-Month Notice

30 Days

*The 45-day clock has a three-part trigger. Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-21(3) requires the balance to be returned no later than forty-five days after the termination of the tenancy, the delivery of possession and demand by the tenant. All three elements are in the statutory text; every ranking page we examined states the deadline as though it ran from move-out alone. The form below lets a landlord waive the demand element so the deadline becomes certain for both sides.

The Codified Mississippi Text You Will Find Online Is Out of Date

This matters more in Mississippi than almost anywhere, because there is only one freely accessible mirror of the Mississippi Code and it is stale. codes.findlaw.com stamps every Mississippi section “Current as of January 01, 2025” — a date that falls before the entire 2025 regular session. Two acts amended this chapter that year: SB 2328 (2025 ch. 460, approved 10 April 2025) rewrote the eviction summons at 89-8-35 and the removal procedure at 89-8-39, and HB 1200, the Real Property Owners Protection Act (2025 ch. 474, effective 1 July 2025), amended 89-8-3 and 89-8-7. The staleness is demonstrable rather than theoretical: HB 1200 added a trespasser carve-out to the definition of “tenant” at 89-8-7(1)(m), and the mirror’s text still does not carry it. Every figure on this page was therefore checked against the enrolled bill text on the Mississippi Legislature’s own bill status system, and the 2026 regular session was swept as well — HB 442 (which would have rewritten the repair-and-deduct conditions at 89-8-15), HB 499 (89-8-13, 89-8-35, 89-8-39 and 89-8-41) and HB 89 all died in committee on 3 February 2026, so nothing from 2026 changes the law below.

How to Fill Out This Mississippi Lease Agreement

The Seven-Step Mississippi Sequence

1. Name the parties and an address for notices

Mississippi requires no landlord identification disclosure, unlike most states. The lease must still carry an address, because the notices under 89-8-13 and the repair notice under 89-8-15 have to be delivered somewhere. Under 89-8-7(2), notice given to the landlord’s agent is equivalent to notice to the landlord.

2. Describe the premises and choose the term

Enter the address, county and property type, then choose fixed, month-to-month or week-to-week. Section 89-8-19(1) supplies a default only where the agreement fixes no definite term. A lease running longer than one year must be in writing under the statute of frauds at Miss. Code Ann. 15-3-1(c).

3. Set rent, the due day and any late fee

Mississippi caps no late fee and grants no grace period. What it does give you is 89-8-7(1)(k), which defines rent to include any late fee the rental agreement requires a defaulting tenant to pay — so a fee stated in the lease is recoverable as rent in a nonpayment case, and a fee that is not stated simply does not exist.

4. Set the deposit and decide about the demand requirement

There is no cap to worry about. The question that matters is the trigger on the 45-day accounting at 89-8-21(3), which runs from termination, delivery of possession and demand by the tenant. Waiving the demand element in the lease removes the ambiguity for both sides.

5. Decide whether the tenant takes on any maintenance duties

Section 89-8-23(3) permits the parties to agree that the tenant performs some or all of the landlord’s maintenance duties — but only in writing, only in good faith, and only subject to the prohibited provisions at 89-8-5. If you want that shift, this is where it gets recorded.

6. Set the entry notice and choose your notice method

Mississippi’s Act has no entry section, so whatever notice the tenant gets before entry exists only because this lease creates it. Separately, 89-8-13 and 89-8-17 allow notice by email or text message only where the receiving party agreed in writing — ticking that box makes this lease the required writing.

7. Decide the holdover charge, then generate and sign

Section 89-8-45 allows a double-rent holdover charge only “if not contradicted by the rental agreement”, so the lease decides it. Download the multi-page PDF and sign. Mississippi requires no witnesses and no notary.

Build Your Mississippi Residential Lease Agreement

Complete the fields below to generate a Mississippi 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 Mississippi section at each point — including the five places where the statute is silent and the lease has to supply the rule. Before handing over keys, run proper tenant screening. Pair the signed lease with a Mississippi move-in / move-out checklist, which in this state does unusually heavy lifting: because the landlord’s duty under 89-8-23 is measured against the condition of the premises at the inception of the lease, the move-in record is the baseline the whole duty is judged against.

Mississippi Residential Lease Agreement Builder

1. Parties

Landlord (owner) full legal name

Landlord phone

Landlord address for notices

Landlord email for notices

Tenant 1 full legal name

Tenant 2 full legal name (if any)

Tenant email for notices

Tenant mobile number for notices

Additional tenants (comma-separated)

Authorized occupants who are not tenants (minors, etc.)

2. Premises

Rental property address (street, unit, city, ZIP)

County

Property type

Year built (pre-1978 triggers federal lead disclosure)

Bedrooms / bathrooms

3. Term

Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-19(1) supplies the default only where the lease fixes no definite term: week-to-week if the tenant pays weekly rent, month-to-month in every other case. A lease running longer than one year must be in writing under the statute of frauds at 15-3-1(c).

Lease type

Term length in months (if other)

Lease start date

Lease end date (if fixed)

4. Rent & Late Fees

Mississippi sets no statutory grace period and no late-fee cap. It does something better for the landlord who drafts carefully: Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-7(1)(k) defines rent to include any late fee the rental agreement requires a defaulting tenant to pay — so a late fee stated in the lease is recoverable as rent, and a late fee that is not stated does not exist.

Monthly rent (dollars)

Rent due day of month

Late fee, if any (Mississippi sets no cap)

Grace period in days (Mississippi provides none by statute)

Acceptable payment methods (comma-separated)

5. Security Deposit

Mississippi sets no maximum. Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-21(3) requires the balance to be returned no later than forty-five days after three things have happened: termination of the tenancy, delivery of possession, and demand by the tenant. You may waive the demand element below so the clock starts on move-out.

Total security deposit (dollars)

Additional pet deposit (dollars)

Landlord waives the statutory demand requirement — the forty-five day accounting clock runs from termination and delivery of possession alone (89-8-21(3))

6. Maintenance & Utilities

Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-23(3) lets the