What is the security deposit limit in Missouri?

Two months' rent. Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300.1 provides that a landlord may not demand or receive a security deposit in excess of two months' rent, so the prohibition reaches receipt as well as demand and a deposit collected in instalments can breach it. Since the 2025 amendment to Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.043 no Missouri county or city may enact an ordinance limiting the amount of a security deposit either, so two months' rent is the only ceiling in the state.

Does a pet deposit count toward Missouri's two-month cap?

No. Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300.8 defines security deposit as any deposit of money or property, however denominated, furnished by a tenant to secure performance of the rental agreement, but expressly excludes any money or property denominated as a deposit for a pet on the premises. A pet deposit therefore sits outside the two-month ceiling. The corollary matters just as much: because it is not a security deposit, it does not carry the thirty-day return duty in 535.300.3 or the double-damages remedy in 535.300.6, so the lease should say how it is handled.

How long does a Missouri landlord have to return a security deposit?

Thirty days, and the clock runs from the date of termination of the tenancy rather than from the day the keys come back. Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300.3 requires the landlord within thirty days either to return the full deposit or to furnish a written itemized list of the damages withheld together with the balance, and it provides that the landlord has complied by mailing that statement and any payment to the tenant's last known address. Posting, not receipt, is the test.

Can a Missouri tenant be present at the move-out inspection?

Yes, and the landlord has to make it possible. Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300.5 requires the landlord to give the tenant or the tenant's representative reasonable notice in writing, at the last known address or in person, of the date and time when the landlord will inspect the dwelling unit after termination to determine the amount to be withheld, and to hold the inspection at a reasonable time. The tenant has the right to be present at that inspection. The tenant does not have to ask, and the landlord may not condition it.

Can a Missouri landlord charge carpet cleaning to the security deposit?

Only if the lease contains a specific clause. Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300.4(2) permits a landlord and tenant to agree on amounts or fees for cleaning the carpet, and permits amounts actually expended to be withheld from the deposit, but only so long as the rental agreement also includes a provision notifying the tenant that he or she may be liable for actual carpet-cleaning costs exceeding ordinary wear and tear. The landlord must also give the tenant a receipt for the actual costs within thirty days of the end of the tenancy.

What happens if a Missouri landlord wrongfully withholds a deposit?

Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300.6 gives the tenant damages of twice the amount wrongfully withheld. The measure is twice the amount wrongfully withheld and not twice the deposit, so returning the undisputed part limits the exposure to what is actually in dispute. Nothing in 535.300.7 limits the landlord's right to recover actual damages in excess of the deposit, and a tenant may not apply any part of the deposit in lieu of rent. A 2007 Missouri Court of Appeals decision held the double-damages provision does not reach tenants of commercial property.

How much notice must a Missouri landlord give before entering?

None by statute, because Missouri has no landlord-entry statute at all. There is no access or entry section anywhere in Mo. Rev. Stat. chapter 441 or chapter 535: the chapter 441 contents run from 441.005 to 441.920 with no access section and chapter 535 ends at 535.300. The twenty-four hours commonly quoted for Missouri is a custom, not a statute, which is why the entry notice period has to be a lease election rather than a printed figure.

Can a Missouri landlord change the locks or shut off utilities?

No. Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.233.1 provides that, except in the case of an abandonment handled under 441.065, a landlord or its agent who removes or excludes a tenant or the tenant's personal property without judicial process and court order, or who causes the removal of the doors or locks, shall be deemed guilty of forcible entry and detainer under chapter 534. Subsection 2 applies the same label to a landlord who willfully interrupts electric, gas, water or sewer service, with an exception only for action taken for health or safety reasons. Under Mo. Rev. Stat. 534.330 a successful complainant recovers double the damages assessed and double the rents and profits.

Can a Missouri tenant repair and deduct?

Yes, but the gate is narrow. Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.234.1 limits the right to a tenant who has lawfully resided on the premises for six consecutive months, has paid all rent and charges due, and received no uncured violation notice in that time. The condition must detrimentally affect habitability, sanitation or security and violate a local municipal housing or building code, and cost less than three hundred dollars or one-half of the periodic rent, whichever is greater, never exceeding one month's rent. The landlord gets fourteen days, and if the landlord serves a written statement disputing the necessity of the repair the tenant must first obtain written certification from the municipality. No more than one month's rent may be deducted in any twelve-month period, and 441.234.2 forbids any lease waiver of the right.

Does Missouri have a warranty of habitability?

Not a statutory one. Chapters 441 and 535 contain no habitability, maintenance or landlord-duty section of the kind the uniform-act states enacted. The statutory levers Missouri does supply are the gated repair-and-deduct right at Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.234, the nuisance and receivership action at 441.500 to 441.643 for housing-code violations that threaten public health or safety, and the receivership at 441.650 for a master-metered multitenant building whose heat-related utility bill goes delinquent. Coverage describing a Missouri statutory habitability duty is describing another state's statute.

Does Missouri cap late fees?

No. Nothing in chapter 441, chapter 535 or chapter 534 caps a residential late fee or grants a grace period. The figure of twenty dollars or 20% that circulates in Missouri template coverage is mis-cited from Mo. Rev. Stat. 570.120.6(2), which is part of the criminal offence of passing bad checks and authorises a returned-check service charge not exceeding twenty-five dollars plus the actual bank charge.

How does a Missouri month-to-month tenancy end?

With one month's written notice ending on a rent-paying date, not a flat thirty days. Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.060.1 requires one month's notice in writing, and 441.060.4(1) provides that either party may terminate by written notice stating the tenancy shall terminate upon a periodic rent-paying date not less than one month after receipt of the notice. A year-to-year tenancy is different: Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.050 requires written notice not less than sixty days before the end of the year. And under 441.070 no notice to quit is necessary at all where the term ends at a certain time.

What notice comes before an eviction in Missouri?

For unpaid rent, a demand. Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.020 lets a landlord file a verified rent and possession statement once rent is due and payable, payment has been demanded and not made, and it says expressly that giving the notice provided in 441.060 is not required. Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.060 makes a demand good whenever it is made after the rent falls due, and Missouri fixes no waiting period between the demand and the filing. A violation of the illegal-use section at 441.020 carries a separate ten days' notice to vacate under 441.040.

Can a Missouri tenant stop an eviction by paying?

Yes. Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.160 provides that if on the date any money judgment is given the tenant either tenders to the landlord or brings into court all the rent then in arrears and all the costs, further proceedings in the action shall cease and be stayed. If the tenant satisfies the money judgment and pays all costs after trial but before the judgment becomes final, any execution for possession also ceases and is stayed, although the landlord may still apply for an appeal from the money judgment. Not one of the ranking Missouri lease pages mentions this.

What does a Missouri tenant owe for holding over?

Double, and which double depends on how the holdover arose. Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.080 makes a tenant who willfully holds over after the term ends, after demand made and written notice requiring possession, pay double the yearly value of the premises for the whole time the landlord is kept out. Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.100 is harsher: a tenant who gives written notice of an intention to quit at a specified time and then stays pays double the rent reserved for the entire period of continued possession. Waste is not doubled at all, it is trebled under Mo. Rev. Stat. 537.420.

What happens to property a Missouri tenant leaves behind?

Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.065 sets out a four-step abandonment procedure. The landlord must have a reasonable belief the tenant has vacated and will not return, the rent must be due and unpaid for thirty days, the landlord must post written notice on the premises and mail it to the last known address by both first class mail and certified mail with return receipt requested using the wording the statute supplies, and the tenant must fail to pay or to respond in writing within ten days of both the posting and the mailing. Abandonment under 441.065 is the express carve-out from the self-help prohibition in 441.233, which is why the steps must be done exactly.

Which disclosures does Missouri actually require in a lease?

Three state disclosures and one federal. Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.185 requires written identification of the manager and of an owner or person authorized to accept service of process, at or before the commencement of the tenancy. Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.236 requires written disclosure where the premises is or was used as a site for methamphetamine production and the landlord knows, regardless of whether anyone was convicted. Mo. Rev. Stat. 442.055 requires written disclosure of prior radioactive or hazardous material contamination where the landlord has received a report affirming it, and makes non-disclosure a class A misdemeanor. The federal lead-based paint rule applies to housing built before 1978.

Can a Missouri city add its own rent or deposit rules?

No, and the list of things it may not do grew in 2025. Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.043, as amended by A.L. 2025 H.B. 595 and 343 effective 28 August 2025, bars a county or city from regulating the amount of rent, from prohibiting source-of-income refusals where the income includes a housing assistance program, from restricting a landlord's use of credit, eviction, property damage or criminal history under customarily applied criteria, from limiting the amount of a security deposit, and from requiring an automatic right of first refusal. A city may still prohibit discrimination against a tenant solely for receiving veterans' benefits. Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.012 separately bars local eviction moratoria.

Does a Missouri tenant owe rent after a tornado or fire destroys the home?

No. Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.645 provides that if a residence is destroyed by an act of God, including but not limited to fire or a tornado, or by another natural or man-made disaster, and the tenant did not cause the disaster, the tenant is not liable to the landlord for rent during the remainder of the term of the lease agreement. Separately, Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.010 provides that no covenant to repair obliges a tenant to rebuild a building destroyed by fire without the tenant's procurement, connivance or neglect unless the tenant specially covenanted to do so.

Does a Missouri lease have to be in writing?

A lease for longer than one year does. Mo. Rev. Stat. 432.010 bars an action on any lease of lands for a longer time than one year unless the agreement or a memorandum of it is in writing and signed by the party to be charged. A shorter lease may be oral, but Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.060.3 provides that an unwritten agreement for the occupation of a house or other building in a city, town or village is held and taken to be a tenancy from month to month, so an oral Missouri lease collapses into a month-to-month tenancy. Missouri requires no subscribing witnesses and no notarization.

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Free Missouri Residential Lease Agreement

Missouri residential lease agreement walk-through

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A configurable Missouri residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300, the repair-and-deduct gate at 441.234, and the self-help prohibition at 441.233.

Missouri Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300 Two Months’ Rent Cap Free PDF 2026 Edition

Updated Q3 2026 By Tenant Screening Background Check Editorial Team Scope Missouri ~16 min read

A Missouri residential lease agreement is not governed by a landlord-tenant act, because Missouri does not have one. Missouri never adopted the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, and the rules that do exist are scattered across three chapters of the Revised Statutes: chapter 441, headed Landlord and Tenant, which supplies the termination notices at 441.050, 441.060 and 441.070, the self-help prohibition at 441.233, the repair-and-deduct right at 441.234, abandonment at 441.065 and two of the three lease disclosures; chapter 535, headed Landlord-Tenant Actions, which supplies the entire security deposit rule at 535.300, the identification disclosure at 535.185 and the rent and possession procedure at 535.020; and chapter 534, which defines unlawful detainer at 534.030 and doubles the damages at 534.330. Three facts drive this page. Missouri’s deposit statute contains a move-out inspection rule that no competing template mentions. Missouri has no landlord-entry statute at all, so entry is a lease election. And Missouri has no statutory warranty of habitability, which makes the narrow rights it does grant worth stating precisely.

Missouri Lease Rules at a Glance

Security Deposit Cap

Two Months’ Rent

Deposit Return

30 Days*

Entry Notice

None by Statute

Month-to-Month Notice

One Month

*Thirty days, but not from the day you get the keys back. Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300.3 runs the thirty days from the date of termination of the tenancy, and provides that the landlord has complied by mailing the itemized statement and any payment to the tenant’s last known address. Delivery is not the test and possession is not the trigger. Missouri also attaches a rule almost no template carries: under 535.300.5 the landlord must give written notice of the date and time of the move-out inspection, and the tenant has the right to be present at it.

Two Ranking Missouri Pages Cite a Criminal Statute for a Late-Fee Cap That Does Not Exist

Both iPropertyManagement pages in the Missouri results state that “Missouri caps late fees at twenty dollars or 20% of the monthly rent, whichever is greater,” and cite Mo. Rev. Stat. 570.120.6(2) as the authority. Section 570.120 is the crime of passing bad checks. Subsection 6(2) authorises the recipient of a dishonoured check to collect a reasonable service charge not exceeding twenty-five dollars plus the actual charge made by the depository institution, where the check is not referred to the prosecuting attorney. It says nothing whatever about late fees. Missouri has no statutory late-fee cap and no statutory grace period. A second ranker cites “441.223” for the self-help prohibition, which is not a section of the code at all — it is the bill-section number in the revisor’s history line for what is codified at 441.233. Every figure on this page came from opening the section on the Missouri Revisor of Statutes and reading its own title, text and history line.

How to Fill Out This Missouri Lease Agreement

Seven steps, in the order the builder asks for them

1. Name the parties, the owner and the manager

Missouri is one of the states that puts a landlord-identification duty in statute. Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.185 requires the name and address of the person authorised to manage the premises, and of an owner or a person authorised to act for the owner for service of process and for receiving notices and demands, to be disclosed to the tenant in writing at or before the commencement of the tenancy. It must be kept current and it binds successors. The penalty in 535.185.3 is the part nobody quotes: whoever fails to comply becomes the agent of each landlord for service of process, for notices and demands, for performing the landlord’s obligations, and for collecting rent.

2. Describe the premises and record the bedroom count

Enter the address, county and property type, and then the number of bedrooms. Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.060.2 presumes an occupancy limitation of two persons per bedroom reasonable for the state, and expressly provides that the limitation does not apply to a child or children born to the tenants during the course of the lease. An occupancy clause that would put a family in breach on the birth of a child is contrary to the statute.

3. Choose the term, and know which notice ends it

Missouri has three different answers. Under Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.070 no notice to quit is necessary from or to a tenant whose term ends at a certain time, so a fixed-term lease simply ends. Under 441.060 a month-to-month tenancy takes one month’s written notice terminating on a periodic rent-paying date not less than one month after receipt. Under 441.050 a year-to-year tenancy takes written notice not less than sixty days before the end of the year.

4. Set rent, the late fee and the returned-payment charge

Missouri caps no late fee and grants no grace period, so both are contractual. The returned-payment charge is different: Mo. Rev. Stat. 570.120.6(2) caps a returned-check service charge at twenty-five dollars plus the actual charge made by the depository institution. The builder holds the field to that ceiling.

5. Set the deposit, and enter any pet deposit separately

Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300.1 bars a landlord from demanding or receiving more than two months’ rent, so instalments count. But 535.300.8 excludes money denominated as a deposit for a pet from the statutory definition, which puts a pet deposit outside the ceiling — and outside the thirty-day return duty and the double-damages remedy. Entering it separately is what keeps both consequences straight.

6. Decide the carpet-cleaning clause and the inspection notice

These are the two places where Missouri makes the lease do the statutory work. Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300.4(2) allows carpet-cleaning costs to be withheld from the deposit only where the rental agreement also notifies the tenant of liability for actual costs exceeding ordinary wear and tear, with a receipt due within thirty days. Ticking the box inserts the clause the statute requires. The inspection selector then fixes a number on the “reasonable notice” standard in 535.300.5.

7. Create the entry notice, then generate and sign

Missouri has no landlord-entry statute, so this is the one term with no statutory fallback at all. Choose a period, generate the multi-page PDF and sign. Missouri requires no subscribing witnesses and no notary, though Mo. Rev. Stat. 432.010 requires a lease longer than one year to be in writing and signed.

Build Your Missouri Residential Lease Agreement

Complete the fields below to generate a Missouri 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 Missouri section at each point — including the two clauses that exist only because Missouri makes the lease create them. Before handing over keys, run proper tenant screening. Pair the signed lease with a Missouri move-in / move-out checklist, which carries unusual weight here: Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300.4(2) measures a lawful deduction against the unit’s condition at the commencement of the tenancy, and a dated condition record is the only thing that fixes what that condition was.

Missouri Residential Lease Agreement Builder

Free Missouri Residential Lease Agreement

Missouri Lease Rules at a Glance

Two Ranking Missouri Pages Cite a Criminal Statute for a Late-Fee Cap That Does Not Exist

How to Fill Out This Missouri Lease Agreement

Build Your Missouri Residential Lease Agreement

1. Parties