Free Missouri Residential Lease Agreement

▶ Watch walk-through

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

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.

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.

Three chapters of the Revised Statutes of Missouri, and no landlord-tenant act. Missouri is one of a shrinking group of states that never adopted the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, and the practical consequence is that there is no single place to look. A landlord or tenant trying to answer an ordinary question has to know which of three chapters carries it.

Chapter 441 (Landlord and Tenant) carries the definitions at 441.005, which apply across chapters 441, 534 and 535 and which define “lease” as a written or oral agreement and “premises” to include manufactured homes, mobile trailer homes and vehicles used primarily as a dwelling. It carries the accidental-fire rule at 441.010, the illegal-use forfeiture at 441.020, the no-assignment and no-waste covenant at 441.030, the ten-day notice that follows an illegal-use violation at 441.040, the local preemption rule at 441.043, the three termination rules at 441.050, 441.060 and 441.070, abandonment at 441.065, the two holdover doubles at 441.080 and 441.100, the tenant’s duty to notify on being served at 441.090, the self-help prohibition at 441.233, repair-and-deduct at 441.234, the methamphetamine disclosure at 441.236, the deficient-housing receivership at 441.500 to 441.643 including the anti-waiver rule at 441.610 and the occupant’s duties at 441.630, the act-of-God rule at 441.645, the master-metered utility receivership at 441.650, the expedited drug-eviction track at 441.740 and 441.850, and the domestic violence protections at 441.920.

Chapter 535 (Landlord-Tenant Actions) carries the whole of the security deposit law at 535.300 — there is no deposit provision anywhere in chapter 441 — along with the rent and possession procedure at 535.010 and 535.020, the ban on local eviction moratoria at 535.012, service and the posting route at 535.030, judgment and property removal at 535.040, when a demand for rent is good at 535.060, the appeal bond at 535.110, the tenant’s right to stop the case by tendering arrears at 535.160, and the landlord identification disclosure at 535.185.

Chapter 534 (Forcible Entry and Unlawful Detainer) defines unlawful detainer at 534.030, including the ten-business-day notice a new owner must give a residential occupant after a foreclosure, and doubles the damages and rents at 534.330. Two further sections sit outside all three chapters and matter anyway: the radioactive and hazardous material disclosure at 442.055, and the treble-damages waste rule at 537.420.

What is not in any of them is as important. There is no landlord-entry section, no statutory warranty of habitability, no retaliation section, no late-fee cap, and no statutory rent-increase notice. Read the tables of contents for chapters 441 and 535 on the Missouri Revisor of Statutes and the gaps are visible on their face: chapter 441 runs from 441.005 to 441.920 with nothing on access, and chapter 535 ends at 535.300.

Two months’ rent, and Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300.1 bars a landlord from demanding or receiving more. The two verbs are doing work. A ceiling framed only as a limit on what may be demanded would leave room for a deposit built up in instalments, or topped up mid-tenancy after a damage incident. Missouri closes both: receipt breaches the section just as a single over-large demand does.

The section then tells the landlord where the money goes. Under 535.300.2 all security deposits shall be held by the landlord for the tenant, who is a party to the rental agreement, in a bank, credit union or depository institution insured by an agency of the federal government. Any interest earned on the deposit is the property of the landlord — Missouri is not one of the states that pays deposit interest to tenants. A housing authority created under section 99.040, and any other government entity acting as a landlord, is exempt from that subsection.

Missouri also fixes only three grounds for withholding, and 535.300.4 permits only such amounts as are reasonably necessary for them: to remedy a default in the payment of rent due under the rental agreement; to restore the dwelling unit to its condition at the commencement of the tenancy, ordinary wear and tear excepted; or to compensate the landlord for actual damages sustained as a result of the tenant’s failure to give adequate notice to terminate, provided the landlord makes reasonable efforts to mitigate. There is no fourth ground, and a lease clause purporting to invent one does not survive the section. That mitigation duty is worth noting because one ranking page states the opposite — that Missouri landlords have no obligation to mitigate — while citing 535.300.

One more limit runs the other way. Under 535.300.7 nothing in the section limits the landlord’s right to recover actual damages in excess of the deposit, and nothing in it permits a tenant to apply or deduct any portion of the deposit in lieu of rent. A Missouri tenant may not live out the last month on the deposit, and a Missouri landlord is not confined to the deposit when the damage exceeds it.

No, and this is the most useful drafting consequence in the whole section. Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300.8 defines “security deposit” as any deposit of money or property, however denominated, furnished by a tenant to a landlord to secure the performance of any part of the rental agreement, including damages to the dwelling unit — and then says the term does not include any money or property denominated as a deposit for a pet on the premises.

“However denominated” is the phrase that catches most attempts at avoidance: a move-in fee, a redecorating fee, a key deposit or a cleaning deposit is a security deposit in Missouri whatever the lease calls it, and counts toward the two-month ceiling. The pet carve-out is the single express exception. So a landlord charging two months’ rent as a deposit plus a separate pet deposit has not breached 535.300.1.

The corollary is the part landlords miss, and it cuts the other way. Because a pet deposit is not a security deposit for the purposes of the section, it does not carry the section’s protections either — not the thirty-day return duty in 535.300.3, not the three withholding grounds in 535.300.4, and not the double-damages remedy in 535.300.6. That makes a pet deposit a matter of pure contract, which means the lease has to say what it covers and when it comes back. Not one of the eight ranking Missouri pages draws either half of this. If you allow pets, the pet-deposit terms are the paragraph most worth writing carefully.

Thirty days — running from the date of termination of the tenancy, and satisfied by mailing. Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300.3 requires the landlord, within thirty days after the date of termination of the tenancy, either to return the full amount of the security deposit, or to furnish the tenant a written itemized list of the damages for which the deposit or any portion of it is withheld, together with the balance of the deposit.

Every ranking Missouri page states this as thirty days from “the end of the lease.” Two details make that loose in ways that matter in a dispute.

The first is the trigger. The period runs from termination of the tenancy. Where a tenant vacates before the term ends and the tenancy is not terminated until later, or where possession is delivered days after termination, the two dates diverge — and the statute keys to termination, not to the return of possession or the handover of keys.

The second is what counts as compliance. The subsection provides in terms that the landlord shall have complied with this subsection by mailing such statement and any payment to the last known address of the tenant. Posting, not receipt, is the test. A landlord who mails on day twenty-nine has complied even if the envelope arrives on day thirty-four; a landlord who prepares the itemization on day twenty-five and never posts it has not. The practical instruction on both sides is the same: the tenant should give a forwarding address in writing on vacating, and the landlord should keep proof of the date of posting.

Yes — and the landlord has to give written notice of the date and time so the tenant can be there. This is the most distinctive rule in Missouri’s deposit statute, and it appears on none of the eight pages currently ranking for Missouri lease agreements.

Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300.5 provides that the landlord shall give the tenant or the tenant’s representative reasonable notice in writing, at the tenant’s last known address or in person, of the date and time when the landlord will inspect the dwelling unit following the termination of the rental agreement to determine the amount of the security deposit to be withheld, and that the inspection shall be held at a reasonable time. It then provides that the tenant shall have the right to be present at the inspection of the dwelling unit at the time and date scheduled by the landlord.

Three things follow. The notice must be in writing; a phone call does not satisfy the subsection. It must state a date and time, not merely that an inspection will happen. And the tenant’s right to attend is unconditional on its face — the tenant does not have to request it and the landlord may not make it contingent on the tenant being current on rent or on anything else.

The subsection sets no number of days, only “reasonable,” which is why this builder makes it a selection. Fixing the period in the lease is in both parties’ interests: it gives the tenant something concrete to hold the landlord to, and it gives the landlord a written standard to point at if the tenant later says the notice came too late to act on.

Why it matters is the link to the money. The inspection is the factual basis for the itemized list that 535.300.3 requires within thirty days. A landlord who inspects without giving the notice, or who excludes the tenant, arrives at the itemization with no contemporaneous record the tenant has agreed to — and under 535.300.6 the price of getting the withholding wrong is double. Pairing the inspection with a Missouri move-in / move-out checklist completed at both ends of the tenancy is the cheapest protection either side can buy.

Only if the lease contains a specific clause — and if it does not, the charge is not available at all. This is a pure lease-drafting condition, which is exactly why it belongs on a page about lease agreements and exactly why no competitor template supplies it.

Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300.4(2) is the ground permitting a landlord to withhold amounts reasonably necessary to restore the dwelling unit to its condition at the commencement of the tenancy, ordinary wear and tear excepted. It then adds a proviso: the subdivision does not preclude a landlord and tenant from agreeing, in the rental agreement between them, on amounts or fees to be charged for cleaning of the carpet, and such amounts actually expended for carpet cleaning can be withheld from the security deposit — so long as the rental agreement also includes a provision notifying the tenant that he or she may be liable for actual costs for carpet cleaning that exceed ordinary wear and tear, which may also be withheld from the deposit. And within thirty days of the end of the tenancy, the landlord shall provide the tenant a receipt for the actual carpet cleaning costs.

So the statute imposes three requirements in sequence, and a landlord who satisfies two of them has satisfied none. There must be an agreement in the lease on carpet-cleaning amounts or fees. There must additionally be a notification provision in the lease telling the tenant about liability for actual costs exceeding ordinary wear and tear. And there must be a receipt for the actual costs within thirty days of the end of the tenancy — a receipt, not a line on an itemization.

Ticking the carpet-cleaning box in the builder above inserts the notification provision in the statutory terms and prints the receipt obligation into the lease. Leaving it unticked prints the opposite: an express statement that the lease does not contain the required provision and that carpet-cleaning costs will accordingly not be withheld from the deposit. Either way the generated lease is internally consistent with the section, which a lease that charges carpet cleaning without the notification clause is not.

The tenant recovers twice the amount wrongfully withheld. Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300.6 provides that if the landlord wrongfully withholds all or any portion of the security deposit in violation of the section, the tenant shall recover as damages twice the amount wrongfully withheld.

The measure is worth reading closely because it is routinely paraphrased as “double the deposit.” It is not. It is twice the amount wrongfully withheld, which means the exposure tracks the disputed portion. A landlord holding a deposit of two months’ rent who returns all but a contested cleaning charge is exposed to double that charge, not double the deposit. That is a strong practical argument for returning the undisputed balance promptly and itemizing only what is genuinely in issue — and a strong argument against holding the whole deposit while a dispute is worked out.

There is a reported limit on the reach of the subsection. In 2007 the Missouri Court of Appeals for the Western District held, in a decision noted under the section on the Revisor’s own page, that the provision allowing an award of twice the security deposit for a wrongful failure to return it does not apply to tenants of commercial property. The doubling is a residential remedy.

Missouri does not attach a separate penalty to failing to give the inspection notice, or to failing to provide the carpet-cleaning receipt. Those failures bite through the same route: they make the withholding harder to defend as anything other than wrongful, and the consequence of wrongful withholding is the double.

None by statute — because Missouri has no landlord-entry statute at all. This is a genuine legislative gap rather than an oversight in the research, and it is verifiable from the tables of contents. Mo. Rev. Stat. chapter 441 runs from 441.005 to 441.920 and contains no landlord access, entry or notice-of-entry section anywhere in that range. Chapter 535 ends at 535.300. There is no third place to look.

Rankers handle this in three different ways, and two of them are wrong. One states correctly that there is “no state-mandated minimum notice period.” A second says Missouri does not impose notice requirements outside the lease but that “most landlords honour tenant privacy rights and therefore often give twenty-four hour notice,” which is accurate as a description of custom and is often read as a rule. A third states flatly that a Missouri landlord “must enter at reasonable times with reasonable advance notice (by custom, at least twenty-four hours),” which converts a custom into a duty that no Missouri statute imposes. A fourth cites Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.234 for “emergency entry” — 441.234 is the repair-and-deduct section and says nothing about entry.

The correct statement is narrower and more useful: a Missouri tenant’s protection against entry is whatever the lease says it is. There is no statutory floor to fall back on and no statutory ceiling to argue about. That is why the builder above treats the entry notice as a required election rather than printing a figure. A lease that is silent on entry leaves a Missouri tenant with a common-law claim and very little else to point at.

If you need to serve one, the companion Missouri notice to enter is drafted against the lease term rather than against a statute, for exactly this reason, and the Missouri landlord entry laws guide sets out the position at greater length.

No, and Missouri classifies both as forcible entry and detainer rather than as a lease dispute. What Missouri declines to regulate at the entry end it regulates firmly at the eviction end.

Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.233.1 provides that, except as provided in section 441.065, a landlord or its agent who removes or excludes a tenant or the tenant’s personal property from the premises without judicial process and court order, or causes such removal or exclusion, or causes the removal of the doors or locks to the premises, shall be deemed guilty of forcible entry and detainer as described in chapter 534.

Subsection 2 extends the same treatment to services. A landlord or agent who willfully diminishes services to a tenant by interrupting or causing the interruption of essential services — including but not limited to electric, gas, water or sewer service — to the tenant or to the premises is likewise deemed guilty of forcible entry and detainer. The single exception is where the landlord takes such action for health or safety reasons, which covers shutting off a leaking supply and does not cover shutting off power to encourage a departure.

The consequence sits in chapter 534. Under Mo. Rev. Stat. 534.330, if the finding is for the complainant, the judgment is for restitution of the premises and for double the sum assessed as damages, and double the sum found per month for rents and profits from the day of judgment until restitution is made, together with costs. A lockout in Missouri is not a cheap shortcut; it is a doubled judgment.

Two carve-outs are worth keeping straight. The first is abandonment under Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.065, expressly named in 441.233.1, which is set out below. The second is the post-judgment procedure in Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.060.5: where a judgment and an execution have issued with no stay and the service officer fails to deliver possession within seven days of receiving the writ, the landlord may — within sixty days of the judgment, in the presence of a municipal or county law enforcement officer, and without breach of the peace — break and remove locks, enter, take possession and remove personal property. That is conditional on presenting the officer a true copy of the judgment and order of execution, obtaining the officer’s written acknowledgment, and filing that acknowledgment in court within five days of taking possession. Under 441.060.6 the landlord’s immunity for loss or damage to the property removed is lost for negligent, willful or wanton acts, and lost again for failing to obtain and file that acknowledgment.

Yes, but Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.234 is one of the most heavily gated repair-and-deduct rights in the country, and template coverage states the allowance without the gate. It is also — contrary to what the section number is often cited for — not a disclosure provision. Its title is “Tenant may deduct cost of repair of rental premises from rent, when — limitations.”

Who qualifies (441.234.1). The section applies only to a tenant who has lawfully resided on the rental premises for six consecutive months, has paid all rent and charges due the landlord during that time, and did not during that time receive any written notice from the landlord of a lease or house-rule violation that was not subsequently cured. A tenant three months into a tenancy has no repair-and-deduct right in Missouri at all.

What the condition must be (441.234.2). There must be a condition on the premises that detrimentally affects habitability, sanitation or security; the condition must constitute a violation of a local municipal housing or building code; and the reasonable cost to correct it must be less than three hundred dollars, or one-half of the periodic rent, whichever is greater — provided the cost may not exceed one month’s rent. The local-code requirement is doing real work: a condition that is unpleasant but violates no code does not open the remedy.

The sequence. The tenant notifies the landlord in writing of the intention to correct the condition at the landlord’s expense. If the landlord fails to correct it within fourteen days of that written notice, or as promptly as required in an emergency, the tenant may have the work done in a workmanlike manner and, after submitting an itemized statement including receipts, deduct the actual and reasonable documented cost.

The landlord’s dispute changes the route. If the landlord provides the tenant, within that notice period, a written statement disputing the necessity of the repair, the tenant may not deduct without first securing — before the repair is performed — a written certification from the local municipality or government entity that the condition constitutes a violation of the local code. Where that certification is obtained, the fourteen days run from the later of the certification or the tenant’s notice. A written dispute therefore converts a self-help remedy into a process that requires a municipal inspector.

The ceilings. A tenant may not use the section where the condition was caused by the deliberate or negligent act or omission of the tenant, a family member, or another person on the premises with the tenant’s consent. And a tenant may not deduct in the aggregate more than one month’s rent during any twelve-month period. The remedy is expressly not exclusive of other remedies available at law.

It cannot be waived. Section 441.234.2 ends with a sentence that makes this a prohibited lease provision in Missouri: no lease agreement shall contain a waiver of the rights described in this section. A Missouri lease that purports to waive repair-and-deduct is void to that extent, whatever else it says.

Not a statutory one. Chapters 441 and 535 contain no habitability, maintenance or landlord-duty section of the kind adopted in the states that enacted a uniform act. Several ranking pages describe a Missouri statutory duty to keep the property habitable and to repair within a reasonable time after notice; no section of chapter 441 or chapter 535 says that.

What Missouri supplies instead is three narrower statutory levers, and stating them precisely is more useful than a general assurance.

The gated repair-and-deduct right at 441.234, set out above.

The deficient-housing action at Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.500 to 441.643. Where a housing-code violation amounts to a nuisance — defined at 441.500 as a violation of the housing code that the code official, in the exercise of reasonable discretion, believes constitutes a threat to public health, safety or welfare — occupants, a neighborhood association, a local housing corporation or the code enforcement agency may bring a civil action, and the court may appoint a receiver to abate the condition out of the rents. The obligations run both ways: under 441.630 an occupant must pay rent when due and must exercise reasonable care to dispose of rubbish and organic waste, refrain from unreasonable use of electrical, heating and plumbing fixtures, meet code obligations imposed on occupants, refrain from willfully or wantonly damaging the structure, and not take in additional occupants or sublet without the owner’s knowledge and consent. And under 441.610, any provision of a lease waiving or denying any of sections 441.500 to 441.643 for the benefit of an occupant is deemed against public policy and void.

The heat-related utility receivership at Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.650. In a master-metered multitenant dwelling — two or more separate residential units whose heat-related utility service is measured by a common meter, or measured individually with the owner responsible for payment — the gas or electrical corporation must post written notice in the common areas at least five days before terminating service for the owner’s delinquency, and the utility or any tenant of the building may petition the associate circuit court to appoint a receiver of rents. Service may not be terminated while such a petition is pending or a receivership exists. This is a tenant right, not merely a utility remedy, and it is absent from every ranking page.

Two further protections sit alongside them. Under Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.010, no covenant or contract to repair imposes on a tenant the obligation to rebuild or repair a building destroyed by fire without the tenant’s procurement, connivance or neglect, unless the tenant specially covenanted to rebuild or repair in case of destruction by fire — and no action may be maintained against a tenant in whose house or apartment a fire accidentally begins. A generic clause making the tenant responsible for all damage does not reach an accidental fire in Missouri. And under Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.645, 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. In a state that sees tornado damage most years, that is a materially important provision and no ranking page mentions it. Fuller treatment sits in the Missouri habitability laws guide.

Any reasonable late fee the lease sets, because Missouri caps none — and a returned-check charge of no more than twenty-five dollars plus the actual bank charge. The two are different rules from different chapters, and conflating them is the single largest factual error in the Missouri SERP.

On late fees, nothing in chapter 441, chapter 535 or chapter 534 sets a maximum or grants a grace period. Rent is due when the lease says it is due, a late fee applies when the lease says it applies, and Missouri supplies no statutory cushion. Since the 2025 amendment to Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.043, a Missouri county or city may not enact a local ordinance regulating the amount of rent charged either, so there is no municipal ceiling to check.

On returned payments, Mo. Rev. Stat. 570.120 is the crime of passing bad checks. Its subsection 6(2) provides that where a check that is dishonored or returned unpaid by a financial institution is not referred to the prosecuting attorney, the party to whom the check was issued, or an agent, assignee or holder, may collect from the issuer — in addition to the face amount — a reasonable service charge not to exceed twenty-five dollars, plus an amount equal to the actual charge by the depository institution for the return of each unpaid or dishonored instrument. Subsection 6(1) separately allows a prosecuting attorney who does take the referral to collect a reasonable service charge, which is then turned over to the party who received the bad check.

That is the whole of it, and it says nothing about rent being late. The claim circulating in Missouri template coverage — that Missouri caps late fees at twenty dollars or 20% of monthly rent, whichever is greater, citing 570.120.6(2) — has no Missouri source. Neither figure appears in the section, the section is not about late payment, and it is a criminal statute about checks. The Missouri late fee laws guide works through the drafting implications, and a Missouri late rent notice is the usual first step before a demand.

One month for month-to-month, sixty days for year-to-year, and no notice at all for a term certain. Missouri has three separate rules where template coverage usually reports one.

Month-to-month and shorter (Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.060). Subsection 1 provides that a tenancy at will or by sufferance, or for less than one year, may be terminated by the person entitled to possession by giving one month’s notice, in writing, to the person in possession requiring them to vacate. Subsection 4(1) puts it more precisely: either the landlord or the tenant may terminate a month-to-month tenancy by written notice stating that the tenancy shall terminate upon a periodic rent-paying date not less than one month after the receipt of the notice. Missouri therefore counts in months keyed to a rent-paying date, not in a flat thirty days. Notice received on the tenth of a month, in a tenancy where rent falls due on the first, does not end the tenancy on the ninth of the next month; it ends it on the first of the month after that.

Year-to-year (Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.050). Either party may terminate a tenancy from year to year by giving notice, in writing, of the intention to terminate not less than sixty days next before the end of the year. This is a longer period than the month-to-month rule and it is omitted from the whole ranking set.

Term certain (Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.070). No notice to quit is necessary from or to a tenant whose term is to end at a certain time, or where notice is dispensed with by special agreement. A fixed-term Missouri lease ends on its own terms. If either party wants a notice requirement on a fixed term, the lease has to create it — and many leases sensibly do, which is what a Missouri notice of non-renewal is for.

Oral leases become month-to-month (Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.060.3). Any agreement for the leasing, renting or occupation of stores, shops, houses, tenements or other buildings in cities, towns or villages, not made in writing and signed by the parties or their agents, is held and taken to be a tenancy from month to month, terminable by either party on one month’s written notice. Agricultural lettings other than garden purposes are excluded. Combined with Mo. Rev. Stat. 432.010, which bars an action on any lease of lands for longer than one year unless it is in writing and signed by the party to be charged, the position is that an oral Missouri lease of any intended length operates as a month-to-month tenancy.

Mobile home on a rented lot (Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.060.4(2)). Where a person occupies and has an ownership interest in a mobile home and leases the land or lot on which it is located, the landlord may terminate a tenancy of less than one year only by written notice that the tenancy terminates not sooner than sixty days from the date the rent payment next becomes due, notwithstanding any earlier termination provision in a written lease to the contrary. The lease cannot shorten it. See also the Missouri lease termination laws guide and the Missouri tenant notice to vacate.

For unpaid rent, a demand — not a fixed-day notice, and expressly not the one month’s notice that ends a tenancy. Missouri’s nonpayment route is called rent and possession, and it works differently from the pay-or-quit regimes most states use.

Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.020 provides that whenever any rent has become due and payable, and payment has been demanded by the landlord or the landlord’s agent and has not been made, the landlord may file a statement verified by affidavit with an associate circuit judge in the county where the property is situated, setting out the terms of the letting and the amount actually due, and the clerk shall immediately issue a summons requiring the tenant and all occupants to appear and show cause why possession should not be restored. The section then says something no ranker quotes: giving the notice provided in section 441.060 is not required before filing or obtaining relief under the chapter. The one month’s notice belongs to ending a tenancy, not to a nonpayment case.

Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.060 defines when the demand is good: any demand of rent, or of rent and possession, is good when made at any time after the right to rent and possession accrues or the rent becomes due according to the terms of the agreement, whether by written lease or otherwise. Missouri fixes no waiting period between the demand and the filing. The demand is a precondition, not a countdown — which is why a Missouri landlord who serves a Missouri notice to pay rent or quit is choosing to give a cushion rather than complying with one.

Section 535.020 also limits what can ride along. A landlord may join a claim for other unpaid sums, however denominated in the lease, but those sums shall not be considered rent for the purposes of the chapter, and a judgment for them does not by itself entitle the landlord to an order for recovery of possession. A landlord whose arrears are mostly fees rather than rent has a money claim, not a possession claim.

Service, and the posting route (Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.030). The summons is served as in other civil cases at least four days before the court date, and the court date shall be not more than twenty-one business days from issuance unless the plaintiff consents in writing to a later date. Where the tenant is not found, or has absconded or vacated the usual place of abode, service may be made by affixing a copy of the summons and complaint in a conspicuous place on the dwelling at least ten days before the court date and mailing a copy to the last known address by ordinary mail at least ten days before. On that posted service no money judgment may be granted against a defaulting defendant — possession only. The tenant then has ten days from the date of judgment to move to set it aside or to apply for a trial de novo, failing which the possession judgment becomes final and the tenant is subject to eviction without further notice.

Illegal use is a separate route (Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.020 and 441.040). Where a lessee permits a prohibited gaming table, bank or device to be set up or used for gaming, or keeps a bawdyhouse, brothel or common gaming house, or allows the illegal possession, sale or distribution of controlled substances on the premises, the lease becomes void and the lessor may enter with the same remedies as against a tenant holding over. Section 441.040 then requires ten days’ notice to vacate before the landlord may reenter or oust, places the burden of proof on the landlord to show the premises were being used for the illegal possession, sale or distribution of controlled substances, and protects a landlord who relied on written notification from a law enforcement authority.

The expedited track (Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.710 to 441.880). Section 441.740, as amended in 2023, requires the court to order immediate eviction on findings including an emergency where delay would imminently cause physical injury, or physical damage costing more than twelve months’ rent to repair — and only where the lessor first made a reasonable attempt to abate the emergency through public law enforcement or local mental health services; drug-related criminal activity on or within the leased property; use of the property to further such activity; such activity by the tenant, a household member or a guest within, on or in the immediate vicinity of the property; inviting back a person previously barred; or failing to promptly notify the plaintiff that such a person returned. Under 441.750 the court shall not evict a tenant who establishes that he or she in no way furthered, promoted, aided or assisted the activity and neither knew nor had reason to know of it, or was unable to act because of verbal or physical coercion. And under 441.850 a prevailing interested party or prosecuting attorney recovers reasonable costs and attorney’s fees from the landlord where the landlord failed to take reasonable corrective action within thirty days of a written request — the only fee-shifting provision in Missouri’s landlord-tenant statutes, and it runs against the landlord.

Unlawful detainer and foreclosure (Mo. Rev. Stat. 534.030). A person is guilty of unlawful detainer who willfully and without force holds over after the term ends, or after a mortgage or deed of trust has been foreclosed and written notice of the foreclosure has been received, or who wrongfully obtains and continues in possession and refuses to vacate after written demand. Where a residential tenant occupied the property before the foreclosure, the new owner must give notice by certified or registered mail — or by regular mail addressed to “occupant” if the name is unknown — with the envelope marked “Notice to Occupant Following Foreclosure” and a notice also posted on the door, and no possession action may be commenced for ten business days after that notice. More detail sits in the Missouri eviction notice laws guide.

Yes, and the window stays open longer than most tenants realise. Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.160 gives two separate opportunities and no ranking Missouri page mentions either.

The first is on the day of judgment. If the defendant, on the date any money judgment is given in an action under chapter 535, either tenders to the landlord or brings into the court where the suit is pending all the rent then in arrears and all the costs, further proceedings in the action shall cease and be stayed. Partial payment does not do it; the section requires the arrears and the costs.

The second runs after trial. If on any date after the original trial, but before the judgment becomes final, the defendant satisfies the money judgment and pays all costs, any execution for possession shall cease and be stayed — except that the landlord is not thereby precluded from applying for an appeal from the money judgment. So a tenant who cannot raise the money on the day of judgment has a second chance while the judgment is still open.

There is a limit. If for any reason no money judgment is entered and the judgment for the landlord is limited to possession alone, there is no stay of execution except as provided by Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.110, by the rules of civil procedure, or by agreement of the parties. Section 535.110 requires a defendant seeking a trial de novo or an appeal to post a bond within ten days of the judgment sufficient to secure all damages, costs and rent then due, with additional conditions to stay waste and to pay subsequently accruing rent into court within ten days of its becoming due.

After judgment, Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.040 requires the officer to deliver possession to the landlord within five days of receiving the execution. Except for willful, wanton or malicious acts, the landlord is not liable for loss or damage to property removed under that execution — but where property left behind bears a conspicuous permanent label identifying it as a third party’s, the landlord must notify that third party by certified mail with return receipt requested and allow five business days from receipt to recover it.

Double — and which double depends on how the holdover came about. Missouri has two separate doubling provisions for holdover tenants, in adjacent sections, measured differently.

Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.080 covers the ordinary case. A tenant for life or years, or any other person who comes into possession under or by collusion with such a tenant, who willfully holds over after the termination of the term — and after demand made and notice in writing given requiring possession by the person entitled to it — shall pay the person kept out of possession double the yearly value of the lands or tenements detained, for all the time that person is kept out. Both the demand and the written notice are preconditions; a landlord who simply lets a holdover continue has not triggered the section.

Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.100 covers the tenant who created the expectation and then broke it, and it is harsher. If a tenant gives notice in writing of an intention to quit the premises at a time specified in the notice, and does not deliver up possession at that time, the tenant shall from thenceforward pay the landlord double the rent reserved during all the time the tenant continues in possession. No further demand or notice is required, because the tenant supplied the date.

Chapter 534 adds a third. Under Mo. Rev. Stat. 534.330, on a finding for the complainant in a forcible entry or unlawful detainer case, judgment is for restitution and double the sum assessed as damages and double the sum found per month for rents and profits from the day of judgment until restitution.

Damage to the premises is treated differently again, and this is where the widely circulated “twice the actual damages” line for Missouri goes wrong. Damage amounting to waste is not doubled at all. Mo. Rev. Stat. 537.420 provides that a tenant for life or years who commits waste during the term, without special license in writing, is subject to a civil action for the waste, loses the thing wasted, and pays treble the amount at which the waste is assessed. Missouri’s doubling provisions are about possession and deposits; its damage multiplier is a treble. Under Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.030, a tenant for a term not exceeding two years, or at will or by sufferance, may not assign or transfer the term without the landlord’s written assent, nor violate any condition of a written lease, nor commit waste.

One more obligation is easy to miss. Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.090 requires every tenant on whom a summons in an action to recover the premises is served to forthwith give notice to the person from whom the tenant holds, or that person’s agent, under penalty of forfeiting to that person the value of three years’ rent. It is aimed at subtenants and it is still on the books.

Missouri does have an abandonment statute, and it is prescriptive down to the wording of the notice. That is the one place where Missouri is more prescriptive than its entry rules would suggest: several states without a landlord-tenant act leave abandoned property entirely to the lease, whereas Missouri sets out a four-step procedure at Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.065 and gives the landlord immunity only for following it.

Property of a tenant remaining in or at the premises after the tenant abandons them may be removed or disposed of by the landlord without liability to the tenant. The premises are deemed abandoned only if all four of the following are true.

One. The landlord has a reasonable belief that the tenant has vacated the premises and intends not to return.

Two. The rent is due and has been unpaid for thirty days.

Three. The landlord posts written notice on the premises and mails it to the last known address of the tenant by both first class mail and certified mail, return receipt requested. Both channels are required, and the statute supplies the wording, which is, where appropriate: “The rent on this property has been due and unpaid for thirty consecutive days and the landlord believes that you have moved out and abandoned the property. The landlord may declare this property abandoned and remove your possessions from this unit and dispose of them unless you write to the landlord stating that you have not abandoned this unit within ten days of the landlord having both posted this notice on your door and mailing this notice to you.” The notice then gives the tenant the landlord’s name and street address for a reply.

Four. The tenant fails either to pay rent or to respond in writing within ten days after both the date of the posting and the deposit of the notice by mail, stating an intention not to abandon the premises.

The reason to follow this exactly is in a different section. Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.233.1 makes a removal or exclusion without judicial process forcible entry and detainer “except as provided in section 441.065.” Abandonment is the carve-out from the self-help prohibition — so a landlord who clears a unit believing it abandoned, but who skipped the certified mail or acted on day eight, has not performed an imperfect abandonment. That landlord has performed a lockout, with the doubled exposure in Mo. Rev. Stat. 534.330 attached to it.

Three state disclosures and one federal — and almost every ranking Missouri template lists only two of the three. For a state with no landlord-tenant act, that is an unusually full set.

1. Landlord, owner and manager identification (Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.185). The landlord of residential property, or any person authorised to enter into a rental agreement on the landlord’s behalf, shall disclose to the tenant in writing at or before the commencement of the tenancy the name and address of the person authorised to manage the premises, and of an owner of the premises or a person authorised to act for the owner for the purpose of service of process and for receiving and receipting for notices and demands. Where that address is a post office box, service may be made by first-class mail together with two copies under section 506.150. The information must be kept current, and the section extends to and is enforceable against any successor landlord, owner or manager. Subsection 3 supplies the sanction, which is the part no competitor states: a person who fails to comply becomes the agent of each person who is a landlord for the purpose of service of process and receiving notices and demands, for performing the landlord’s obligations under chapter 441 or chapter 535 or the rental agreement, and for collecting all rent due from the premises.

2. Methamphetamine production (Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.236). Where any premises to be rented, leased, sold, transferred or conveyed is or was used as a site for methamphetamine production, the owner, seller, landlord or other transferor shall disclose in writing to the prospective lessee, purchaser or transferee the fact that methamphetamine was produced on the premises, provided the transferor has knowledge of that prior production. The owner shall disclose any prior knowledge of methamphetamine production regardless of whether the persons involved in the production were convicted. Two limits are worth stating because coverage regularly overstates them. The trigger is production — not use, not storage, not residual contamination. And the section turns on the landlord’s knowledge, so it imposes a duty to disclose rather than a duty to test.

3. Radioactive or hazardous material contamination (Mo. Rev. Stat. 442.055). This is the one seven of the eight ranking pages omit entirely, and it is the only Missouri lease disclosure carrying a criminal penalty. Where any premises to be rented, leased, sold, transferred or conveyed is or was previously contaminated with radioactive material or other hazardous material, the owner, landlord or other transferor shall disclose that fact in writing to the prospective lessee, provided the transferor has knowledge of the contamination. A transferor who has that knowledge and does not disclose is guilty of a class A misdemeanor. The section then defines the operative word in a way that is genuinely helpful to landlords: “knowledge” requires the receipt by the owner, seller, landlord or other transferor of a report stating affirmatively that the premises is or was previously contaminated. Rumour and suspicion do not trigger it; a report does. Added by A.L. 2018 H.B. 1796.

4. Federal lead-based paint (42 U.S.C. 4852d; 24 C.F.R. Part 35). Federal rather than Missouri, applying to any dwelling built before 1978, and served by the companion Missouri lead-based paint disclosure form.

What Missouri does not require in a residential lease is equally worth stating, because template families carry these across state lines: radon, flood risk, bed bug history, asbestos, ordnance proximity, sex-offender registry notification, pending demolition and shared utility metering are requirements of other states. The builder above emits a mold block only if you tick it, and labels it on its face as not required by Missouri statute.

No — and the list of things a Missouri city may not do grew substantially in 2025. Ranking coverage describes Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.043 as the Missouri rent-control ban, which was accurate before 28 August 2025 and is now incomplete.

Subsection 1 is the long-standing rule: no county or city, including one with a charter form of government, may enact, maintain or enforce an ordinance or resolution regulating the amount of rent to be charged for privately owned single-family or multiple-unit residential or commercial rental property.

Subsection 2, as amended by A.L. 2025 H.B. 595 and 343, now also bars any local ordinance that: prohibits landlords from refusing to lease to a person because the person’s lawful source of income to pay rent includes funding from a federal or other housing assistance program; restricts a landlord’s ability to use or consider income-qualifying methods, credit scores, credit reports, eviction or property damage history, or criminal history according to the landlord’s own customarily applied criteria, or bars requesting that information; limits the amount of security deposit a landlord may require from a prospective tenant; or requires tenants automatically to receive a right of first refusal.

Subsection 3 preserves a city’s power to regulate property belonging to the city or county, to enter voluntary agreements limiting rent on subsidised property, and to restrict rent on properties assisted with community development block grant funds. Subsection 4 preserves the power to prohibit discrimination against a tenant or prospective tenant solely on the basis that the tenant is a recipient of veterans’ benefits.

The consequence for this lease is direct. The two months’ rent ceiling in Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300.1 is now the only deposit limit anywhere in Missouri, and guidance suggesting a landlord check municipal ordinances for a local deposit cap is describing a possibility the legislature has closed. Separately, Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.012, added in 2024, provides that no county, municipality or other political subdivision shall impose or enforce a moratorium on eviction proceedings unless specifically authorised by state law.

One protection does still sit in chapter 441 for a category of tenant. Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.920, added in 2019, provides that no applicant, tenant or lessee who otherwise qualifies for tenancy shall be denied tenancy, evicted, or found to be in violation of a lease agreement because that person is or has been a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking as defined in section 455.010 — unless the tenant allowed the perpetrator onto the premises, or the landlord reasonably believes the named person poses a threat to safety. A tenant has an affirmative defence to liability for rent for the period after vacating where the court finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the tenant was a victim or faced imminent danger and gave notice and documentation, which may be a signed statement from a victim service provider or professional, or law enforcement or court records. Submitting false information may itself ground a denial or eviction, and the landlord may impose a reasonable fee for early termination under the section. The Missouri breaking lease laws guide covers how that interacts with an early-termination clause.

Every citation in this table was confirmed by opening the section on the Missouri Revisor of Statutes and reading its own title, text, effective-date banner and history line. The most recent amendment among them is Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.043, effective 28 August 2025.

We rendered the eight pages currently ranking for Missouri lease agreement queries and read what they say rather than what they cite. Six errors recur, and two of them are citations to sections that do not say what the page claims.

A late-fee cap that does not exist, sourced to a criminal statute. Both iPropertyManagement pages state that Missouri caps late fees at twenty dollars or 20% of monthly rent, whichever is greater, citing Mo. Rev. Stat. 570.120.6(2). That section is part of the crime of passing bad checks and authorises a returned-check service charge not exceeding twenty-five dollars plus the actual bank charge. Missouri caps no late fee.

A section number that is not in the code. LegalTemplates cites “MO Rev Stat 441.223” for the rule that a landlord may not exclude a tenant without judicial process. There is no current section 441.223. The provision is Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.233; 441.223 is the bill-section number that appears in the Revisor’s history line, which reads “L. 1997 H.B. 361 § 441.223.” A citation copied from the history line rather than from the section heading points at a number that does not exist.

Repair-and-deduct cited for entry, and the mitigation rule reversed. FreeForms cites Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.234 for “emergency entry” and again for a landlord-noncompliance remedy; 441.234 is the repair-and-deduct section and mentions neither. The same page states that Missouri landlords generally have no obligation to mitigate, citing 535.300(3). The mitigation duty is in 535.300.4(3), and it is a condition on withholding the deposit for a short-notice termination.

The deposit deadline stated loosely. Every ranker gives thirty days from “the end of the lease.” The statute runs it from termination of the tenancy and treats mailing to the last known address as compliance.

The inspection rule omitted entirely. Not one of the eight pages mentions Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300.5, the written notice of the date and time of the move-out inspection and the tenant’s right to be present — the rule most likely to be breached and the one that most often decides whether a withholding looks defensible.

The disclosure set left one short. Seven of the eight list only identification, methamphetamine and federal lead. Mo. Rev. Stat. 442.055 requires a written disclosure of prior radioactive or hazardous material contamination and makes non-disclosure a class A misdemeanor.

One further myth is worth naming because it does not come from the rankers but from general summaries: the idea that Missouri fixes a tenant’s liability for property damage at “up to twice the actual damages.” Missouri’s doubles are 535.300.6 (twice the amount of a deposit wrongfully withheld, running against the landlord), 441.080, 441.100 and 534.330 — all of them about possession or deposits. Damage amounting to waste is trebled under Mo. Rev. Stat. 537.420, not doubled. There is no general Missouri rule doubling a tenant’s liability for damage.

Charging carpet cleaning without the clause. The most common Missouri deposit error is a lease that lists a carpet-cleaning fee but contains no provision notifying the tenant of liability for actual costs exceeding ordinary wear and tear. Mo. Rev. Stat. 535.300.4(2) makes that notification a precondition, so the charge is unavailable and withholding it is wrongful withholding — at double.

Skipping the inspection notice. Inspecting the unit after move-out without written notice of the date and time, or without letting the tenant attend, breaches 535.300.5 and undermines the itemization built on that inspection.

Rolling a pet deposit into the security deposit. Doing so pulls it inside the two-month ceiling for no reason, and can push an otherwise lawful deposit over the line. Keeping it separate is what 535.300.8 permits.

Treating a “nonrefundable” move-in fee as outside the cap. The definition in 535.300.8 catches any deposit of money or property however denominated that secures performance of the rental agreement. The only express exception is a pet deposit.

Waiving repair-and-deduct. Section 441.234.2 forbids it in terms. A waiver clause is void to that extent and signals to a court that the lease was not drafted to Missouri law.

Assuming a twenty-four hour entry rule. There is no Missouri entry statute. A lease that says nothing about entry gives the tenant nothing concrete, and a landlord nothing to point at when a tenant refuses access.

Counting thirty days instead of one month to end a periodic tenancy. Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.060 ends the tenancy on a periodic rent-paying date not less than one month after receipt, which is usually later than thirty days from service.

Serving a one-month notice for unpaid rent. Section 535.020 says the 441.060 notice is not required for rent and possession. What is required is a demand.

Changing the locks. Under 441.233 that is forcible entry and detainer with the doubling in 534.330 attached, unless the abandonment steps in 441.065 have all been completed.

Leaving the manager off the lease. Section 535.185 requires the manager and an owner or service-of-process agent, and 535.185.3 turns a failure into an agency the landlord did not intend.

Missouri’s statutory floor is thin in the places that protect a tenant and, since 2025, deliberately wide in the places that protect a landlord’s discretion. Mo. Rev. Stat. 441.043(2) now bars a city from restricting a landlord’s ability to use or consider income-qualifying methods, credit scores, credit reports, eviction or property damage history, or criminal history according to the landlord’s own customarily applied criteria. The phrase matters: the protection attaches to criteria applied consistently, which means a documented, uniform screening standard is both the better business practice and the better legal position. Federal fair-housing law and the Fair Credit Reporting Act still apply in full, and the Missouri tenant screening laws guide sets out how they interact.

Screening also does what the lease cannot. Missouri gives a landlord a rent-and-possession action that moves quickly once a demand has been made, but it also gives a tenant the right to stop the case by tendering arrears and costs, a doubled judgment for a lockout, and a doubled remedy for a mis-handled deposit. The cheapest way to avoid all of it is not to sign the wrong tenancy in the first place. 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.