Free Montana Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable Montana residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to the Montana Residential Landlord and Tenant Act of 1977 — no deposit cap, a ten-day return deadline most landlords have never heard of, and the signed condition statement that decides whether you can charge for damage at all.

Montana Mont. Code Ann. ch. 70-24 No Deposit Cap Free PDF 2026 Edition

A Montana residential lease agreement is the written contract governed by the Montana Residential Landlord and Tenant Act of 1977, codified at Mont. Code Ann. Title 70, chapter 24 — with security deposits carved out into a completely separate chapter, 70-25, that predates the Act by three years. That split is the single most useful thing to know about Montana. It is why Montana has no deposit cap yet the strictest deposit procedure in the Mountain West; why the landlord must hand over a signed written statement of condition at move-in or lose the right to charge for damage; why there are two return deadlines rather than one, at ten days and thirty days; and why cleaning charges cannot be deducted until the tenant has been given written notice and twenty-four hours to put it right. Add an eight-branch eviction notice ladder, a one-month ceiling on early-termination damages, and three amendments passed by the 2025 legislature, and a generic multi-state template is wrong in Montana in about a dozen places at once. The generator below builds a lease that reflects each rule as the statute actually reads, verified section by section against the Montana Code Annotated on 6 August 2026.

Complete the fields below to generate a Montana residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, including the utility allocations, the end-of-term election and each disclosure you check, and the generated lease cites the controlling Montana section at each point. Before you hand keys to anyone, run proper tenant screening — the lease governs the relationship, screening decides whether you want it. Pair the signed lease with a Montana move-in / move-out checklist, which is the practical way to build the condition statement Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-206 demands.

Montana recognises the standard range of residential arrangements, and the type determines how the tenancy ends. A fixed-term lease runs for a stated period; a periodic tenancy renews each period until one side gives notice. Under Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-201(2)(e), where the rental agreement does not provide otherwise, the tenancy is week to week in the case of a roomer who pays weekly rent and month to month in all other cases. That default is why an informal arrangement to pay monthly rent creates a month-to-month tenancy by operation of law, with the whole of chapter 24 attached to it, even when nothing was signed.

Beyond those, a room or roommate agreement covers a tenant renting one room in an occupied dwelling; a sublease transfers the tenant’s interest to a subtenant while leaving the original tenant liable, and Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-305 governs a tenant’s transfer of the premises; and a lease-to-own bolts a purchase option onto a tenancy and should be drafted with counsel because the purchase terms sit outside chapter 24. Montana also has an entirely separate statute for mobile home park tenancies at Title 70, chapter 33, which mirrors chapter 24 section for section but is not the same law — if the tenant owns the home and rents the lot, this form is the wrong one.

Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-104 then excludes eight arrangements from chapter 24 entirely, and the list is worth reading before you assume the Act applies: residence at a public or private institution incidental to detention or to medical, geriatric, educational, counselling or religious service, including all housing provided by the Montana university system; occupancy under a contract of sale by the purchaser; occupancy by a member of a fraternal or social organisation in a structure operated for the organisation; transient occupancy in a hotel or motel; occupancy by a condominium owner or a cooperative proprietary lease holder; occupancy primarily for commercial or agricultural purposes; occupancy by an employee whose right to occupy is conditional on employment about the premises; and occupancy outside a municipality under a rental agreement that includes hunting, fishing or agricultural privileges along with the dwelling. That last one is distinctly Montanan, and it is a live issue on ranch properties.

One further drafting point. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-204 deals with what happens when only one party signs. If the landlord never signs a written agreement the tenant signed and delivered, acceptance of rent without reservation gives it the same effect as if the landlord had signed. If the tenant never signs one the landlord signed and delivered, acceptance of possession and payment of rent without reservation does the same. But subsection (3) adds a sting: an agreement given effect that way is effective for only one year, however long a term it states. A three-year lease that one side never signed is a one-year lease.

There is no statutory maximum. Read Title 70, chapter 25 end to end — definitions at 70-25-101, application at 70-25-102, the anti-waiver rule at 70-25-103, and the six operative sections from 70-25-201 to 70-25-206 — and no cap appears anywhere. Chapter 24 does not supply one either. Montana genuinely leaves the amount to the market.

What the chapter does instead is define a deposit so broadly that there is no way to structure around it. Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-101(4) says a security deposit is value given, in money or its equivalent, to secure the payment of rent or to secure payment for damage to and cleaning of the leasehold premises — and then adds two presumptions. If the lease or an agreement incident to it requires the tenant to provide or maintain any deposit for part or all of the term, that deposit must be presumed to be a security deposit. And a fee or charge for cleaning and damages, no matter how designated, is presumed to be a security deposit. The familiar workaround — call it a non-refundable cleaning fee and chapter 25 will not reach it — does not work in Montana. It is a deposit, it must be accounted for on the chapter 25 timetable, and it is refundable to the extent it is not properly applied.

The definitions section is worth reading for two more terms. “Cleaning expenses” means the actual and necessary cost of cleaning for needs not attributable to normal wear brought about by the tenant’s failure to return the premises to the condition it was in at the time of renting. “Leasehold premises” is wider than the unit: it includes all common areas, recreational facilities, parking areas and storage facilities the tenant has access to, plus all personal property owned or controlled by the landlord whose use is permitted to the tenant. Damage to a shared laundry room is inside the deposit analysis. The deeper treatment lives in our Montana security deposit laws guide.

Finally, Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-103 removes the escape hatch: any provision of a leasehold agreement, oral or written, that is contrary to chapter 25 is invalid, and any attempted waiver of the chapter by the tenant is invalid. A Montana lease cannot shorten the deadlines, cannot convert the deposit into something else, and cannot ask the tenant to give up the chapter.

It is a separate signed document the landlord must hand over at the start of the tenancy, and without it the landlord generally cannot charge for damage or cleaning at all. This is the Montana rule that most deserves to be on the front page of a lease template, and it is on none of them.

Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-206(1) provides that any person engaged in the rental of property for residential purposes who requires a security deposit shall furnish to each tenant, in conjunction with execution of a lease or creation of a tenancy, a separate written statement as to the present condition of the premises intended to be let. The statute is specific about what it must contain. Subsection (2) requires at least: a clear and concise statement of the present condition of the premises known to the landlord or the landlord’s agent, or which should have been known upon reasonable inspection; a statement indicating the fact if the premises have never previously been let; and the signature of the landlord or the landlord’s agent. Not the tenant’s signature — the landlord’s. It is the landlord’s representation about the condition of the unit.

Subsection (1) adds a second entitlement that no ranking template mentions: at the written request of the tenant, the landlord must provide a copy of the written list of damage and cleaning charges, if any, that was given to the tenant of the immediately preceding leasehold agreement for the same premises. A prospective tenant can therefore ask what the last tenant was charged for, and the landlord must answer.

Then subsection (3), which is the reason this section matters more than any other in the chapter. A person renting residential property who fails to furnish the tenant with the required written statement is barred from recovering any sum for damage to or cleaning of the leasehold premises unless that person can establish, by clear and convincing evidence, that the damage occurred during the tenancy in question and was caused by the tenant occupying the premises or the tenant’s family, licensees or invitees. Clear and convincing evidence is a materially higher standard than the ordinary preponderance standard that would otherwise apply, and it is being demanded of the party who chose not to document the starting condition. In practice a landlord without a condition statement is arguing about a carpet stain with no baseline and an elevated burden of proof.

The form above therefore makes this an explicit choice rather than an assumption, and the generated lease states the consequence in whichever direction you answer. Build the statement itself with our Montana move-in / move-out checklist, sign it, and give the tenant a copy the same day the lease is signed — the statute says “in conjunction with execution”, not “within a reasonable time”.

Ten days or thirty days, and which one applies depends on whether anything is owed. Montana is one of very few states with a genuine two-track deadline, and the shorter track is the one landlords miss.

The thirty-day track. Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-202(1)(a)(i) requires each landlord, within thirty days subsequent to the termination of a tenancy or within thirty days subsequent to a surrender and acceptance of the leasehold premises, whichever occurs first, to provide the departing tenant with a written list of any rent due and any damage and cleaning charges the landlord alleges are the tenant’s responsibility — brought only after the cleaning-notice provisions of 70-25-201 have been followed. Delivery of the list must be accompanied by payment of the difference, if any, between the deposit and the permitted charges. Note the trigger is whichever occurs first: a surrender the landlord accepts starts the clock even if the stated term has not expired.

The ten-day track. Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-202(1)(b)(i) then provides that if after inspection there are no damages to the premises, no cleaning required, and no rent unpaid, and if the tenant can demonstrate that no utilities are unpaid by the tenant, the landlord shall return the security deposit within ten days. Four conditions, all of which must hold. This is the ordinary outcome of a well-run tenancy with a good tenant, which is exactly why it catches conscientious landlords: they inspect, find nothing wrong, and then take three weeks to send a cheque they owed in ten days.

How it must be delivered. Since Chapter 656, Laws of 2025 — House Bill 444, which carried an immediate effective date — delivery of the refund may be accomplished by electronic fund transfer, cash, cheque or other forms of refund, or by mailing the deposit to the new address the tenant provided or, if none was provided, to the tenant’s last-known address. Delivery of the written list must be noticed under Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-108, which is the chapter 24 notice section: actual knowledge, delivery at the landlord’s place of business, electronic mail to an address given in the rental agreement (complete only on a read receipt or a non-automatic reply), or hand delivery or mailing with a certificate of mailing or by certified mail — in which case service is considered made three days after the date of mailing. Build the itemisation with our Montana security deposit itemization form and send the money with our Montana security deposit return letter.

The penalty is forfeiture, not a multiple. Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-203 is one sentence long and it is the most consequential sentence in the chapter: any landlord who fails to provide the departing tenant with a written list of damage and cleaning charges as required by 70-25-202 shall forfeit all rights to withhold any portion of the security deposit for the damages or cleaning charges. There is no discretion, no cure, and no proportionality. A landlord with a genuine and provable damage claim who simply never posted the list has no right to withhold anything for it.

Wrongful withholding. Where the landlord did send a list but withheld too much, Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-204(1) makes the landlord liable in a civil action for an amount equal to the sum determined to have been wrongfully withheld or deducted, and the court may award attorney fees to the prevailing party in its discretion. Critically, the landlord has the burden of proving the damages caused by the tenant — the tenant does not have to prove the unit was undamaged. Subsection (2) then blocks a premature suit: the tenant may not sue until the landlord has given a written denial of the sum alleged to be wrongfully detained, or thirty days have passed since termination, or thirty days have passed since surrender and acceptance, or ten days have passed since the landlord indicated there were no damages, cleaning needs, unpaid rent or unpaid utilities.

Finally, Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-205 protects the tenant who moves on without leaving a forwarding address: failure by the departing tenant to provide the landlord with a new address in writing does not bar the tenant from recovering what the landlord owes. And 70-25-202(1)(c) protects the landlord in the mirror image: it is not a wrongful withholding to mail the funds to a departed tenant’s last-known address where the tenant never gave a new one, though the landlord remains liable for the amount due.

Only after giving the tenant written notice of exactly what was left undone and twenty-four hours to fix it. Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-201(3) is a procedural gate on cleaning deductions that has no analogue in most states, and Chapter 656, Laws of 2025 rewrote it.

Subsection (3)(a) starts with a substantive limit: cleaning charges may not be imposed for normal maintenance performed on a cyclical basis by the landlord, as noted by the landlord at the time the tenant occupies the space, unless the landlord is forced to perform that maintenance because of the tenant’s negligence. Annual carpet cleaning that the landlord does anyway is not the tenant’s charge. It then adds the gate: cleaning charges may not be deducted until written notice has been given to the tenant, and that notice must include the cleaning not accomplished by the tenant and the additional amount and type or types of cleaning that need to be done to bring the premises back to its condition at the time of renting. A generic “unit left dirty” line item does not satisfy the section.

Subsection (3)(b) supplies the clock. After delivery of the notice under Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-108, the tenant has twenty-four hours to complete the required cleaning, unless the rental agreement has already been terminated under 70-24-427 and the landlord has a pending claim filed in court. If the notice is mailed by certified mail, service is considered to have been made three days after the date of mailing — which means a certified-mail cleaning notice effectively gives the tenant four days, not one.

Subsection (3)(c) covers the tenant who is already gone. A tenant who fails to notify the landlord of the intent to vacate, or who vacates without notice, relieves the landlord of the notice requirement and the landlord may deduct cleaning charges directly. Alternatively — and this is the 2025 addition — the landlord may leave a copy of the notice in a conspicuous location in the rental unit and notify the tenant by e-mail, phone or text, and notice is then considered delivered. Montana has quietly modernised its deposit service rules, and a form drafted before 2025 will not reflect it.

One more mechanic sits in the same section. Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-201(2) provides that at the request of either party the premises may be inspected within one week prior to termination of the tenancy. Either party. A tenant may demand a pre-move-out walk-through, and a landlord who conducts one has documented the condition while the tenant can still act on it. The form above carries an option that writes this right into the lease.

Rent is payable without demand or notice at the time and place the parties agreed. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-201(3) states the rule, and subsection (2) supplies the defaults where the lease is silent: the tenant pays the rental value for use and occupancy as determined by the landlord; rent is payable at the landlord’s address or using electronic funds transfer to an account designated for the payment of rent by the landlord; periodic rent is payable at the beginning of a term of a month or less and otherwise in equal monthly instalments at the beginning of each month; and rent is uniformly apportionable from day to day, which is what makes a prorated first or final month lawful.

Montana sets no statutory grace period and no cap on late fees. There is no residential late-fee section in chapter 24 at all. The practical limits are contractual and judicial: the fee must be in the lease to be chargeable, and a fee out of proportion to the landlord’s actual loss invites a challenge as an unenforceable penalty rather than a genuine pre-estimate of damages. Late charges are expressly recoverable from the security deposit under Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-201(1), which is one reason to state them clearly. Our Montana late fee laws guide covers the drafting in more detail, and our Montana late rent notice handles the first contact.

What Montana does now prohibit is a fee based on how the rent is paid. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-201(4), added by Chapter 768, Laws of 2025 — House Bill 810, also effective on passage and approval — provides that a landlord may not charge an additional fee based on rent payment type, except to recoup an electronic bank fee incurred for electronic payment. Card surcharges and portal convenience fees are the target. A landlord may pass through an actual bank fee for an electronic payment; a landlord may not price paying by card above paying by cheque. Every ranking Montana template still carries a payment-methods clause drafted before this change.

For a dishonoured payment, Montana looks outside the landlord-tenant title. Mont. Code Ann. 27-1-717(2) makes the issuer of a check, draft, converted check, electronic funds transfer or order liable to the payee for a service charge of not more than thirty dollars, after a written demand mailed to the address on the instrument or the issuer’s last-known address. Subsection (3) allows a separate civil action for the service charge plus the greater of one hundred dollars or treble the amount of the instrument, but subsection (4) makes that remedy available only after a written demand served not less than ten days before the action, and only if the issuer failed to tender the amount demanded.

Montana has no rent-control statute, and MCA 7-1-111(26) denies a local government unit any power to control the amount of rent charged for private residential property. It does have a change-of-terms statute, though it sits outside chapter 24: MCA 70-26-109 provides that in a month-to-month letting the landlord may, on written notice given at least fifteen days before the expiration of the month, change the terms of the lease — rent included — to take effect at the expiration of the month, and the notice operates of itself to make those terms part of the lease if the tenant holds over. On a fixed-term lease rent cannot change mid-term unless the lease says so. On a periodic tenancy the prudent practice is still thirty days, because that is the notice 70-24-441 would require to end the tenancy if the tenant refuses the new rent; see our Montana rent increase laws guide and the Montana rent increase notice.

Up to one month’s rent, and an agreed figure may not exceed that. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-201(2)(f) is the most under-reported provision in the Montana Act, and it invalidates the liquidated-damages clause carried by most multi-state templates.

The subsection reads that if either party terminates the rental agreement without cause prior to the expiration date of the lease term, the aggrieved party is entitled to monetary damages up to one month’s rent or an amount that is agreed on in the rental agreement, which may not exceed one month’s rent. Two things follow. First, the ceiling is statutory: a clause fixing early-termination damages at two months’ rent, or at the whole remaining term, is not enforceable in Montana on its face. Second, it runs both ways — a tenant whose landlord terminates without cause mid-term has the same claim.

The subsection then adds the mitigation link: landlords shall follow 70-24-426(3) and are entitled to rent from defaulting tenants only up to the date a new tenancy starts or the date the rental agreement term expires. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-426(3) requires the landlord, on abandonment, to make reasonable efforts to rent the unit at a fair rental; if the landlord re-lets for a term beginning before the original agreement expires, the original agreement terminates as of the date of the new tenancy, and if the landlord fails to use reasonable efforts or accepts the abandonment as a surrender, the agreement terminates as of the date the landlord had notice of the abandonment.

Finally, Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-422(6) blocks the obvious workaround. Subsection (5) lets a landlord recover treble damages where a tenant’s noncompliance is purposeful — but subsection (6) provides in terms that treble damages may not be recovered for the tenant’s early termination of the tenancy. A landlord cannot recharacterise an early move-out as purposeful noncompliance to escape the one-month ceiling. Our Montana breaking-lease laws guide covers the situations in which a tenan