Free Rhode Island Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable Rhode Island residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to R.I. Gen. Laws chapter 34-18 — the one-month deposit cap, the 20-day return, the 60-day rent-increase notice, and the fee, utility and insurance disclosures the lease itself must carry.

Rhode Island R.I. Gen. Laws 34-18 20-Day Deposit Return Free PDF 2026 Edition

A Rhode Island residential lease agreement is the written contract governed by the Rhode Island Residential Landlord and Tenant Act at R.I. Gen. Laws chapter 34-18. Rhode Island reads like a plain uniform act until you notice how much has been bolted on since 2022. The security deposit is capped at one month’s periodic rent and must come back within 20 days of the latest of three events, with a closed list of deductions. There is no grace period and no late-fee cap — the fifteen days everyone quotes is when an eviction may start, not when rent stops being late. A rent increase needs 60 days, or 120 days for a month-to-month tenant over sixty-two. And the lease itself now has to carry things no imported template contains: every fee beyond the rent in the same section as the rent, the utility split, any renters-insurance requirement, and a copy of the landlord’s own liability insurance declaration page.

Complete the fields below to generate a Rhode Island residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, including the utility allocations, the liability-insurance carrier and each disclosure you check, and the generated lease cites the controlling Rhode Island section at each point. Before handing over keys, run proper tenant screening — and note that Rhode Island bans the application fee outright. Pair the signed lease with a Rhode Island move-in / move-out checklist, because the condition record is what decides which of 34-18-19(b)’s four permitted deductions you can actually prove.

Rhode Island recognises the usual range, and chapter 34-18 supplies the defaults for anything the parties leave open. A fixed-term lease runs for a stated period and expires on its own terms. A periodic tenancy renews until one side ends it, and R.I. Gen. Laws 34-18-15(d) sets the fallback: unless the rental agreement fixes a definite term, the tenancy is week to week for a roomer who pays weekly rent and month to month in all other cases. A roomer is defined at 34-18-11 as a tenant occupying a room or group of rooms forming a single habitable unit used for living and sleeping but not for cooking or eating.

Several arrangements fall outside the act altogether. R.I. Gen. Laws 34-18-8 excludes, unless the parties expressly agree otherwise: residence at an institution incidental to detention or to medical, geriatric, educational, counseling or religious service; occupancy under a contract of sale by the purchaser; occupancy by a member of a fraternal or social organization in a portion of a structure operated for the organization; transient occupancy in a hotel, motel or other lodging as defined under 44-18-7(11) that is subject to the sales and use tax or a lodgings tax; occupancy by a paid employee whose right to occupy is conditional on employment substantially for services, maintenance or repair of premises containing more than eleven units; occupancy by a holder of a proprietary lease in a cooperative; commercial letting and any estate governed by chapter 34-18.1; and residence at a transitional housing facility. Note the employee exclusion in particular — it is drawn by building size, which is unusual.

One drafting note matters more in Rhode Island than elsewhere. Nothing requires a residential lease to be witnessed or notarized, and R.I. Gen. Laws 34-18-7 applies chapter 34-18 to an agreement wherever made for a dwelling unit located in the state. But 34-18-16 provides that where an agreement is given effect by acceptance of rent or possession rather than by signature, and it states a term longer than one year, it is effective for only one year. An unsigned three-year Rhode Island lease is, legally, a one-year lease.

One month’s periodic rent — however the charge is denominated. R.I. Gen. Laws 34-18-19(a) provides that a landlord may not demand or receive a security deposit, however denominated, in an amount or value in excess of one month’s periodic rent. Those two words do real work: renaming a charge a move-in fee, a redecoration deposit or a holding sum does not take it outside the cap. Rhode Island’s cap is among the tightest in the country, and unlike Connecticut it does not vary with the tenant’s age.

There is one addition, and almost no competing page carries it. Under 34-18-19(e), a landlord who rents a furnished apartment may demand a separate furniture security deposit of up to one further month’s periodic rent — but only where the replacement value of the furniture the landlord supplies, valued at the time the lease is executed, is five thousand dollars or greater. Section 34-18-19(f) then accounts for it on its own terms: on termination the tenant is due the entire furniture deposit less the amount due, if any, for reasonable cleaning expenses and repair, and less physical damage to the furniture other than ordinary wear and tear, delivered on the same twenty-day clock. So a properly furnished Rhode Island letting can lawfully hold two months in deposits, but only in two clearly separate buckets with separate accounting.

What may come out of the deposit is a closed list, and Rhode Island’s version is more generous to landlords than most. Section 34-18-19(b) permits deduction of unpaid accrued rent, the amount due for reasonable cleaning expenses, the amount due for reasonable trash disposal expenses, and physical damage to the premises other than ordinary wear and tear suffered by reason of the tenant’s noncompliance with 34-18-24. Naming cleaning and rubbish removal expressly is unusual; most URLTA states leave a landlord arguing that cleaning is damage. Set against that, 34-18-11 defines ordinary wear and tear broadly, as deterioration resulting from the tenant’s normal nonabusive living, including deterioration caused by the landlord’s own failure to prepare for expected conditions or to comply with the landlord’s obligations. The full treatment is in our Rhode Island security deposit laws guide.

20 days — running from the latest of three events, not from move-out. R.I. Gen. Laws 34-18-19(b) requires the landlord to deliver the itemized written notice together with the amount of the deposit due within twenty days after the later of (1) termination of the tenancy, (2) delivery of possession, or (3) the tenant providing the landlord with a forwarding address for the purpose of receiving the deposit. Twenty days is one of the shortest deadlines in the country, which is why the third limb matters so much in practice: until the tenant supplies a forwarding address, that limb has not begun.

The itemization is not optional and it is not a summary. The statute requires the deductions to be itemized by the landlord in a written notice delivered to the tenant, and the notice and the money travel together. A landlord who sends the balance now and the explanation later has not complied.

The penalty is sharp. Under 34-18-19(c), a landlord who fails to comply with subsection (b) exposes themself to the amount due, plus damages equal to twice the amount wrongfully withheld, plus reasonable attorney fees. Section 34-18-19(d) preserves every other damages claim either party has under the chapter, so the doubling is a floor rather than a ceiling on exposure. Two structural rules close the loop: 34-18-19(g) binds whoever holds the landlord’s interest in the premises at the time the tenancy terminates, so selling the building does not shed the obligation; and 34-18-19(h) provides that no rental agreement shall contain any waiver of the section at all. Build the itemization with our Rhode Island security deposit itemization form and send the balance with a Rhode Island security deposit return letter.

Neither. And this is the single most common error on Rhode Island lease pages. A section-by-section read of chapter 34-18 returns no grace-period provision and no late fee, late charge or late payment provision of any kind. R.I. Gen. Laws 34-18-15(c) makes rent payable without demand or notice at the time and place agreed, so rent is late the day after it is due.

What every ranking page calls a fifteen-day grace period is 34-18-35(a), which says something quite different: the landlord may not send the statutory demand notice until any part of the stipulated rent has been due and in arrears for fifteen days. That is a floor on when an eviction may begin. It does not make the rent timely, it does not suspend the tenant’s obligation, and it says nothing whatever about fees. One ranking page goes further and tells landlords they may only “impose late fines if rent has been delayed for 15 days” — a rule that exists in no Rhode Island statute.

The five per cent charge after a seven-day grace period that circulates as Rhode Island law is real, but it belongs to a different act binding different parties. R.I. Gen. Laws 31-44-2(a)(1) sits in the mobile and manufactured home park chapter and provides that no action for possession is maintained if, before a notice to quit expires, the tenant tenders all arrears including a late charge of five per cent of the monthly rent due after a seven-day grace period has elapsed. It governs a park owner and a manufactured-home lot. Importing it into an apartment lease is the same class of error as citing another state’s reporter.

So what does constrain a Rhode Island late fee? Two things. Since January 1, 2025, 34-18-15(a)(1) requires the lease to disclose every fee beyond the rent in the same section as the rent disclosure and to indicate that additional fees may apply — and 34-18-15(a)(5) lets the tenant recover any fee paid that was not disclosed as required. Second, 34-18-13 lets a court, as a matter of law, refuse to enforce an unconscionable provision, enforce the remainder without it, or limit its application. See our Rhode Island late fee laws guide, and serve arrears with a Rhode Island late rent notice.

60 days — and 120 days for a month-to-month tenant over sixty-two. R.I. Gen. Laws 34-18-16.1 is titled “Rent increases — Notice requirements”, and it is worth naming the title because the section is sometimes mis-cited as a late-fee cap. Subsection (a) requires written notice to the tenant at least sixty days before the effective date of any increase. Subsection (b) requires at least one hundred twenty days’ notice to month-to-month tenants over the age of sixty-two before raising the rent. The current figures were set by P.L. 2024 ch. 243 and ch. 244, effective June 24, 2024.

Two qualifications sit on the face of the section. Both subsections exclude an independent living facility, an assisted living facility and a congregate care facility. And subsection (c) provides that nothing in the section requires a landlord to give notice on a timeframe exceeding what any other state or federal law, regulation or applicable housing programme already requires — so a subsidised tenancy follows the longer of the two rules rather than the shorter.

Rhode Island has no rent control and no fair-rent commission scheme, so the notice is the whole of the protection outside a fixed term. Within a fixed term, the rent is what the lease says it is. Our Rhode Island rent increase laws guide covers the mechanics, and the Rhode Island rent increase notice generates the document with the right period on its face.

Fewer than most states, and two categories are banned outright. R.I. Gen. Laws 34-18-59, effective January 1, 2024, provides that no landlord, lessor, sub-lessor, real estate broker, property management company or designee shall be allowed to require or demand that any prospective tenant pay a rental application fee. The section then regulates what remains: a landlord may still require an official state criminal background check from the Bureau of Criminal Identification, the Department of Attorney General, the state police or the local police, and a credit check — but where the applicant supplies one issued within ninety days, no fee may be charged for it; where the applicant does not, the charge may not exceed the actual cost of obtaining it and the applicant must be given a copy of the report; and the landlord may always run an independent check at the landlord’s own expense.

Second, 34-18-61, effective January 1, 2025, provides that a landlord shall not charge a convenience fee on a tenant’s rental payment. The single exception in subsection (b) is a landlord who accepts a form of rent payment that requires no convenience fee — so keeping one genuinely fee-free channel open is what makes a surcharge on the others lawful. This is a narrower rule than it first appears and it is worth reading twice before configuring a payment portal.

Third, since July 2, 2025, 34-18-62 forbids a landlord or any agent of the landlord to make any inquiry regarding or based on the immigration or citizenship status of a tenant, prospective tenant, occupant or prospective occupant, or to require any statement, representation or certification concerning it. No municipality or housing agency may compel a landlord to do so either. The carve-outs are narrow and practical: complying with federal law, and requesting what is necessary to verify a prospective tenant’s financial qualifications or identity. Our Rhode Island tenant screening laws guide covers the screening side in full.

Four things, since January 1, 2025, that most template leases simply do not contain. R.I. Gen. Laws 34-18-15(a) was rewritten by P.L. 2024 ch. 308 and ch. 309 and now imposes drafting duties on the document itself rather than on a separate notice.

Subsection (a)(1): if there are fees beyond the rent that apply to the rental of a unit, the lease shall disclose those fees in the same section as the rent disclosure and shall indicate that additional fees may apply. Placement is part of the rule — a fee schedule on the last page is not compliance. The requirement does not apply where the tenant or the unit receives a state or federal subsidy requiring a different lease format. Subsection (a)(2) covers the unwritten tenancy: the landlord must give the same list in writing, and any change in required fees must be disclosed in writing at least thirty days before it takes effect.

Subsection (a)(3): in any lease agreement the landlord shall disclose which utility costs are included in the rent and which utility costs are the tenant’s responsibility. Subsection (a)(4): if a tenant is required to obtain renters insurance, that requirement must be stated in the lease. And subsection (a)(5) supplies the remedy for all four: if the landlord fails to comply, the tenant may recover any fees paid for the unit that were not disclosed as required.

Two more in-document duties sit alongside them. 34-18-22(a)(7), in force since January 1, 2022, requires the landlord to obtain and keep in force a general liability insurance policy of at least one hundred thousand dollars for persons injured on the premises through the landlord’s negligence, and to provide a copy of the declaration page from the carrier to the tenant with the written lease at the beginning of the tenancy and a new copy with each policy renewal. And 34-18-22.1(b) requires the landlord, prior to entering into any residential rental agreement, to inform a prospective tenant of any outstanding minimum housing code violations on the building. Its companion, 34-18-22.1(a), then runs through the tenancy: a landlord cited by a code enforcement agency must deliver a copy of the notice of violation to each residential tenant of the affected building within thirty days, unless every violation is corrected to the agency’s satisfaction inside that window.

At least two days, at reasonable times. R.I. Gen. Laws 34-18-26(c) provides that, except in case of emergency or unless it is impracticable to do so, the landlord shall give the tenant at least two days’ notice of intent to enter and may enter only at reasonable times — and in the same sentence forbids the landlord to abuse the right of access or use it to harass the tenant. Section 34-18-26(a) lists the purposes a tenant may not unreasonably refuse: inspection, necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations or improvements, necessary or agreed services, and showings to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workers or contractors.

Two entry routes need no consent at all. Under 34-18-26(b) the landlord may enter in an emergency, or during any absence of the tenant in excess of seven days if reasonably necessary for the protection of the property. That seven-day rule pairs with 34-18-27, which lets the rental agreement require the tenant to notify the landlord of any anticipated extended absence in excess of ten days, no later than the first day of the absence. Section 34-18-26(d) closes off everything else: no other right of access exists except under a court order, as 34-18-39 permits where the tenant has failed to remedy a health-and-safety noncompliance after twenty days’ written notice, or where the tenant has abandoned or surrendered.

The remedy is the part nobody quotes. 34-18-45 is symmetrical: if the tenant refuses lawful access the landlord may obtain injunctive relief to compel it or terminate the agreement; and if the landlord makes an unlawful entry, a lawful entry in an unreasonable manner, or repeated demands for entry that are otherwise lawful but have the effect of unreasonably harassing the tenant, the tenant may obtain injunctive relief or terminate. In any action under either limb, the prevailing party may recover actual damages and shall be awarded costs and reasonable attorney’s fees. That mandatory fee award is the only true prevailing-party provision in the whole chapter. A dated Rhode Island notice to enter is how a landlord proves the two days; see Rhode Island landlord entry laws for the full picture.

The landlord’s list is at 34-18-22 and it names two things most states leave out. R.I. Gen. Laws 34-18-22(a) requires the landlord to comply with applicable building and housing codes affecting health and safety; make all repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep the premises fit and habitable; keep common areas clean and safe; maintain in good and safe working order all electrical, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating, air conditioning and other facilities and appliances, including elevators, supplied or required to be supplied; provide waste receptacles as 45-24.3-6 requires and arrange removal; and supply running water, reasonable hot water and reasonable heat between October 1 and May 1 as 45-24.3-7 and 45-24.3-9 require. Naming air conditioning in the maintenance duty, and dating the heating obligation to a calendar window, are both Rhode Island specifics. Where the code duty in (a)(1) is greater than any other duty in the subsection, the code governs under 34-18-22(b).

Duty-shifting is possible but narrow. Under 34-18-22(c) the parties may agree in writing that the tenant performs specified repairs, maintenance tasks, alterations and remodeling only if the agreement is entered into in good faith, is set out in a writing signed by the parties and is supported by adequate consideration; the work is not necessary to cure a code violation; and the agreement does not diminish the landlord’s obligations to other tenants. The consideration requirement is genuinely unusual — in most states a bare written agreement suffices. And 34-18-18 forbids any rental agreement, assignment, conveyance, trust deed or security instrument to permit the receipt of rent free of the 34-18-22(a) obligation at all.

The tenant’s list is at 34-18-24 and runs to ten items, ending with three that carry no right to cure: maintaining a narcotics nuisance under 21-28-4.06, the manufacture, sale or delivery of a controlled substance (or possession with that intent) on the premises or adjacent public property, and any crime of violence, which the section defines by listing the offences. Where a tenant fails to remedy a health-and-safety noncompliance within twenty days of written notice, 34-18-39 lets the landlord enter, do the work in a skilled manner and bill the reasonable cost as rent on the next rent day.

Three tenant remedies matter. 34-18-30 is repair and deduct: where the reasonable cost of compliance is less than five hundred dollars in the aggregate per year, the tenant may have the work done in a skilled manner and deduct it, after notifying the landlord of the intention to correct at the landlord’s expense and after the landlord fails to comply within twenty days or to show ongoing good-faith efforts. 34-18-31 covers a wilful or negligent failure to supply heat, water, hot water, electric, gas or another essential service: the tenant may buy the service and deduct it, sue for the diminution in fair rental value, or procure substitute housing and pay no rent for the period, recovering the substitute housing cost up to an amount equal to the periodic rent, with attorney’s fees available. And 34-18-28 is the general route: written notice, termination not less than thirty days after receipt if the breach is not remedied in twenty days, actual damages, injunctive relief, and attorney’s fees for a wilful failure. Add 34-18-33 for fire or casualty — vacate immediately and give written notice of termination within fourteen days — and 34-18-34, which prices an unlawful ouster or a wilful cut-off of essential services at not more than three months’ periodic rent or threefold the actual damages, whichever is greater, plus fees. Our Rhode Island habitability laws guide goes deeper.

Far more than the federal pamphlet — and the operative duties live in regulations, not in the General Laws. This is the heaviest single obligation on a Rhode Island landlord and the one an imported lease template gets most badly wrong.

Start with the statute. R.I. Gen. Laws 42-128.1-8(a) requires the owner of a pre-1978 rental dwelling that has not been made lead safe or lead hazard abated to take a lead hazard awareness seminar personally or through a designated person; evaluate the unit and premises consistent with a lead hazard control evaluation; correct identified hazards by meeting and maintaining the lead hazard mitigation standard; provide tenants with basic information about lead hazard control, a copy of the independent clearance inspection, and information about how to give notice of deteriorating conditions; and correct lead hazards within thirty days of notification from a tenant of a unit with an at-risk occupant. A new owner of such a unit occupied by an at-risk occupant has up to sixty days to meet the requirements the previous owner did not, provided the property is visually inspected within thirty business days of assuming ownership. Section 42-128.1-8(e) exempts condominium common areas owned by the association, and pre-1978 units that are lead-safe or lead free, temporary housing, or elderly housing.

Then the disclosure with the sharpest lease timing. 23-24.6-15(b) provides that where a comprehensive environmental lead inspection has been performed, occupants at the time must be told the results within five business days of the owner receiving them, and all prospective occupants must be told the results if a significant lead hazard exists, before any lease is signed, or before occupancy where no lease is signed. Failure to provide inspection results or educational materials carries a civil penalty of not less than one hundred dollars and not more than five hundred dollars for each violation. Section 23-24.6-16 directs the Department of Health to issue the sale-and-lease disclosure regulations, requires them to incorporate at minimum the federal requirements of 42 U.S.C. 4852d, requires the owner to supply copies of any outstanding notice of violation, the results of any lead inspection and the department’s educational materials — and provides in subsection (d) that receipt of those disclosures is never a bar to relief or an affirmative defence for the owner.

Now the regulations, which is where the actual lease duties are. 860-RICR-00-00-2, the Rules and Regulations Governing Lead Hazard Mitigation, active since January 2, 2019, sets out at section 2.5.5(C) five things an owner must give a prospective tenant on or before signing a lease, or before occupancy on an oral lease: the lead warning statement and acknowledgment under 24 C.F.R. 35.92 and 40 C.F.R. 745.113; the EPA pamphlet Protect Your Family from Lead in Your Home together with the Rhode Island Department of Health insert What You Should Know About the Rhode Island Lead Law; any known information about the presence of lead-based paint or environmental lead hazards; the most recent Certificate of Conformance and any Affidavit of Completion of Visual Inspection; and a Notice of Deteriorating Conditions carrying the name and contact information of the owner, agent or designated person responsible for maintaining the property. The signed acknowledgment must carry the property address and unit number and be kept for three years or the term of the tenancy, whichever is longer. Sitting tenants get the Mitigation Report within seven days of the owner receiving it, and the latest certificate and affidavits within seven days of the last affidavit being notarized.

The Department of Health’s own rule, 216-RICR-50-15-3, active on a periodic refile effective January 4, 2022, states the underlying duty at section 3.5.6(B): owners of pre-1978 residential rental units shall obtain a valid lead certificate for all non-exempt rental units by hiring a licensed Lead Inspector to perform a lead inspection. Section 3.5.3 adds that the lead disclosure must include a copy of any current certificate, a chronological listing of all available lead inspection reports and certificates, and instructions on how to obtain copies — delivered within seven days of a request and at no charge — plus, for rental properties specifically, basic information about the rule and the name and contact information of the owner, registered agent or designated person. And section 3.5.3(A)(3)(e) carries the drafting rule that catches out every template: the disclosure acknowledgment must be a stand-alone document, or its own separate page when included in a written lease.

The certificate itself is a named, numbered form. Under 216-RICR-50-15-5, amended effective May 24, 2026, a Certificate of Lead Conformance, Form LHM-2-1, is issued by a licensed Lead Inspector or Lead Assessor documenting that the dwelling meets the lead mitigation standards for paint and dust, and expires two years from the inspection date. Under 860-RICR-00-00-2 section 2.5.6 it is valid for two years or until the next turnover of the unit, whichever period is longer, with an independent clearance inspection required within thirty days of expiry or turnover and no more than one such inspection required in any twenty-four-month period.

The consequences are stacked. Section 42-128.1-10(b) gives a household including an at-risk occupant a private right of action for injunctive relief with an accelerated hearing and costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees to the prevailing party. Section 42-128.1-11(c) exposes an owner found to have violated chapter 42-128.1 or its regulations to double or treble the actual damages plus reasonable attorneys’ fees. And 34-18-58(b) ties it back to the rental registry, discussed below. Generate the federal component with our Rhode Island lead-based paint disclosure form.

No. It is a sale requirement, not a lease requirement — and the distinction is worth stating plainly because it is widely muddled. R.I. Gen. Laws 23-28.1-10 tells you only that a smoke detector and carbon monoxide detector certificate issued by any state or local authority is valid for the period the issuing authority specifies, but in no event for less than one hundred twenty days. It does not say when one is needed.

The trigger is in the Rhode Island Life Safety Code, 450-RICR-00-00-8, active with an amendment effective March 1, 2026. Section 24.6.3.1 requires occupied residential properties, including mobile homes, to be provided with smoke and carbon monoxide alarms “at the responsibility of the seller before title to the property is transferred”. Section 24.6.3.1.4 then requires that, at the time of the transfer of title, the seller give the purchaser a certificate from the local fire department stating the alarms were inspected within one hundred twenty days before the date of sale and found in good working order, with the fire department obliged to inspect within ten days of a request. Section 25.2.4.1 repeats the same rule for three-family apartment buildings. Every operative and exemption clause in the scheme is framed around transfer of title, seller, purchaser and date of sale, and a full-text search of both the Life Safety Code and the Rhode Island Fire Code at 450-RICR-00-00-7 returns no letting, tenancy, new-tenant or change-of-occupancy trigger anywhere.

What does bind a landlord continuously is easy to miss and more useful. Section 24.6.3.1.5 makes it the owner’s responsibility to maintain the alarms in operable condition and to make an inoperable system operable within seven days of being notified by certified mail by the occupant or an enforcement official — and section 24.6.3.1.5.1 then permits the tenant to make the alarms operable and deduct the actual reasonable cost from rent, up to fifty dollars. Device specification is keyed to the year the home was built: homes built in 1976 or earlier may use battery alarms that need not be interconnected, while homes built on or after January 1, 1977 need hard-wired interconnected smoke alarms with battery backup. The general habitability route in 34-18-22(a)(1) — compliance with applicable building and housing codes affecting health and safety — carries the rest.

Yes, and failing to do so bars a nonpayment eviction. R.I. Gen. Laws 34-18-58, effective June 20, 2023, created a statewide mandatory rental registry administered by the Department of Health. Every landlord must register the name of the individual landlord or business entity responsible for leasing; an active business address, PO box or home address; an active email address; an active telephone number that would reasonably facilitate communication with the tenant of each dwelling unit; any property manager, management company or agent for service with the same contact details; and information necessary to identify each dwelling unit.

Subsection (b) adds the lead layer: a landlord who leases a residential property constructed before 1978 that is not exempt from chapter 42-128.1 must also provide the Department of Health, for each dwelling unit, with a valid certificate of conformance, or evidence sufficient to demonstrate exemption.

The timetable is in subsection (d). Landlords subject to the duty as at September 1, 2024 had to register by October 1, 2024; a landlord who acquires a rental property, or begins leasing to a new tenant, after that date must register within thirty days of the acquisition or the letting, whichever is earlier; and every landlord must re-register by October 1 of each year to update the information or confirm it remains accurate. Civil fines under subsection (e) run at not less than fifty dollars per month for a subsection (a) failure and not less than one hundred twenty-five dollars per month for the certificate failure, with further Department of Health and Attorney General enforcement under subsection (h).

Then the provision that makes this a lease issue rather than an administrative one. Under 34-18-58(g), notwithstanding 34-18-35, a landlord or any agent may not commence an action to evict for nonpayment of rent unless, at the time the action is commenced, the landlord is in compliance with subsections (a), (b) and (d) — and must present the court with evidence of compliance at the time of filing. Separately, 34-18-57 requires anyone owning and leasing property in Providence or Warwick to register their name, home address including zip code and telephone number with the city clerk, and 34-18-22.3 requires a nonresident landlord to designate and continuously maintain a Rhode Island agent for service, filed with the Secretary of State and the city or town clerk, on pain of one hundred dollars per month up to twelve hundred dollars a calendar year.

Two different tracks with different clocks, and rankers routinely merge them.

Nonpayment (34-18-35). Stage one: any part of the stipulated rent must be due and in arrears for fifteen days. Stage two: the landlord sends a written notice in a form substantially similar to that provided in 34-18-56(a), specifying the amount fifteen days in arrears, demanding it, and notifying the tenant that unless the breach is cured within five days of the date of mailing the agreement terminates. The complaint may then be filed no earlier than the sixth day after mailing. Note that the cure period runs from mailing, not receipt — which is consistent with 34-18-14, under which a person receives a notice when it is delivered in hand or sent by first class mail to a place held out for receipt. Serve it with our Rhode Island five-day notice to pay rent or quit.

The cure rights are generous and two-tiered. Under 34-18-35(e) the tenant may always cure by tendering the full rent before suit is commenced. And where the tenant has not received a 34-18-35(a) notice within the six months immediately preceding the filing, the tenant may also cure after suit by tendering all rent in arrears together with court costs at the time of hearing. The same six-month window governs fees: under 34-18-35(d) the landlord recovers a reasonable attorney’s fee on a nonpayment eviction only where the tenant had received such a notice within those six months and the nonpayment was wilful.

Any other breach (34-18-36). For a material noncompliance with the agreement, or a noncompliance with 34-18-24 materially affecting health and safety, the landlord delivers a written demand notice in a form substantially similar to 34-18-56(b) specifying the acts or omissions, the acts, repairs or payment of damages needed to remedy them, and that unless the breach is remedied within twenty days of mailing the agreement terminates on a specified date not less than twenty-one days after mailing. Adequate remedy before that date saves the tenancy. The complaint may be filed no earlier than the first day following the stated termination date, and the tenant then has twenty days from service to answer. Use our Rhode Island notice to cure or quit.

Two escalations sit inside 34-18-36. If substantially the same act or omission recurs within six months of a good-faith notice, the landlord may terminate on at least twenty days’ written notice with no allowance of time to remedy. And where the tenant has violated 34-18-24(8), (9) or (10) — narcotics nuisance, controlled-substance activity, or a crime of violence — no notice of noncompliance is required at all and the landlord may file immediately, as it may in the narrow seasonal-tenancy case in 34-18-36(f). That is the situation our Rhode Island unconditional quit notice is drafted for.

Two Rhode Island specifics close this out. Section 34-18-56 prescribes the actual forms — the demand notices, the periodic-termination notice, both complaints and both summonses — and each operative section requires the notice to be “in a form substantially similar to” its model, which is a stricter drafting constraint than most states impose. And since January 1, 2024, 34-18-60 lets any party to an action under 34-18-35, 34-18-36 or 34-18-38 move to seal the record at least thirty days after the appeal period expires, where the case was dismissed on a motion to dismiss, resolved by a satisfied stipulation, satisfied in full as to any money judgment, or dismissed for want of prosecution after five years — one request per party every five years. See Rhode Island eviction notice laws.

Three notice periods, not one. R.I. Gen. Laws 34-18-37 sets them out and requires each notice to be in a form substantially similar to 34-18-56(c). A week-to-week tenancy ends on written notice delivered at least ten days before the termination date. A month-to-month tenancy, or any periodic tenancy for more than a month and less than a year, ends on written notice delivered at least thirty days before the date specified. And a year-to-year tenancy ends on written notice delivered at least three months before the expiration of the occupation year. Every right runs equally to landlord and tenant. The year-to-year period appears on no page currently ranking for this query.

Holding over is handled at 34-18-38. Where the tenant remains in possession without consent after the term expires or a periodic tenancy is terminated, the landlord may file an eviction complaint on the first day following that expiration or termination — no further notice period. Where the holdover is wilful and not in good faith, 34-18-38(c) allows the landlord to recover, in addition to possession, not more than three months’ periodic rent or threefold the actual damages, whichever is greater, plus reasonable attorney’s fees. If the landlord consents to continued occupancy the parties may agree a definite term; absent one the tenancy is week-to-week where rent is paid weekly and otherwise month-to-month.

Section 34-18-38(d), added by P.L. 2024 ch. 409 and ch. 410 effective June 28, 2024, adds something no competing page carries: a post-death rental grace period. Where a tenant dies leaving no remaining signatory living in the unit, the deceased’s live-in caregiver or any other person at least eighteen years old residing there may continue the agreement for three months or the remaining term, whichever is shorter, paying the agreed rent and assuming the tenant’s obligations. The statute lists thirteen accepted forms of proof of residence, assumes that anyone still resident after seven days has elected the status, makes multiple electors jointly and severally liable, bars the landlord from demanding an additional security deposit, and leaves arrears left by the deceased as an obligation of the estate.

Finally, 34-18-41 is the trap on the landlord’s side: accepting rent with knowledge of a default, or accepting performance that varies from the lease, waives the right to terminate for that breach unless the landlord gives written notice within ten days. Acceptance of a partial payment is not a waiver of the balance. Our Rhode Island lease termination laws guide covers the sequences, and the Rhode Island notice of non-renewal and Rhode Island tenant notice to vacate generate the documents.

Rhode Island now recognises four routes, and the newest of them is five weeks old as this page is written.

The Rhode Island Survivor Early Lease Termination Act was enacted as P.L. 2026 ch. 147 and ch. 148 on June 18, 2026 and took effect July 1, 2026, adding R.I. Gen. Laws 34-18-63 through 34-18-67. A tenant may terminate without penalty, early-termination fee or liability for future rent where the tenant or a household member has, within the most recent one hundred fifty days, been a victim of abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking — or where within that period an event relating to past abuse causes the victim to fear for their safety. The right is conditioned on written verification: a valid protective order, or proof of initiating legal action for one, or a report to a law enforcement agency, or a written statement from a law enforcement official, attorney, healthcare provider, social worker, mental health counsellor, therapist, or a domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse or other victim advocate at a nonprofit, college, university or state agency. The landlord must keep the verification and any personally identifying information in strict confidence. The tenant vacates within thirty days of notice, owes rent only through termination or actual vacating (whichever is later), and gets the deposit back on the twenty-day clock.

The same act adds two protections around it. Section 34-18-65 requires the landlord, on the request of all tenants in possession or on a court order, to change the locks within two business days and provide a key within the same period, charging no more than the reasonable customary local price — failing which the tenant may change them without permission. A landlord who obstructs a lock change, or changes the locks but fails to make a good faith effort to provide the key, is liable for two months’ rent plus costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees, applicable in setoff against rent, unless the court finds the landlord acted in good faith. Section 34-18-64 forbids a lessor to refuse to rent, or a housing subsidy provider to deny assistance, because the applicant used either right, and 34-18-67 makes any waiver void and unenforceable.

Two long-standing routes complete the picture. Under 34-18-15(e) a tenant who is sixty-five or older, or who will turn sixty-five during the term, may terminate in order to enter a residential care and assisted living facility as defined in 23-17.4-2, a nursing facility, or a federally designated housing complex for the elderly — on written notice to the usual person to whom rent is paid, accompanied by documentation of admission or pending admission, effective no earlier than forty-five days after the first rental payment due date following delivery. And 34-18-15(f) carries the servicemember right: entry into military service after execution, or orders for a permanent change of station or a deployment of not less than ninety days, terminate the lease on written notice with a copy of the orders, effective thirty days after the next rent due date for a monthly lease, with no early termination charge and advance rent refunded within thirty days. See Rhode Island breaking a lease laws.

When the rent has been unpaid for more than fifteen days and substantially all the possessions are gone. R.I. Gen. Laws 34-18-11 defines abandonment as the tenant having vacated the premises without notice to the landlord with no intention of returning, as evidenced by nonpayment of rent for more than fifteen days and removal of substantially all possessions from the premises. Both limbs are needed; an empty flat with the rent paid is not abandoned, and unpaid rent alone is a nonpayment case rather than an abandonment.

Section 34-18-40 then sets the procedure, and it is short. The landlord sends a certified letter, return receipt requested, to the tenant’s last known address giving notice that unless a reply is received within seven days the landlord will re-rent. If the letter comes back undeliverable, or the tenant does not make contact within those seven days, the landlord must make reasonable efforts to rent the premises at a fair rental. If the landlord re-lets for a term beginning before the original agreement expires, the tenancy 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 is deemed terminated as of the date the landlord had notice of the abandonment — which cuts off the rent claim from that point. R.I. Gen. Laws 34-18-5(a) reinforces the general duty on any aggrieved party to mitigate damages.

Two adjacent rules are worth knowing. R.I. Gen. Laws 34-18-42 abolishes distraint for rent outright and makes an unperfected landlord lien or security interest in the tenant’s household goods unenforceable, and 34-18-44 forbids self-help recovery of possession, including a wilful cut-off of heat, water, hot water, electric, gas or another essential service. And where a court-ordered execution removes a tenant’s property, 34-18-50 requires the tenant to pay the whole cost of moving and any prepaid storage before the property is released, with the officer giving a written release and the amount going to the landlord as reimbursement.

Four, at R.I. Gen. Laws 34-18-17 — and Rhode Island puts a price on including one deliberately. Note the section number, because template pages routinely attribute prohibited provisions to 34-18-15. That section is “Terms and conditions of rental agreement” and is where the 2024 fee, utility and renters-insurance disclosure duties live. Prohibited provisions are 34-18-17.

A rental agreement may not provide that the tenant: (1) agrees to waive or forego rights or remedies under chapter 34-18; (2) authorizes any person to confess judgment on a claim arising out of the agreement; (3) agrees to pay the landlord’s attorney’s fees inconsistent with the chapter; or (4) agrees to the exculpation or limitation of any liability of the landlord arising under law, or to indemnify the landlord for that liability or the costs connected with it.

Section 34-18-17(b) supplies both consequences. A prohibited provision included in an agreement is unenforceable. And where a landlord deliberately uses a rental agreement containing provisions known to be prohibited, the tenant may recover, in addition to actual damages, an amount up to three months’ periodic rent and reasonable attorney’s fees. Rhode Island therefore prices the boilerplate: a void clause copied in from another state’s template is not merely inert, it is a claim.

The attorney-fee limb deserves its own paragraph because it is unlike anything else in this series. Rhode Island neither bans a landlord fee clause outright (as Alabama and Alaska do) nor caps it at a percentage (as Connecticut does). It voids one that is inconsistent with chapter 34-18 — so the measure is the chapter’s own fee awards. Those are narrow and mostly fault-based: the landlord recovers fees on a nonpayment eviction only where the tenant had received a 34-18-35(a) demand within the preceding six months and the nonpayment was wilful; on any other eviction only where the noncompliance was wilful; and under 34-18-32(a) where the tenant’s defence or counterclaim is frivolous or without any basis in fact. The tenant’s side is broader — a wrongly withheld deposit, wilful landlord noncompliance, an essential-services failure, a wilful failure to deliver possession under 34-18-29, and unlawful ouster. The only genuine prevailing-party award in the chapter is 34-18-45(c) on abuse of access. A clause shifting fees to the landlord at large is therefore inconsistent with the chapter and void.

Three further non-waivable provisions sit outside 34-18-17: 34-18-19(h) forbids any waiver of the security-deposit section; 34-18-18 forbids any instrument permitting the receipt of rent free of the maintenance duty; and 34-18-67 makes a waiver of the survivor termination and lock-change rights void. Section 34-18-12 imposes an obligation of good faith on every duty under the chapter, 34-18-13 supplies the unconscionability power, and 34-18-9 puts jurisdiction in the district court or the appropriate housing court in both law and equity.

Eight state disclosures plus the federal lead-paint one — and four of the eight arrived between 2022 and 2025.

Two things are not on that list, and it is worth saying so. Rhode Island has no statutory mold disclosure — a landlord who has actual knowledge may sensibly disclose it, and this builder offers a block clearly labelled as voluntary, but nothing compels it. And Rhode Island has no infestation-disclosure statute of the kind Connecticut carries, despite one ranking page listing several such items as Rhode Island requirements. Radon, flood-risk, methamphetamine-history, ordnance-proximity, offender-registry and pending-demolition notices are requirements of other states.

One further disclosure is coming but is not law yet, and the difference matters. P.L. 2026 ch. 165 and ch. 166, enacted June 18, 2026, add 34-18-20(e), a shoreline access disclosure for any dwelling unit that constitutes shoreline property as defined in 5-20.8-1: the landlord must tell the tenant in writing, before the tenancy commences, that the public may exercise the rights and privileges of the shore up to ten feet landward of the recognizable high tide line subject to 46-23-26, must notify the tenant of any public rights-of-way known to the landlord and supply documentation on request, and must advise the tenant to contact the Coastal Resources Management Council, the municipality or applicable nonprofits. Section 3 of the act sets the effective date at January 1, 2027. It is a duty to diarise, not one to assert on a lease signed today.

Yes — and it is a mandatory presumption, not a permissive inference. R.I. Gen. Laws 34-18-46(a) forbids a landlord to retaliate by increasing rent, decreasing services, or bringing or threatening to bring an action for possession because the tenant complained to a governmental agency charged with enforcing a building or housing code about a violation materially affecting health and safety; complained to the landlord of a 34-18-22 violation; organized or became a member of a tenants’ union or similar organization; or availed themself of any other lawful rights and remedies. Note that a mere threat counts, and that the fourth ground is deliberately open-ended.

Subsection (b) is where Rhode Island goes further than most. Evidence of a complaint within six months before the alleged act of retaliation creates a presumption that the landlord’s conduct was retaliatory — and the statute then defines the word: “Presumption” means that the trier of fact must find the existence of the fact presumed unless and until evidence is introduced which would support a finding of its nonexistence. That is a burden-shifting device, not a factor to weigh. The tenant also gets the 34-18-34 remedies (not more than three months’ periodic rent or threefold actual damages, whichever is greater, plus fees) and a defence to any retaliatory possession action.

There is one important limit that no summary carries: the presumption does not arise if the tenant made the complaint after notice of a proposed rental increase or diminution of services. A tenant who complains only once a rent-increase notice lands does not get the presumption — though the underlying prohibition still stands. And 34-18-46(c) preserves three grounds on which the landlord may still seek possession: the code violation was caused primarily by lack of reasonable care by the tenant or someone on the premises with the tenant’s consent; the tenant is in default in rent; or compliance with the code, or other public action such as eminent domain, requires alteration, remodeling or demolition that would effectively deprive the tenant of the unit and the municipality has met its relocation requirements. Subsection (d) then confirms that bringing such an action does not release the landlord from liability under 34-18-28(b).

Calling the fifteen days a grace period. It is the point at which an eviction demand may be sent under 34-18-35(a). Writing it into a lease as a grace period gives away a right the statute does not require, and telling a landlord it limits late fees is simply wrong.

Importing a late-fee cap. Rhode Island has none. Copying the mobile-home rule from 31-44-2, or a neighbouring state’s percentage, into an apartment lease invents a limit that does not exist — and, worse, may look like the landlord conceding one.

Putting the fee schedule on the back page. Section 34-18-15(a)(1) requires fees beyond the rent to be disclosed in the same section as the rent disclosure. Placement is part of the rule, and 34-18-15(a)(5) makes an undisclosed fee recoverable.

Leaving out the landlord’s own insurance. Section 34-18-22(a)(7) has required a policy of at least one hundred thousand dollars and a copy of the declaration page delivered with the written lease since January 1, 2022. It sits among the maintenance duties, so a failure is enforceable like a failure to repair.

Charging an application fee. Banned outright by 34-18-59 since January 1, 2024. A background or credit check is still permitted, but only at actual cost, only where the applicant has not supplied one issued within ninety days, and only if the applicant is given a copy.

Counting the deposit clock from move-out. Section 34-18-19(b) runs it from the latest of termination, delivery of possession, or the tenant supplying a forwarding address. Getting it wrong costs twice the amount wrongfully withheld plus fees.

Assuming thirty days ends every periodic tenancy. Section 34-18-37 sets ten days for week-to-week and three months for year-to-year. A year-to-year notice served thirty days out is void.

Skipping the registry. Section 34-18-58(g) blocks a nonpayment eviction outright where the landlord is not in compliance, and requires evidence of compliance to be presented to the court at filing. Annual re-registration falls due each October 1.

Treating the lead duty as a federal pamphlet exercise. The five-item pre-signing list in 860-RICR-00-00-2 2.5.5(C), the certificate requirement in 216-RICR-50-15-3 3.5.6(B), and the stand-alone-acknowledgment rule in 3.5.3(A)(3)(e) are all Rhode Island requirements with their own penalties.

Copying a prohibited clause across from another state’s form. An exculpation clause, a confession of judgment or an open-ended fee-shifting clause is void under 34-18-17(a) — and deliberate use costs actual damages plus up to three months’ periodic rent plus fees under 34-18-17(b).

Rhode Island gives a landlord real remedies and then makes several of them slow, fault-based or conditional. A nonpayment eviction cannot start until the rent is fifteen days in arrears, needs a statutory-form demand, and cannot be filed at all unless the rental registry is current. Attorney’s fees are available only where the tenant’s conduct was wilful or the defence frivolous. And the deposit is capped at one month, so the cushion is thin. The cheapest point of control is therefore the application, not the courthouse.

Rhode Island regulates that stage too, so screening has to be done correctly. Section 34-18-59 bans the application fee itself, permits a criminal background check from the Bureau of Criminal Identification, the Department of Attorney General, the state police or the local police, and a credit check — but requires the landlord to accept one the applicant supplies if it was issued within ninety days, caps any charge at actual cost, and requires the applicant to be given a copy of what was obtained. Section 34-18-62 forbids any inquiry into immigration or citizenship status while expressly allowing verification of financial qualifications and identity. Run the check properly and document it: our Rhode Island tenant screening laws guide sets out what is permitted, and the tenant screening laws by state comparison shows how far Rhode Island sits from its neighbours.

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