Free Mississippi Landlord Forms
Every Mississippi landlord form we publish, organised by the stage of the tenancy it belongs to, each one paired with the Chapter 89-8 section that governs it — and an honest account of the several places where Mississippi law simply has no rule.
Every form linked on this page is free, fillable in your browser, and downloadable as a PDF with no account, no membership and no paywall. Mississippi residential tenancies run on the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, Chapter 89-8 of the Mississippi Code. It is a short statute, and half of what a Mississippi landlord needs to know is where the code is silent — because where it is silent, the lease is the whole of the law.
The short version
- Nonpayment of rent — three days.
- Other breach — fourteen days, with a genuine right to cure. It is not thirty.
- Some conduct needs no notice at all — a substantial violation that materially affects health or safety.
- Month-to-month — thirty days, and it binds both parties equally.
- There is no landlord entry statute. None. Entry rights come from the lease or they do not exist.
- No deposit cap, and no interest or escrow duty — but a forty-five-day return on a three-part trigger.
- No grace period and no late-fee cap. The lease governs.
- Do not cite Chapter 89-7. It was made non-residential only in 2022.
First, the Chapter Trap
Do not use Chapter 89-7 notice periods for a residential tenancy. Senate Bill 2461 of 2022 repealed §§ 89-7-41 and 89-7-45 and converted the Chapter 89-7 removal procedure to non-residential only. Section 89-7-23 — which gives one week’s notice for a monthly letting, and which still turns up in search results — ends with the words “This section shall not apply to rental agreements governed by the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act.”
Every guide written before 2022 that describes Chapter 89-7 as the Mississippi eviction procedure is now describing commercial law. Residential tenancies live in Chapter 89-8, and residential eviction procedure lives at §§ 89-8-31 to 89-8-43.
Mississippi’s Three Notice Periods
| Situation | Notice | Section |
|---|---|---|
| Nonpayment of rent | 3 days — the notice must specify that the agreement will terminate if payment is not made within three days | § 89-8-13(5)(a) |
| Other material breach | 14 days, with a right to cure: terminates on a date not less than fourteen days after receipt if the breach is not remedied within a reasonable time not exceeding fourteen days | § 89-8-13(3) |
| Repeat of the same act within six months | 14 days, no cure right | § 89-8-13(3)(b) |
| Substantial violation materially affecting health or safety | NO NOTICE REQUIRED | § 89-8-19(4) |
| Month-to-month | 30 days, written, binding both parties | § 89-8-19(3) |
| Week-to-week | 7 days, written, both parties | § 89-8-19(2) |
| Holdover after a fixed term | Eviction may commence no earlier than three days after notice; the landlord may also demand increased rent absent a retaliatory purpose | § 89-8-17(2) |
The Mississippi cure period is fourteen days, not thirty. It was cut from thirty to fourteen by Senate Bill 2473 in 2018, and a good deal of published guidance still carries the older figure. The cure right is explicit: “if the breaching party adequately remedies the breach before the date specified in the notice, the rental agreement shall not terminate”. So the notice needs to say what the breach is, what would remedy it, and the date the tenancy ends if it is not remedied.
The no-notice ground is unusually blunt and worth quoting. Section 89-8-19(4): “notice to terminate a tenancy shall not be required to be given when the landlord or tenant has committed a substantial violation of the rental agreement or this chapter that materially affects health or safety.” Note that it runs both ways — a tenant may use it against a landlord too. Our Mississippi eviction notice laws guide sets out each ground.
The grounds for eviction themselves are closed. Section 89-8-31, as amended in 2025, allows an action only where the tenant has (a) breached or violated the agreement under § 89-8-13, or (b) failed to vacate after termination or expiry under §§ 89-8-17 and 89-8-19. There is no free-standing third route.
Every Mississippi Landlord Form, by Stage of the Tenancy
An alphabetical list is the least useful arrangement, because a landlord arrives knowing what has happened, not what the document is called. The index below is ordered by where you are in the tenancy.
Starting the tenancy
- Mississippi residential lease agreement — the master document, and in Mississippi it carries more weight than in most states. Entry rights, late fees, grace periods and deposit limits all come from here, because the code supplies none of them.
- Lead-based paint form — required by federal law, not Mississippi law, for any dwelling built before 1978. It is effectively the only mandatory pre-tenancy document a Mississippi landlord has.
- Move-in / move-out condition checklist — not required by statute, and all the more useful for that. With no escrow duty and no itemisation deadline, a signed condition record is the only durable evidence a Mississippi landlord has at move-out.
During the tenancy
- Notice to enter the property — there is no statutory entry rule in Mississippi, so this document exists to honour whatever the lease provides and to create a record. See below.
- Rent increase notice — Mississippi has no rent control. For a month-to-month tenancy the thirty-day period is the operative constraint.
- Late rent notice — a courtesy reminder. Note that § 89-8-7 defines “rent” to include “any late fees that are required to be paid under the rental agreement by a defaulting tenant”, so a properly drafted late fee is recoverable as rent.
When the tenant breaches
- Three-day notice to pay rent or quit — § 89-8-13(5)(a). It must specify that the agreement terminates if the rent is not paid within three days.
- Notice to cure or quit — the fourteen-day notice under § 89-8-13(3), with the remedy stated.
- Unconditional quit notice — for the repeat-breach route with no cure right, and to document a substantial violation affecting health or safety.
Ending the tenancy without fault
- Notice of non-renewal — thirty days for a month-to-month tenancy under § 89-8-19(3).
- Tenant notice to vacate — the same thirty days, because the statute binds both parties identically.
After the tenant moves out
- Security deposit itemisation — the written notice by which the landlord claims any part of the deposit must itemise the amounts claimed.
- Security deposit return letter — the covering document for the forty-five-day return.
Mississippi Has No Landlord Entry Statute — and That Is Not a Gap in Our Research
Chapter 89-8 contains no right-of-access section at all. No notice period, no permitted hours, no emergency exception, no remedy for abuse. We established this by enumerating all twenty-three sections of the chapter, from § 89-8-1 to § 89-8-45, rather than by failing to find one.
The “Mississippi twenty-four-hour entry rule” is a myth, and a well-travelled one — it appears on several of the largest property-management sites, some of which concede in the same paragraph that no statute exists and then assert that landlords “cannot enter without reasonable notice” anyway. Whatever the practical merits of giving notice, it is not a statutory duty in Mississippi.
The practical consequence is that your lease is your entry rule. If the lease says nothing, you have no contractual right of entry to rely on; if it says twenty-four hours, twenty-four hours is what binds you. Draft it deliberately rather than inheriting a clause from a template written for a state with a statute. See our Mississippi landlord entry laws guide.
Security Deposits: No Cap, No Escrow — but a Three-Part Trigger
Mississippi’s deposit rules are among the lightest in the country, and the one deadline that exists has a trigger most summaries truncate.
| Rule | Value | Section |
|---|---|---|
| Cap | NONE. The code sets no maximum, no rent multiple and no pet-deposit limit anywhere in Chapter 89-8 | Verified absence |
| Escrow / interest | SILENT. No trust account, no separate account, no interest duty. The only related rule is that the tenant’s claim to the deposit “shall be prior to the claim of any creditor of the landlord” | § 89-8-21(2) |
| Return — the three-part trigger | No later than forty-five days after the termination of the tenancy, the delivery of possession AND demand by the tenant. All three. Note the statute says “demand” — not “written demand” | § 89-8-21(3) |
| Itemisation | The written notice claiming any portion shall itemise the amounts claimed. No separate deadline is stated for the notice itself | § 89-8-21(3) |
| Penalty | Retention in violation of the section and with absence of good faith may subject the landlord to damages not to exceed two hundred dollars, in addition to any actual damages. No attorney-fee provision | § 89-8-21(4) |
The forty-five days do not start when the tenant hands back the keys. They start when termination, delivery of possession and the tenant’s demand have all happened. A tenant who moves out and never asks for the money has not started the clock. This is the single most commonly mis-stated Mississippi rule, and summaries clip the sentence at “termination of his tenancy”, dropping the rest.
Read the penalty carefully too. It is discretionary (“may”), it is capped at two hundred dollars, and bad faith is an element that the tenant has to establish. Mississippi’s deposit exposure is far smaller than the two-times and three-times regimes elsewhere.
Two related myths deserve retiring. There is no “second thirty-day demand” requirement and no fee-shifting in § 89-8-21 — the section has four subsections and neither appears in any of them. Both are recited uniformly by property-management blogs, and both look like contamination from another state’s statute. See our Mississippi security deposit laws guide.
Where Mississippi Law Is Silent
Half the questions a Mississippi landlord asks have the same answer: there is no statutory requirement. That is a real answer, and stating it plainly is more useful than filling the space with another state’s rule.
- Grace period — none. The lease governs.
- Late fee cap — none. Section 89-8-7 merely defines rent to include contractual late fees, which makes them recoverable but sets no ceiling.
- Landlord entry — no statute at all.
- Security deposit cap, escrow and interest — none.
- Add-days-for-mailing — none. The fourteen-day clock runs from receipt of the notice, not from mailing.
- Rent control — none.
- NSF fee cap for landlords — none in Chapter 89-8. The forty-dollar figure in circulation belongs to the criminal bad-cheque statute, which is a service charge in a prosecution context, not a landlord fee ceiling.
Because so much falls to contract, the lease is doing far more work in Mississippi than the same document does in, say, Nevada or Maryland. That is the strongest practical argument for using a Mississippi-specific lease rather than a generic one. See our Mississippi late fee laws guide.
Serving a Mississippi Notice
Termination and breach notices must be “in writing, or by email or text message if the breaching party has agreed in writing to be notified by email or text message”. The written agreement to electronic notice is a precondition, not a preference — get it into the lease if you want to use it.
The eviction summons is served under the Mississippi Rules of Court. And there is no add-days-for-mailing rule: the fourteen-day cure period runs from receipt, which is a different starting point from mailing and which puts the burden on you to be able to show when receipt occurred.
What Changed in 2025
Two acts landed in April 2025, and no commercial publisher we checked reflects either — the major legal publishers are all current only to 1 January 2025, which is three months too early.
| Act | Effective | What it did |
|---|---|---|
| Senate Bill 2328, chapter 460 | Approved 10 April 2025, effective on passage | Amended §§ 89-8-3, 89-8-31, 89-8-35 and 89-8-39 and added a recreational-vehicle park removal procedure. The key line: “The warrant of removal shall not be considered executed by law enforcement posting the warrant of removal on the door… Law enforcement must remove all occupants.” |
| House Bill 1200, the Real Property Owners Protection Act, chapter 474 | Approved 10 April 2025, effective 1 July 2025 | Added a squatter-removal process and, most usefully for paperwork, a new definition at § 89-8-7(m): “’Tenant’ shall not include any person who trespasses or otherwise enters and/or remains on property without landlord’s knowledge or permission.” |
Against those, three bills that circulate as if they were law are not. House Bill 1580 (2024) died in committee on 5 March 2024 — and it is a particularly deceptive one, because it was a “bring-forward” bill that reprints existing law verbatim, so its text reads exactly like current law and search engines surface it as a 2024 amendment. House Bill 1352 (2025) died on 4 February 2025. House Bill 499 (2026) died on 3 February 2026 — it would have cut the § 89-8-13 notice to seven days, added post-and-mail service and capped the hearing at fourteen days. None of that is law; the fourteen-day period stands.
Court, Costs and Timetable
Section 89-8-7 defines “court” as “a justice court, a county court or a circuit court”. Justice court civil jurisdiction is three thousand five hundred dollars, and the uniform justice-court civil filing fee is twenty-five dollars, plus five dollars for process per additional defendant and fifteen dollars for a post-judgment execution. There is no separate statutory eviction fee.
| Stage | Rule | Section |
|---|---|---|
| Time to vacate after judgment | 7 days from the date of judgment, unless the court sets a shorter or longer period for “emergency or other compelling circumstances” | § 89-8-39(1) |
| Property retrieval | 72 hours of reasonable access after the warrant is executed | § 89-8-39(3) |
| Pay and stay | No warrant issues if the tenant pays all sums in the judgment by the move-out date | § 89-8-39(4) |
| Continuances | A single adjournment of ten days or less absent consent; the hearing may not extend beyond thirty days from filing | § 89-8-41 |
| Appeal | 10 days after judgment, with a bond of double the judgment, minimum one hundred dollars, as supersedeas | § 11-51-85 |
| Holdover penalty | Double rent for the period of holdover after notice, “if not contradicted by the rental agreement” | § 89-8-45 |
The forty-five-day continuance cap you may have read about does not exist. A Mississippi law-firm page states that eviction hearings cannot be continued beyond forty-five days; § 89-8-41(3) says thirty days from the date the action was filed.
Tenants have their own timed remedy worth knowing: repair and deduct under § 89-8-15 requires thirty days’ written notice, reimbursement within forty-five days, is capped at one month’s rent, may be used not more than once in six months, and is available only to a tenant who is current on rent. See our Mississippi habitability laws guide.
Which Mississippi Form Do I Need?
- The tenant has not paid rent. Three-day notice, specifying that the agreement terminates if the rent is not paid within three days.
- There is another material breach. Fourteen days, with the remedy stated — and the tenancy ends no sooner than fourteen days after receipt.
- The same breach has recurred within six months. Fourteen days, no cure right.
- There is a substantial violation materially affecting health or safety. No notice is required — but document it thoroughly, because you are relying on the character of the conduct.
- Nobody is at fault and you want the tenancy to end. Thirty days month-to-month, seven days week-to-week, either party.
- The fixed term has expired and they are still there. Notice that eviction will commence no earlier than three days later.
- You need to get into the property. Whatever your lease says — the code says nothing.
- The tenant has moved out. Forty-five days from termination, delivery of possession and demand, with the amounts claimed itemised.
How to Fill Out a Mississippi Fourteen-Day Notice
- Name every tenant and describe the premises exactly as the agreement does.
- State the breach specifically — what happened, when, and which term of the agreement it breaches.
- State what would remedy it. The statute gives a cure right, so a notice that does not say what curing looks like is doing half its job.
- Give a termination date not less than fourteen days after receipt, and say plainly that remedy before that date prevents termination.
- Check whether this is a repeat. If substantially the same act occurred within the last six months, the fourteen days run without a cure right — and you should say so.
- Deliver it in writing, or by email or text only if the tenant has agreed in writing to that method.
- Record receipt. The clock runs from receipt, and there is no add-days rule to fall back on.
- Diarise the hearing limit — the matter may not be continued beyond thirty days from filing.
What Happens If the Form Is Wrong
The distinctively Mississippi error is using a thirty-day cure period. It has been fourteen since 2018, and a notice that offers thirty is not fatal but hands the tenant sixteen free days.
The second is citing Chapter 89-7, whose residential application ended in 2022 — and the one-week monthly notice in § 89-7-23 expressly disclaims residential agreements.
The third is on the deposit: starting the forty-five days at move-out rather than at the point where termination, delivery of possession and demand have all occurred.
And the fourth is a lease problem rather than a notice problem — an entry clause borrowed from a statutory state. In Mississippi that clause is not a restatement of the law; it is the law between you and your tenant.
What This Page Does Not Have
We would rather scope this honestly than promise documents we do not host. Mississippi landlords also commonly want a rental application, a month-to-month agreement, a room rental agreement, a sublease, a roommate agreement, a commercial lease, a rent-to-own agreement, an addendum, a pet addendum, a rent receipt and an adverse action notice. Those are not published here as Mississippi-specific forms.
We publish no Mississippi court form numbers. The state judiciary’s site returned a server error on every page we tried, including both the forms index and the justice-court page, so we could not confirm that a standardised statewide eviction form exists at all. Section 89-8-33 prescribes the contents of the filing — a sworn affidavit or complaint plus a copy of the § 89-8-13 or §§ 89-8-17 / 89-8-19 notice — but no form number. Warrant-of-removal and constable service fees are set locally and vary by county; the figures circulating online come from commercial blogs.
We have also not resolved whether the “demand” in § 89-8-21(3) must be in writing. The statute says only “demand”. Requiring writing would be an inference, and we do not publish inferences as rules.
Common Mississippi Landlord Form Mistakes
- Giving thirty days to cure. It has been fourteen since 2018.
- Citing Chapter 89-7 for a residential tenancy. It has been non-residential since 2022.
- Omitting the remedy from a fourteen-day notice, when the statute grants a cure right.
- Starting the deposit clock at move-out. It needs termination, delivery of possession and demand.
- Waiting for a “second thirty-day demand” that does not exist.
- Expecting attorney fees on a deposit claim. Section 89-8-21 has no fee-shifting.
- Publishing a twenty-four-hour entry rule. There is no entry statute.
- Relying on an email or text notice where the tenant never agreed in writing to that method.
- Adding days for mailing. The clock runs from receipt.
- Charging a forty-dollar NSF fee “under the Act”. That figure is from the criminal bad-cheque statute.
- Assuming a forty-five-day continuance cap. It is thirty days from filing.
- Treating a squatter as a tenant. Since July 2025 the definition of “tenant” expressly excludes them.
Free Fillable Forms Versus the Paid Mississippi Form Sites
Mississippi has no official layer in its results at all — unlike Michigan, Minnesota or Maryland, no state court or government page ranks for this query. The field is entirely commercial template sites plus one landlord-association law page, and that law page is the deepest ranker at about two thousand six hundred and eighty words. The form indexes themselves are the shallowest we have measured anywhere.
That is an unusual shape, and it points at the opportunity: in a thin-law state, the depth advantage goes to whoever explains the absence of rules well. Telling a Mississippi landlord that there is no entry statute, no deposit cap and no late-fee ceiling — and therefore what their lease has to do instead — is worth more than another copy of a generic notice.
Every form linked from this page is free, fills in the browser, and downloads as a finished PDF. There is no account, no trial and no upsell attached to the documents themselves. What we ask in return is straightforward: if you are about to hand keys to someone, run the screening first, because nearly every dispute described on this page is cheaper to prevent than to litigate.
Mississippi Landlord Forms: FAQ
How many days is a Mississippi notice to pay rent or quit?
Three days under Miss. Code Ann. § 89-8-13(5)(a), and the notice must specify that the rental agreement will terminate if payment is not made within three days.
Is the Mississippi cure period fourteen days or thirty?
Fourteen. Section 89-8-13(3) terminates the agreement on a date not less than fourteen days after receipt of the notice if the breach is not remedied within a reasonable time not exceeding fourteen days. It was cut from thirty by Senate Bill 2473 in 2018, and a good deal of published guidance still carries the older figure.
Does Mississippi have a landlord entry statute?
No. Chapter 89-8 contains no right-of-access section — no notice period, no permitted hours, no emergency exception. We confirmed this by enumerating all twenty-three sections from § 89-8-1 to § 89-8-45. The widely published “Mississippi twenty-four-hour entry rule” has no statutory basis; entry rights arise only from the lease.
Is there a security deposit cap in Mississippi?
No. The code sets no maximum, no rent multiple and no pet-deposit limit anywhere in Chapter 89-8, and there is no escrow, trust-account or interest requirement either.
How long does a Mississippi landlord have to return a deposit?
No later than forty-five days after the termination of the tenancy, the delivery of possession and demand by the tenant — all three, § 89-8-21(3). The clock does not start at move-out alone. The statute says “demand”, not “written demand”.
What is the penalty for wrongly withholding a Mississippi deposit?
Retention in violation of the section and with absence of good faith may subject the landlord to damages not to exceed two hundred dollars, in addition to any actual damages, § 89-8-21(4). It is discretionary, bad faith is an element, and there is no attorney-fee provision.
Can a Mississippi landlord evict without notice?
In one situation, yes. Section 89-8-19(4) provides that “notice to terminate a tenancy shall not be required to be given when the landlord or tenant has committed a substantial violation of the rental agreement or this chapter that materially affects health or safety.” Note that it runs both ways.
How much notice ends a month-to-month tenancy in Mississippi?
Thirty days, in writing, under § 89-8-19(3) — and it binds both parties: “The landlord or the tenant may terminate… by a written notice given to the other at least thirty (30) days prior to the termination date.” Week-to-week is seven days. Do not use § 89-7-23, which is non-residential.
Does Mississippi cap late fees or require a grace period?
No to both. Chapter 89-8 sets neither. Section 89-8-7 defines “rent” to include any late fees required under the rental agreement, which makes a contractual late fee recoverable as rent but imposes no ceiling. The lease governs.
Can a Mississippi landlord serve notice by email or text?
Only if the tenant has agreed in writing to be notified that way. The statute permits notice “in writing, or by email or text message if the breaching party has agreed in writing to be notified by email or text message”.
How long does a Mississippi tenant have to move out after judgment?
Seven days from the date of judgment, unless the court sets a shorter or longer period for emergency or other compelling circumstances, § 89-8-39(1). After the warrant is executed the tenant gets seventy-two hours of reasonable access to retrieve property, and no warrant issues at all if the tenant pays all sums in the judgment by the move-out date.
What changed in Mississippi landlord law in 2025?
Two acts, both approved 10 April 2025. Senate Bill 2328 (chapter 460, effective on passage) amended the eviction sections and provided that a warrant of removal is not executed by posting it on the door — law enforcement must remove all occupants. House Bill 1200 (chapter 474, effective 1 July 2025), the Real Property Owners Protection Act, added a squatter-removal process and provided that “tenant” does not include a person who trespasses or remains on property without the landlord’s knowledge or permission.
Related Mississippi Guides
- Mississippi landlord-tenant laws — the full statutory overview.
- Mississippi eviction notice laws — every ground and its period.
- Mississippi security deposit laws — the three-part trigger explained.
- Mississippi lease termination laws — thirty days, both ways.
- Mississippi breaking lease laws — early termination and holdover.
- Mississippi rent increase laws — why there is no rent control.
- Mississippi late fee laws — drafting a fee the code does not define.
- Mississippi landlord entry laws — and why the lease is the rule.
- Mississippi habitability laws — repair and deduct in detail.
- Mississippi pet and ESA laws — pets, deposits and assistance animals.
- Mississippi tenant screening laws — consent, background checks and adverse action.
Published by Tenant Screening Background Check · Editorial Team
Established 2004. Our editorial team has spent two decades helping landlords and property managers run lawful tenant screening and follow state landlord-tenant codes across all fifty states. Every commercial publisher we could reach is current only to January 2025, three months before Mississippi’s two 2025 acts — so for this page we read the enrolled bills themselves, and enumerated all twenty-three sections of Chapter 89-8 to establish that no entry statute exists rather than merely failing to find one.
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Last reviewed 2026. This page is general information about Mississippi landlord-tenant law, not legal advice. Two acts took effect in 2025 that no commercial publisher we checked reflects, and Chapter 89-7 has not applied to residential tenancies since 2022. We have deliberately omitted court form numbers and local fees we could not verify. Confirm the current requirements with the clerk of your justice court or with a Mississippi attorney before you serve a notice or file a case.
