Free Nevada 7-Day Notice to Pay Rent or Quit
The 7-day notice to pay rent or quit is the notice a Nevada landlord must serve before filing a summary eviction for nonpayment of rent. NRS § 40.253(1)(a) gives the tenant seven judicial days, excluding the day of service, weekends, and legal holidays, to pay in full or surrender the premises. Service must follow NRS § 40.280. Generate a compliant notice below.
A Nevada 7-Day Notice to Pay Rent or Quit is the statutorily-required written notice a landlord must serve before filing a summary eviction for nonpayment of rent. It is governed by NRS § 40.253(1)(a), with the service rules at NRS § 40.280 and the summary-eviction procedure at NRS §§ 40.253 to 40.254. The notice gives the tenant seven judicial days — days the courts are open, so the day of service, weekends, and Nevada legal holidays are all excluded — to pay the rent in full or surrender the premises. The form below produces a compliant notice; our Nevada eviction notice laws guide covers the full summary-eviction process, and the Nevada landlord-tenant laws hub covers the surrounding rules.
Key Takeaways
- Nevada requires a 7-day notice to pay rent or quit under NRS § 40.253(1)(a) before a landlord can file a summary eviction for nonpayment — and the seven days are judicial days, not calendar days.
- Judicial days exclude the day of service, Saturdays, Sundays, and Nevada legal holidays, so a 7-judicial-day deadline usually falls 9 to 11 calendar days after service.
- Service must be by the sheriff, a constable, a licensed process server, or an attorney’s agent under NRS § 40.280 — personal delivery, substituted service plus mail, or post-and-mail.
- Keep the demand to past-due rent and state the pay-or-surrender alternative clearly; an overstated or ambiguous demand invites an affidavit contesting the notice.
- Do not accept partial payment after serving, and file the summary eviction only after the seventh judicial day has fully passed — premature filing defeats the case.
Nevada 7-Day Pay-or-Quit at a Glance
Statute
NRS § 40.253(1)(a)
Notice period
7 judicial days (excl. day of service, weekends, holidays)
Service
NRS § 40.280 (officer / process server)
Filed in
Justice Court (summary eviction)
7 days
judicial days to pay or surrender, excluding the day of service, weekends, and holidays
9-11
typical calendar days the deadline actually falls out to
4
authorized classes of server under NRS § 40.280
Why the judicial-day count is unforgiving
Nevada courts construe pay-or-quit notices strictly because they are the procedural foundation for a tenant’s loss of possession through summary eviction. The single most common defect is treating the seven days as calendar days: because the day of service, weekends, and legal holidays are all excluded, a notice counted on the calendar is served short, and a short notice cannot support the summary eviction. The form on this page handles the judicial-day mechanics; the guide below walks through the statutory framework, the counting rules, the NRS § 40.280 service methods, and the mistakes that void notices.
What This Notice Does
The 7-Day Notice to Pay Rent or Quit is the statutorily-required written notice a Nevada landlord must serve on a tenant who has failed to pay rent when due. It is the procedural prerequisite to filing a summary eviction under NRS § 40.253. Without a properly-drafted, properly-served 7-day notice, a Nevada Justice Court will not grant an order for summary eviction for nonpayment of rent.
The notice does three things in one document. First, it demands the past-due rent. The amount should be stated precisely and limited to rent. Where the lease authorizes late fees or other charges, keep them separate from the rent figure so the demand is unambiguous; a demand that folds non-rent charges into the rent amount gives the tenant a basis to contest the notice by affidavit.
Second, it states the pay-or-surrender alternative and the seven-judicial-day deadline. The tenant has seven judicial days after the day of service to either pay the full amount demanded or surrender possession of the premises. Judicial days exclude the day of service, Saturdays, Sundays, and Nevada legal holidays. If the tenant pays in full within the period, the default is cured and the tenancy continues unless the lease provides otherwise.
Third, it states the consequence of doing neither. The notice must inform the tenant that if the rent is not paid and the premises are not surrendered by the close of business on the seventh judicial day, the landlord may file for summary eviction in the Justice Court for the township where the property is located, seeking an order for removal and a writ of restitution. The form on this page states the demand, computes the deadline, and includes the pay-or-surrender and consequence language correctly.
Nevada Legal Framework
The 7-day pay-or-quit notice is governed by a compact but exacting statutory framework. The core statute is NRS § 40.253(1)(a), which authorizes a landlord to serve a notice requiring, in the alternative, the payment of the rent or the surrender of the premises before the close of business on the seventh judicial day following the day of service.
The short-term alternative in the same subsection is elective, not automatic. NRS § 40.253(1)(b) applies only if the landlord chooses not to proceed in the manner set forth in paragraph (a), and the rent is reserved by a period of one week or less, and the tenancy has not continued for more than 45 days. All three conditions must hold together. For those, and only for those, the deadline is at or before noon of the fourth full day following the day of service — not the close of business. Most residential month-to-month and fixed-term tenancies cannot qualify at all, and even a qualifying weekly tenancy may be given the seven-judicial-day notice, because paragraph (b) is the landlord’s option and never a displacement of paragraph (a). This page is the seven-judicial-day form.
Service rules are at NRS § 40.280, which requires that the notice be served by the sheriff, a constable, a person licensed as a process server under NRS chapter 648, or the agent of an attorney licensed to practice in Nevada. The statute authorizes three manners of service: personal delivery to the tenant; substituted service on a person of suitable age and discretion at the tenant’s residence or place of business, plus a mailed copy; and post-and-mail if neither the tenant nor a suitable person can be reached.
The summary-eviction procedure runs through NRS §§ 40.253 to 40.254. Nevada nonpayment eviction is largely tenant-initiated at the hearing stage: after the notice period expires, the tenant may file an affidavit with the Justice Court contesting the notice, which triggers a hearing; if the tenant does not respond, the landlord may obtain an order for summary eviction. The order directs the sheriff or constable to remove the tenant, and a writ of restitution restores possession to the landlord.
Federal overlays can extend the notice period. Properties with a federally backed mortgage or that participate in a federal housing program may require a 30-day notice under the CARES Act before a nonpayment eviction, and the federal Fair Housing Act prohibits eviction decisions based on protected characteristics. One operational rule binds the framework together: the notice and its service must match the statute. A miscounted judicial-day period, service by someone not authorized under NRS § 40.280, or an ambiguous demand each give the tenant a defense and can restart the clock.
Counting the Seven Judicial Days
The seven-day period under NRS § 40.253(1)(a) is measured in judicial days, not calendar days. A judicial day is a day the Nevada courts are open for business. Excluded from the count are the day of service itself, every Saturday and Sunday, and every Nevada legal holiday. The period runs from the first judicial day after service through the seventh judicial day, and the tenant has until the close of business on that seventh judicial day to pay or surrender.
Nevada legal holidays for the count (NRS 236.015) include New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents’ Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Nevada Day (the last Friday in October), Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, the Family Day holiday (the Friday after Thanksgiving), and Christmas Day. When a holiday falls on a Saturday, the preceding Friday is observed; when it falls on a Sunday, the following Monday is observed, and that observed date is the day excluded from the judicial-day count.
Worked example. A 7-day notice served by personal delivery on a Monday of a normal week (no holiday) starts the judicial-day count on Tuesday. Skipping the intervening Saturday and Sunday, the seventh judicial day falls on the Wednesday of the following week. The tenant has until the close of business that Wednesday to pay or surrender — roughly nine calendar days after service.
Worked example with a holiday. A 7-day notice served the week of Thanksgiving is stretched further: both Thanksgiving Thursday and the Family Day Friday after it are legal holidays and are skipped, on top of the weekends. A notice served the Monday of Thanksgiving week can push the seventh judicial day nearly two calendar weeks out. Because the Nevada Day, Thanksgiving, and year-end holiday clusters each add excluded days, the generator on this page carries the current and following year’s Nevada legal holidays so the computed deadline always reflects the real judicial-day count.
Why the count matters so much. A notice that treats the seven days as calendar days is short, and a short notice cannot support a summary eviction — the tenant can raise the miscount by affidavit and defeat the case. The safe practice is the reverse error: giving the tenant a day or two more than the strict count never creates a defect, because the extra time works in the tenant’s favor. If you serve near a holiday cluster, recount the deadline by hand against the current Nevada legal-holiday list before you file.
What NRS § 40.253(3) Requires the Notice to Say
A correctly counted deadline is not enough. NRS § 40.253(3) prescribes content the notice itself must carry, and a notice that omits it is defective on the face of the statute. The notice must identify the court that has jurisdiction over the matter, and it must advise the tenant of three further things.
- The right to contest, on the same clock (NRS § 40.253(3)(b)(1)). The tenant may file an affidavit with that court stating that the tenant has tendered payment or is not in default in the payment of the rent. The statute fixes the deadline as “within the time specified in subsection 1 for the payment of the rent or surrender of the premises.” In a residential nonpayment case that is the same seven judicial days — not five, and not a separate later window.
- What follows a finding of unlawful detainer (NRS § 40.253(3)(b)(2)). The court may issue a summary order for removal or an order providing for nonadmittance, directing the sheriff or constable to post the order in a conspicuous place on the premises not later than 24 hours after the order is received. The officer must then remove the tenant not earlier than 24 hours but not later than 36 hours after that posting.
- The tenant’s remedy against self-help (NRS § 40.253(3)(b)(3)). The notice must advise that, under NRS § 118A.390, a tenant may seek relief if the landlord unlawfully removes the tenant, excludes the tenant by blocking or attempting to block entry, or willfully interrupts or permits the interruption of an essential service required by the rental agreement or chapter 118A.
Two neighbouring provisions belong in the same file. NRS § 40.253(4): if the tenant files the affidavit at or before the time stated in the notice and the landlord receives a file-stamped copy, the landlord may not provide for the tenant’s nonadmittance by locking or otherwise. NRS § 40.253(11): a landlord shall not refuse rent tendered after the notice was served on the ground that the tenant has not also paid collection fees, attorney’s fees or other non-rent costs, a reasonable charge for late payment or a dishonoured check, or a security deposit. The generator below prints every NRS § 40.253(3) advisory into the PDF, because a notice that counts the days correctly but omits the advisories is still short of the statute.
Build the Notice
Complete the form below to generate a compliant Nevada 7-Day Notice to Pay Rent or Quit. The form computes the seventh-judicial-day deadline, excluding the day of service, weekends, and Nevada legal holidays, and includes the pay-or-surrender and consequence language. Serve in accordance with NRS § 40.280 and retain the required proof of service.
Count the deadline before you serve
Enter the date you will serve the notice. The generator computes the seventh judicial day, excluding the day of service, Saturdays, Sundays, and the current and following year’s Nevada legal holidays. Confirm the tenancy type — under NRS § 40.253(1)(b) the 4-full-day period is an alternative the landlord may elect, and only where rent is reserved by a period of one week or less and the tenancy has not continued more than 45 days. Whenever the landlord does not elect it, the seven-judicial-day period governs, and that shorter deadline falls at or before noon of the fourth full day.
