Free Nevada Lease Extension Agreement

A lease extension is an agreement to carry an existing tenancy into a further term. It continues the existing lease rather than replacing it with a new one — that is the usual distinction between an extension and a renewal — though leases and statutes often use the two words for the same thing, so what governs is what the document in front of you actually says. In Nevada, whether an extension is available is a matter of contract — the lease decides — but the statutory backdrop is unusually definite, and it is split across two chapters. The rules about the tenancy itself sit in NRS chapter 118A; the rules about ending it, and about recovering possession afterwards, sit largely in chapter 40, which is why they are easy to miss. Those two things are not the same question, and Nevada gives them different answers.

Fill in the fields below and the generator produces a clean, dated PDF that the landlord and every tenant can sign and keep a copy of. Nothing is stored and there is no charge. Fields you leave blank print as a dash so you can complete them by hand.

Watch: Free Nevada Lease Extension Agreement explained

▶ Watch overview

This document records that an existing tenancy is continuing, on what terms, and for how long. It amends the lease rather than replacing it, so everything the parties do not change carries forward. In Nevada it carries particular weight because of NRS 40.250. Where a fixed term ends without notice, the difference between a tenancy that continues and one that has simply stopped is whatever the parties agreed — so the agreement is the thing doing the work. The document is also where the rent-increase date belongs, because NRS 118A.300 measures its sixty days against the first increased payment rather than against the end of the term.

• The parties, exactly as they are named on the lease being renewed.
• The property, including the unit number.
• The date the original lease was signed and the date its term ends.
• Whether the parties are agreeing a new definite term or a periodic tenancy.
• The new term – its start date, and its end date if it is a fixed term.
• The rent for the new term, and the date the new figure first becomes payable.
• The date any written notice of a rent increase was served.
• Every other term that is changing, and a statement that the rest continue unchanged.
• What happens to the deposit already held.
• Nothing that purports to shorten the periods of notice specified for the purposes of NRS 40.250 to 40.252, inclusive, and NRS 40.254 – a landlord’s attempt to do that is unlawful and void under NRS 40.252.
• The date, and a signature from the landlord and from every tenant named on the lease.

• Waiting to be told the term is ending. Under NRS 40.250 a tenancy leased for a specified term or period, or by express or implied contract, terminates without notice at its expiration.
• Reading “terminates without notice” as “nothing has to be served”. That ends the tenancy. For a chapter 118A dwelling unit, NRS 40.251(1)(b)(1) makes unlawful detainer depend on the term expiring and a notice expiring, so possession is a separate question with a separate answer.
• Treating thirty days as a ceiling. The statute writes it “except as otherwise provided in subsection 2”, and subsection 2 lets a qualifying tenant request an additional 30 days.
• Leaving the subsection 5 statement out of the notice. Any notice given under paragraph (a) or (b) of subsection 1 must include a statement advising the tenant of the provisions of subsections 2, 3 and 4.
• Counting the sixty days from the end of the term. NRS 118A.300 measures them in advance of the first rental payment to be increased.
• Writing a shorter notice period into the lease or the renewal. For the purposes of NRS 40.250 to 40.252, inclusive, and NRS 40.254, NRS 40.252 makes a landlord’s attempt to do that unlawful and the contract or agreement void.
• Looking only in chapter 118A. Nevada’s termination and possession rules sit largely in chapter 40, which is why they are so often missed.
• Assuming a periodic tenancy needs no paperwork. NRS 118A.210(2) supplies a default, but a default is not a record of what the parties agreed.
• Reading “no general cause requirement was found” as “no limits”. NRS 118A.510(1) provides that, except as otherwise provided in subsection 3, the landlord may not in retaliation refuse to renew a tenancy — and subsection 3 sets out four exceptions, two of which (a tenancy “terminated with cause”, and a rent increase applying “in a uniform manner to all tenants”) bear directly on renewals.

No, and Nevada is unusually explicit about it. NRS 40.250 provides: “In all cases where real property is leased for a specified term or period, or by express or implied contract, whether written or parol, the tenancy terminates without notice at the expiration of the specified term or period”.

Both limbs of that opening matter. The section is not confined to leases that state a term in so many words; it reaches a tenancy arising by express or implied contract, written or spoken. And the consequence attaches to the tenancy itself: at the expiration of the specified term or period, it terminates, and no notice is required to bring that about.

Whether a renewal is available at all is therefore a matter of contract. Nothing in the captured material gives a Nevada tenant a right to renew, so the lease decides: if it has a renewal or extension clause, that clause governs; if it does not, a renewal happens when both sides sign one. There is no statutory mechanism that renews the tenancy, and no rule that converts an expired term into a continuing one by operation of § 40.250.

This is the single point most often got wrong about Nevada, and an earlier version of this page got it wrong too. It is corrected here rather than quietly rewritten.

§ 40.250 answers one question: when does the tenancy end? Answer: at the expiration of the specified term or period, without notice. It does not answer the second question: what does a landlord have to do to recover possession from a tenant who stays on?

NRS 40.251(1)(b) answers that one, and for the dwellings this page is about it answers it conjunctively. The paragraph deals with “A dwelling unit subject to the provisions of chapter 118A of NRS”, and it makes the tenant guilty of an unlawful detainer where the tenant continues in possession without the landlord’s consent after expiration of:

• “The term of the rental agreement or its termination and, except as otherwise provided in subparagraph (2), the expiration of a notice of” —
  • “At least 7 days for tenancies from week to week; and”
  • “Except as otherwise provided in subsection 2, at least 30 days for all other periodic tenancies”; or
• “A notice of at least 5 days where the tenant has failed to perform the tenant’s basic or contractual obligations under chapter 118A of NRS”.

Read the structure rather than the numbers. Subparagraph (1) requires two things to have happened: the term of the rental agreement must have expired or been terminated, and a notice must have expired. The 7-day and 30-day figures are the length of that notice, not alternatives to it. Subparagraph (2) is the disjunctive branch: a 5-day notice where the tenant has failed to perform basic or contractual obligations, and it is the exception referred to by “except as otherwise provided in subparagraph (2)” in subparagraph (1).

So “the tenancy terminates without notice” and “a notice must expire before there is an unlawful detainer” are both true at once, because they are answers to different questions. A landlord who reads § 40.250 alone and serves nothing has ended the tenancy and has not established a right to possession. A tenant who reads § 40.251 alone and expects a notice before the term ends is expecting something § 40.250 does not require.

Nevada answers this crisply. If neither side acts, the fixed term reaches its expiration and, under NRS 40.250, the tenancy terminates at that point without any notice being required. There is no conversion to a month-to-month tenancy by operation of that section, and no obligation on either party to have raised the subject first.

What follows from there depends on what the parties then do rather than on what they did not do. If a new agreement is made, its terms govern. If no definite term is established, NRS 118A.210(2) supplies a periodic tenancy. And if the tenant continues in possession without the landlord’s consent, the unlawful detainer machinery in NRS 40.251 is what applies — which, as set out above, still runs through a notice.

The practical reading is that in Nevada the passive option is the one that ends the tenancy. Letting the date pass is a decision, not a deferral, and it is the single most important thing for a Nevada tenant to understand about the end of a lease.

One structural point explains most of the confusion in this area. Nevada’s residential landlord-tenant chapter is NRS chapter 118A, and it is substantial — well over a hundred thousand characters. But the rules about ending a tenancy and about recovering possession, including the notice periods, sit largely in chapter 40, under unlawful detainer.

The practical lesson is that reading chapter 118A end to end does not answer the notice question. That is worth knowing before you go looking, and it is worth knowing when you read a summary that cites only one chapter. It is also why this page cites both.

NRS 118A.210(2) supplies the fallback: “Unless the rental agreement establishes a definite term, the tenancy is from week to week in the case of a tenant who pays weekly rent and in all other cases the tenancy is from month to month.”

So a Nevada arrangement without a definite term is a periodic tenancy by operation of that subsection, and for almost every residential tenant that means month to month. If the parties want a new fixed term at renewal, the renewal has to establish one; if they are content with a periodic tenancy, saying so expressly is still better than relying on the default, because the default tells you the shape of the tenancy and nothing about its terms.

It also decides which rung of the § 40.251 ladder applies later, so it is not a purely cosmetic choice.

Paragraph (b) above is the dwelling-unit paragraph. § 40.251(1)(a) runs alongside it and covers “Real property, except as otherwise provided in this section, or a mobile home for an indefinite time, with monthly or other periodic rent reserved”, where the tenant continues in possession without the landlord’s consent “after the expiration of a notice of”:

• “For tenancies from week to week, at least 7 days”;
• “Except as otherwise provided in subsection 2, for all other periodic tenancies, at least 30 days”; or
• “For tenancies at will, at least 5 days”.

Three points about paragraph (a), each of which has been misstated on this page before. It opens with its own qualifier, “except as otherwise provided in this section”, so it is not free-standing. It is confined to property let for an indefinite time with monthly or other periodic rent reserved. And it has exactly three limbs — 7, 30 and 5 days — the five-day limb being the tenancy at will. The five-day failure-to-perform notice is a different thing and belongs to paragraph (b), subparagraph (2).

That failure-to-perform notice is worth separating out mentally in any event. It is not a shorter version of the end-of-tenancy notice; it attaches to a failure to perform obligations, which is a different situation with different consequences. A renewal conversation should not be conducted under it.

Every thirty-day figure in § 40.251(1) carries its own qualifier in the statute — “except as otherwise provided in subsection 2” — and this is what subsection 2 says.

“Except as otherwise provided in this section, if a tenant with a periodic tenancy pursuant to paragraph (a) or (b) of subsection 1, other than a tenancy from week to week, is 60 years of age or older or has a physical or mental disability, the tenant may request to be allowed to continue in possession for an additional 30 days beyond the time specified in subsection 1 by submitting a written request for an extended period and providing proof of the tenant’s age or disability. A landlord may not be required to allow a tenant to continue in possession if a shorter notice is provided pursuant to subparagraph (2) of paragraph (b) of subsection 1.”

Four things follow, and the earlier version of this page carried only the first.

It is a request, and it has a form. The tenant must submit a written request and must provide proof of age or disability. It does not operate automatically on the facts.

It does not reach the five-day route. Where the shorter notice under subparagraph (2) of paragraph (b) — failure to perform basic or contractual obligations — is the one being used, a landlord may not be required to allow the extension at all.

A refusal is not the end of it. Subsection 6 provides that if a landlord rejects a request made under subsection 2, the tenant may petition the court for an order to continue in possession for the additional 30 days; if the tenant submits proof of entitlement the court may grant it, and if the court denies the petition the tenant must be allowed to continue in possession for 5 calendar days following the date of entry of the order denying the petition.

The notice itself has to say so. Subsection 5 provides: “Any notice provided pursuant to paragraph (a) or (b) of subsection 1 must include a statement advising the tenant of the provisions of subsections 2, 3 and 4”. A notice that omits that statement is not the notice the statute describes, so this is a drafting requirement and not a courtesy.

Subsections 3 and 4, which that statement must also mention, deal with a different class of tenant. Subsection 3 lets a tenant with a periodic tenancy under paragraph (a) or (b) who is a federal worker, tribal worker, state worker or household member of such a worker request to continue in possession for the period commencing when a shutdown begins and ending 30 days after it ends, on a written request with proof. Subsection 4 then provides that, “Except as otherwise provided in NRS 118A.315, a landlord who receives a request from a tenant pursuant to subsection 3 shall allow a tenant to continue in possession for the period requested” — note that the mandatory language is attached to the subsection 3 request. The subsection 2 request is the one a landlord may reject, subject to the tenant’s petition under subsection 6.

The headline for a renewal is simple enough. The thirty days that ends an ordinary month-to-month tenancy is not a ceiling: for a qualifying tenant who makes the request in the right form, the period can run to sixty. A landlord planning around thirty days, and a tenant who may qualify, should both read the subsection rather than working from the headline figure.

NRS 40.252 is short and direct, and it carries its own scope in its first words: “For the purposes of NRS 40.250 to 40.252, inclusive, and NRS 40.254: It is unlawful for a landlord to attempt by contract or other agreement to shorten the specified periods of notice and any such contract or agreement is void.”

Two limiters travel with it and this page states both. The section operates for the purposes of that named run of sections — NRS 40.250 to 40.252, inclusive, and NRS 40.254 — so it is not a general rule that no statutory notice period in Nevada may ever be shortened, and in particular it is not the provision governing the separate rent-increase notice in § 118A.300. And what it forbids is an attempt by a landlord.

Within that scope, note the two-part remedy. Attempting it is unlawful, and the contract or agreement is void — so a lease clause purporting to cut the thirty days to ten does not simply fail to bind a tenant who objects; it has no effect. This is directly relevant to renewals, because a renewal is a moment when a landlord may be tempted to tidy up the notice provisions, and tightening them is precisely what the section forbids.

The same section handles households with more than one tenant named on the lease. A notice to surrender given by one colessor is valid “unless it is affirmatively shown that one or more of the other colessors did not authorize the giving of the notice”. The default, in other words, is that one signature binds — and the burden of displacing that sits on whoever says the notice was unauthorised.

This is the provision most likely to catch out a landlord planning a renewal. NRS 118A.300 provides that “The landlord may not increase the rent payable by a tenant unless the landlord serves the tenant with a written notice, 60 days or, in the case of any periodic tenancy of less than 1 month, 30 days in advance of the first rental payment to be increased, advising the tenant of the increase.”

Two features make it easy to get wrong. The first is the length: sixty days is a long lead time, and it is the whole period, not a target. The second is the measuring point. The sixty days runs in advance of the first rental payment to be increased — not from the end of the current term, and not from the date the renewal is signed. If a renewal beginning on the first of a month carries a higher rent, the notice needed to be served roughly two months before that first higher payment fell due.

The practical consequence for a renewal negotiation is that the rent has to be raised early. A landlord who opens the conversation six weeks out has already lost the ability to charge the new figure from the start of the new term.

Note also that this notice sits outside § 40.252’s stated scope. § 40.252 operates for the purposes of NRS 40.250 to 40.252, inclusive, and NRS 40.254, and § 118A.300 is in neither run. Nothing on this page should be read as saying that § 40.252 is what protects the rent-increase period.

Put the timing rules together and the Nevada renewal calendar more or less writes itself, but it starts earlier than most people expect.

The fixed point is the first rental payment at the new figure. NRS 118A.300 measures its sixty days in advance of that payment, so if a renewal term begins on the first of a month and the higher rent is due that day, the written notice of the increase had to be served roughly two months earlier. Not two months before the term ends — two months before the money changes.

Working back from there, the landlord’s decision about what to ask for has to be made before the notice is served, which puts it a clear two months ahead of the new term. And the tenant’s decision about whether to accept it has to be made in the window between receiving the notice and the end of the current term, which under NRS 40.250 will end without anyone reminding them.

If the answer is that the tenancy is ending rather than renewing, the second calendar starts. That one runs on § 40.251: the term has to expire or be terminated, and a notice of at least 7 days (week to week) or, except as otherwise provided in subsection 2, at least 30 days (all other periodic tenancies) has to expire as well, with the subsection 5 statement inside it. If the tenant may qualify under subsection 2, thirty of those days may become sixty on a written request with proof.

The failure mode on the rent side is predictable. A landlord opens the conversation six weeks before the term ends, the parties agree a higher rent, the renewal is signed — and the sixty days required by § 118A.300 has not run before the first increased payment falls due. The agreement itself may be perfectly good; the timing of the increase is the problem. Recording the service date of the notice on the renewal, as the form below does, is what makes that visible while it can still be fixed.

A renewal amends the existing lease rather than replacing it, so every term the parties do not change carries forward. The discipline is to name the changes and then say, in one sentence, that everything else continues unchanged — because a renewal that lists only the new rent and the new dates leaves room to argue that the terms it did not mention lapsed with the term they were written into.

Three things are worth stating expressly on a Nevada renewal rather than leaving to the catch-all. The deposit already held, which ordinarily carries forward but should say so. The parties, since a household that has changed since the original lease needs the change recorded — and NRS 40.252’s colessor rule shows why it matters who is on the agreement. And whether the arrangement going forward is a new definite term or a periodic tenancy, because under NRS 118A.210(2) the absence of a definite term is itself an answer, and it may not be the answer either side intended.

The deposit is not simply a matter for the parties. NRS 118A.242(1) provides that “the landlord may not demand or receive a security deposit or a surety bond, or a combination thereof, including the last month’s rent, whose total amount or value exceeds 3 months’ periodic rent”.

Three features of that sentence matter at renewal. It bites on what the landlord may demand or receive, not merely on what a lease may say. It counts a surety bond and the last month’s rent toward the same ceiling, so a renewal that adds a “last month” payment to an existing deposit can cross the line without anyone thinking of it as a deposit increase. And it is a total, not a per-instalment figure.

NRS 118A.242(8) closes the other route: no rental agreement may contain any provision characterising a deposit as nonrefundable, or any provision “waiving or modifying a tenant’s rights under this section”, and “any such provision is void as contrary to public policy”. A renewal is a rental agreement for this purpose, so it cannot be used to contract around the ceiling.

One thing is worth not putting in: any clause that trims a notice period. Within the scope § 40.252 states, a landlord’s attempt to do that by contract or other agreement is unlawful and the contract or agreement is void.

This needs stating carefully, because the honest answer has two halves.

The first half: no general good-cause requirement was found in the captured chapters. Nothing in NRS chapter 118A or chapter 40, as captured for this page, requires a Nevada landlord to justify declining a renewal. That is a finding about what two captured chapters contain, read for these questions, and this page does not extend it into a claim about any other state’s law.

The second half is a real limit and it names the exact conduct. NRS 118A.510(1) provides: “Except as otherwise provided in subsection 3, the landlord may not, in retaliation, terminate a tenancy, refuse to renew a tenancy, increase rent or decrease essential items or services required by the rental agreement or this chapter, or bring or threaten to bring an action for possession if:” — followed by the list of protected tenant conduct.

That list includes complaining in good faith of a violation of a building, housing or health code applicable to the premises and affecting health or safety, to the governmental agency charged with enforcing that code; complaining in good faith to the landlord or a law enforcement agency of a violation of the chapter or of a specific statute that imposes a criminal penalty; organising or becoming a member of a tenant’s union or similar organization; a citation having been issued resulting from a code complaint; instituting or defending a judicial or administrative proceeding or arbitration raising habitability compliance under the chapter; failing or refusing to give written consent to a landlord regulation adopted after the tenant enters into the rental agreement; complaining in good faith of a violation of NRS 118.010 to 118.120, inclusive, or of the federal fair housing legislation, or otherwise exercising rights guaranteed or protected under those laws; being a victim of domestic violence, harassment, sexual assault or stalking, or terminating a rental agreement under NRS 118A.345; and, except as otherwise provided in NRS 118A.315, being a federal worker, tribal worker, state worker or household member of such a worker who pays rent during the time specified in subsection 2 of NRS 118A.310.

Two things about that. It uses the phrase refuse to renew expressly, so this is not an analogy drawn from eviction law — the statute contemplates non-renewal directly. And the whole prohibition is conditional from its first words: it applies except as otherwise provided in subsection 3.

Subsection 3 provides that “A landlord who acts under the circumstances described in subsection 1 does not violate that subsection if:” and then sets out four lettered exceptions:

• (a) “The violation of the applicable building, housing or health code of which the tenant complained was caused primarily by the lack of reasonable care by the tenant, a member of his or her household or other person on the premises with his or her consent”;
• (b) “The tenancy is terminated with cause”;
• (c) “A citation has been issued and compliance with the applicable building, housing or health code requires alteration, remodeling or demolition and cannot be accomplished unless the tenant’s dwelling unit is vacant”; or
• (d) “The increase in rent applies in a uniform manner to all tenants”.

Subsection 3 closes with a saving provision: “The maintenance of an action under this subsection does not prevent the tenant from seeking damages or injunctive relief for the landlord’s failure to comply with the rental agreement or maintain the dwelling unit in a habitable condition as required by this chapter.”

Two of those four bear directly on the subjects of this page. (b) means the anti-retaliation rule does not convert into a general bar on ending a tenancy where the termination is with cause. (d) means a rent increase applied in a uniform manner to all tenants is not caught, which is the ordinary posture of a scheduled increase at renewal — while a single tenant singled out for an increase after protected conduct is squarely what subsection 1 addresses.

The accurate summary of this whole section is therefore: no general cause requirement was found, and refusing to renew in retaliation is expressly prohibited except as otherwise provided in subsection 3. That is a different sentence from “Nevada does not require cause”, and the difference is not pedantry — the captured chapters were read for these questions, not exhaustively. Subsection 2 of the same section adds that a tenant whose landlord violates subsection 1 is entitled to the remedies provided in NRS 118A.390 and has a defence in any retaliatory action by the landlord for possession.

The captured Nevada material for this page is NRS chapter 118A and NRS chapter 40, both taken whole from the Nevada Legislature. That is a wide capture, but it was read for the questions above rather than end to end, so it does not support a general claim that Nevada has no rule on a subject this page is silent about.

Two corrections are recorded here rather than quietly applied, because a note telling a reader that a provision was never looked at tells that reader to stop looking, and getting such a note wrong does more damage than getting a rule wrong.

An earlier version of this page carried such a note against the extension of the possession period for an older person or a person with a disability, and printed no figure for it. That was wrong: NRS 40.251(2) is in the captured chapter and it is now set out above in full, together with subsections 3 to 6.

A later version of this page carried the same kind of note against the exceptions in NRS 118A.510(3). That was also wrong: subsection 3 is in the captured chapter in full, with four lettered exceptions, and they are now set out above. Two of them — a tenancy terminated with cause, and a rent increase applying in a uniform manner to all tenants — bear directly on the questions this page asks, so their absence was not a harmless omission.

What this page genuinely does not do: it does not describe the law of any other state, and no comparison on this page rests on a source outside the two captured Nevada chapters. It does not cover chapter 118B (mobile home parks) or the recreational-vehicle limbs of NRS 40.251(1)(c) and (d), which are named in the statute but are outside this document’s subject. It does not cover the summary eviction procedures in NRS 40.253 and 40.254 beyond noting that NRS 40.254 is inside § 40.252’s stated scope. Local ordinances were not searched and no case law was consulted. Check the current text of both chapters before acting.

The sequence above covers the five steps that matter most. These follow from the same provisions and are worth doing in the same sitting.

• Do not let the document shorten the notice periods NRS 40.252 protects. For the purposes of NRS 40.250 to 40.252, inclusive, and NRS 40.254, a landlord’s attempt to shorten those specified periods of notice by contract or other agreement is unlawful and any such contract or agreement is void.

An extension is mostly a matter of contract, so what it can do is decided by the existing lease before it is decided by statute. The place state law bites hardest is the rent, because continuing a tenancy is when it usually changes. Our guide to Nevada rent increase laws sets out the notice that has to come first, which is often the real deadline in that negotiation.

The second place is what happens when the parties do not agree. An expiring term does not resolve itself, and Nevada eviction notice laws explain the notices and timelines that follow if a tenant stays on without a new agreement.

For the obligations that run between a landlord and a tenant throughout the tenancy, and the rules that apply to both sides, see Nevada landlord tenant laws.

Published by Tenant Screening Background Check

Established 2004 · 20+ Years · All U.S. States & Territories · Statute-Based · Attorney-Reviewed

A Private Eye Reports™ service trusted by landlords, property managers, and attorneys.