Free South Dakota Landlord Forms
Every South Dakota landlord form we publish, organised by the stage of the tenancy it belongs to, each one paired with the South Dakota Codified Laws section and the deadline that triggers it — including the two 2024 bills that rewrote the rules most pages on this subject still describe the old way.
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. South Dakota is currently the state where accuracy matters most on this query, because in a single 2024 session the legislature repealed the notice landlords had served for decades and halved the period for ending a month-to-month tenancy. Templates, guides and form sites written before 2024 are describing law that no longer exists.
What changed in 2024, in one paragraph. Senate Bill 90 repealed SDCL 21-16-2 entirely — the statutory three-day notice to quit is gone, and a landlord may now file the eviction action directly without any statutory pre-suit notice for unpaid rent. The same bill amended SDCL 21-16-7 to give the tenant five days rather than four to answer the summons and complaint. Separately, Senate Bill 89 amended SDCL 43-8-8, cutting the notice to end a residential tenancy at will from thirty days to fifteen.
The short version
- Nonpayment of rent — no statutory notice is required since the 2024 repeal of SDCL 21-16-2. Check your lease, though: a contractual notice clause still binds you.
- Ending a tenancy at will — fifteen days, SDCL 43-8-8. It was thirty until 2024.
- Military exception — a tenant on active service, or with an immediate family member on active service, is entitled to two months, with two narrow exceptions.
- Entry — reasonable notice at reasonable times; twenty-four hours in writing is presumed reasonable, and the notice must say when, why, and how to reschedule, SDCL 43-32-32.
- Security deposit — capped at one month’s rent; returned within two weeks of termination and receipt of the tenant’s address; itemised accounting within forty-five days on request, SDCL 43-32-24.
- Get the deposit wrong and you forfeit everything — a lessor who fails to comply forfeits all rights to withhold any part of it.
- Court — a forcible entry and detainer action under SDCL chapter 21-16, with the tenant answering in five days.
The 2024 Repeal: What It Does and Does Not Mean
For decades a South Dakota landlord served a three-day notice to quit under SDCL 21-16-2 before filing an eviction for unpaid rent. Senate Bill 90 removed that section from the code. The practical effect is that the statute no longer requires any pre-suit notice, and a landlord can proceed to a forcible entry and detainer action once rent is unpaid.
Three qualifications matter, and most coverage of the change omits all three.
| The change | What it does not do |
|---|---|
| Repeals the statutory three-day notice for the eviction action | It does not override your lease. If the agreement says the landlord will give written notice before terminating, that promise still binds you as a matter of contract. |
| Removes a step from the nonpayment route | It does not touch the separate fifteen-day notice under SDCL 43-8-8 needed to end a tenancy at will, which is a different act for a different purpose. |
| Speeds the landlord’s side up | It does not speed the tenant’s side up — the same bill gave tenants an extra day to answer, moving the deadline from four days to five. |
Serving a notice anyway is still often the better commercial decision. The repeal removes an obligation, not an option. A short written demand frequently produces payment without a filing fee, a court date or a judgment, and it costs nothing. What has changed is that failing to serve one is no longer a defect in your case — not that serving one is pointless. Read your own lease before you decide, because a notice clause you drafted is a notice clause you must honour.
Every South Dakota Landlord Form, by Stage of the Tenancy
Alphabetical form lists are 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
- South Dakota residential lease agreement — the master document, and it carries more weight after 2024 than before. With the statutory notice repealed, any pre-suit notice you owe a tenant now comes from the lease rather than the code, so what you write is what you are bound by.
- Lead-based paint form — required by federal law, not South Dakota law, for any dwelling built before 1978.
- Move-in / move-out condition checklist — the most valuable optional form here, because SDCL 43-32-24 measures permitted deductions against the condition of the premises at the commencement of the tenancy. Without a move-in record you are arguing about a baseline nobody documented.
During the tenancy
- Notice to enter the property — SDCL 43-32-32. Twenty-four hours in writing is presumed reasonable, and the notice has required contents set out below.
- Rent increase notice — South Dakota has no rent control. For a tenancy at will the operative constraint is the SDCL 43-8-8 fifteen-day period, because an increase the tenant will not accept becomes a termination question.
- Late rent notice — more useful in South Dakota now than it was before 2024. With no statutory notice required, a written demand is purely a commercial tool, and a good one.
When the tenant breaches
- Notice to pay rent or quit — read this before you use it. This form reflects the three-day notice under SDCL 21-16-2, which was repealed in 2024. It is no longer a statutory requirement. It remains useful as a written demand, and you may still be obliged to serve one by your lease — but do not treat it as a step the code compels, and do not assume three days is a period the statute now protects.
- Notice to cure or quit — for a breach other than rent. Use it to give the tenant a defined, achievable cure and a record that you did.
- Unconditional quit notice — for conduct you are not prepared to let the tenant cure.
Ending the tenancy without fault
- Notice of non-renewal — used when a fixed term is ending and you do not intend to renew.
- Tenant notice to vacate — the tenant’s side. For a tenancy at will the landlord’s period is the SDCL 43-8-8 fifteen days, subject to the military exception below.
After the tenant moves out
- Security deposit itemisation — SDCL 43-32-24. Note the two different documents the section contemplates, explained below.
- Security deposit return letter — the covering document that goes with the refund.
Fifteen Days — and Two Months for Military Families
Section 43-8-8 now provides that a tenancy or other estate at will for residential property, however created, may be terminated by the landlord giving notice in the manner prescribed by § 43-8-9 to remove from the premises within a period, specified in the notice, of not less than fifteen days.
Two points follow immediately. First, fifteen is a floor, not a target — the notice must specify the period, and nothing stops you giving more. Second, the section sends you to § 43-8-9 for the manner of notice, so how you serve it is a separate question from how long you give. We have deliberately not set out the permitted methods here, because we could not retrieve the full text of that section from a primary source, and a service method we have not verified is a service method we will not print. Check § 43-8-9, or ask the clerk of courts, before you serve.
The military exception is in the same section and is almost never published. Where the tenancy at will is the residence of a tenant on active military service, or where a person on active military service is an immediate family member of the tenant, the tenant is entitled to two months’ notice. Two exceptions cut it back: where the tenant has engaged in sustained conduct that is disruptive to other residents or neighbours, illegal, destructive, negligent toward the maintenance of the property, or a material breach of the implied lease conditions; or where the landlord has sold the property or it has passed to the landlord’s estate. Given the number of military families in South Dakota, this is a question worth asking before you count fifteen days.
A separate one-month rule applies to commercial tenancies, so do not carry the fifteen days across to a commercial letting. Our South Dakota lease termination laws guide works through the counting.
Security Deposits: Two Weeks, Forty-Five Days, and Total Forfeiture
The cap is one month’s rent. A larger deposit is permitted only where the tenant agrees in writing and special conditions pose a danger to maintenance of the premises that makes a higher deposit reasonable — a genuinely narrow exception, not a general opt-out to be buried in a lease.
Two documents, two deadlines
Section 43-32-24 contemplates two different things, and landlords routinely conflate them.
| Deadline | What is owed | Triggered by |
|---|---|---|
| Two weeks | Return the deposit, or furnish a written statement showing the specific reason for withholding it or any portion | Termination of the tenancy and receipt of the tenant’s mailing address or delivery instructions |
| Forty-five days | An itemised accounting of any deposit withheld | Termination, and only on the tenant’s request |
So the two-week document is a reasoned statement, not necessarily a line-by-line schedule; the itemised accounting is a separate obligation that arises only if the tenant asks. Note also that the two-week clock does not start on move-out alone — it needs the tenant’s mailing address or delivery instructions as well. A tenant who disappears without leaving one has not started your clock.
What you may withhold is limited to amounts reasonably necessary to remedy tenant defaults in the payment of rent or other funds due under the agreement, or to restore the premises to their condition at the commencement of the tenancy, ordinary wear and tear excepted. That is why the move-in checklist matters so much here.
The penalty is unusual in shape. A lessor who fails to comply with the section forfeits all rights to withhold any portion of the deposit — the whole sum goes back, whatever the damage. Separately, bad faith retention exposes the lessor to punitive damages not to exceed two hundred dollars. Read those two together: the punitive figure is small, but the forfeiture is not, because it is measured against the entire deposit rather than the disputed part. In South Dakota the real risk of missing the deadline is losing a legitimate deduction, not paying a fine.
Our South Dakota security deposit laws guide covers the permitted deductions in detail.
Entry: the Notice Has Required Contents
Section 43-32-32 says that except in an emergency, or where it is impracticable to do so, a landlord or the landlord’s agent shall give the tenant reasonable notice of intent to enter and shall enter only at reasonable times. It then supplies a presumption: twenty-four hours’ written notice is presumed to be reasonable, unless alternate methods of notification or times for entry are mutually agreed between the landlord and tenant in the lease.
The part almost no competing page mentions is that the section prescribes what the notice must contain.
- The date or dates of entry.
- A period of time during normal business hours for the entry.
- The purpose of the intended entry.
- A means by which the tenant may request to reschedule the entry.
That last requirement is genuinely distinctive. A South Dakota entry notice that gives twenty-four hours but offers the tenant no way to ask for a different time has not met the section’s content requirement, however punctual it was. Building a reschedule line into your standard notice costs nothing and removes the point entirely. See our South Dakota landlord entry laws guide.
The South Dakota Eviction Route
An eviction in South Dakota is a forcible entry and detainer action under SDCL chapter 21-16. Since the 2024 repeal the sequence is shorter at the front and marginally longer in the middle.
| Step | Who acts | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| Check the lease for a contractual notice clause | Landlord | Before anything — the statute no longer requires notice, but your agreement may |
| Serve a demand if you choose, or if the lease requires it | Landlord | Optional as a matter of statute since 2024 |
| File the forcible entry and detainer action | Landlord | No statutory waiting period for nonpayment |
| Tenant answers the summons and complaint | Tenant | Five days — increased from four by SB 90 in 2024 |
| Hearing and judgment | Court | Set by the court |
Ending a tenancy at will is a different route with its own clock: the fifteen-day notice under § 43-8-8, or two months where the military exception applies, served in the manner § 43-8-9 prescribes.
We have deliberately not published South Dakota court form numbers or filing fees. The state’s official statute site could not be read directly during verification, and we could not confirm a numbered form list or a current fee from a primary source. A form number we have not seen is a form number we will not print. Ask the clerk of courts in the county where the property sits, and confirm the current answer period at the same time given that it changed recently.
Which South Dakota Form Do I Need?
- The tenant has not paid rent. Check the lease for a notice clause. If there is none, no statutory notice is required — you may file the forcible entry and detainer action. A written demand first is still usually the cheaper move.
- Your lease promises notice before termination. Honour it. The repeal changed the code, not your contract.
- The tenant has broken the agreement in some other way. Serve a cure-or-quit notice giving a defined, achievable remedy, and keep the record.
- Nobody is at fault and you want a tenancy at will to end. Fifteen days under § 43-8-8, in the manner § 43-8-9 prescribes.
- The tenant or an immediate family member is on active military service. Two months, unless one of the two statutory exceptions applies.
- It is a commercial letting. Do not use the fifteen days — a separate one-month rule applies.
- You need to get into the property. Twenty-four hours in writing, with the date, a period during normal business hours, the purpose, and a way for the tenant to ask to reschedule.
- The tenant has moved out. Two weeks from termination and receipt of their address to return the deposit or give a written reason; forty-five days for an itemised accounting if they ask.
How to Fill Out a South Dakota Fifteen-Day Notice
With the three-day notice repealed, the fifteen-day notice under § 43-8-8 is now the notice South Dakota landlords serve most often, and it is the one where a mistake still costs you the full period.
- Confirm it is a tenancy at will. Section 43-8-8 governs a tenancy or other estate at will. A fixed term running to its end date is a different question, and a commercial letting is governed by the separate one-month rule.
- Ask the military question before you count. Is the tenant on active military service? Is an immediate family member? If so the period is two months, not fifteen days, unless one of the two statutory exceptions applies. This is the single most expensive thing to get wrong, because the error is six weeks long.
- Name every tenant and identify the premises exactly as the agreement does, including the unit number.
- Specify the period in the notice. The statute requires the notice to state the period, and it must be not less than fifteen days. Give the date the tenant must be out by rather than leaving them to count, and if delivery is uncertain, add days rather than shaving them.
- Serve it in the manner § 43-8-9 prescribes. Section 43-8-8 expressly routes you there. Check that section, or ask the clerk of courts, rather than assuming a method that works in another state works here.
- Do not fold a rent demand into it. Ending a tenancy at will and recovering possession for unpaid rent are different routes with different consequences. A hybrid document that terminates the tenancy and demands money in the same breath invites an argument about which one you were actually doing.
- Date it, sign it, and record how and when it was served. Keep the proof with the lease.
One habit worth changing in 2026. Many South Dakota landlords still keep a thirty-day template because that was the law until 2024. Using it is not a defect — a longer notice is always safe — but it hands the tenant an extra fortnight in the property for no reason. If you are updating your paperwork after reading this page, the fifteen-day version is the one to keep, with a clearly flagged two-month variant for military households sitting beside it.
What Happens If the Form Is Wrong
South Dakota’s 2024 changes have shifted where the risk sits, and it is worth being precise about it.
On the eviction side, the classic defect — a notice that is short by a day — has largely disappeared for nonpayment, because there is no statutory notice period left to be short of. The risk that replaced it is contractual: a landlord who drafted a notice clause into the lease and then relied on the repeal will be met with their own agreement. Read the lease before you file.
On the termination side the old risk is intact and has quietly got sharper. Counting thirty days out of habit is now over-generous rather than defective, which costs you time but not the case. Counting fifteen days for a tenant whose spouse is on active service, however, is short by six weeks, and that is a real defect.
On the deposit side the exposure is the largest and the least forgiving, because non-compliance forfeits the right to withhold anything at all. A landlord with three hundred dollars of genuine damage who misses the two-week deadline does not argue about three hundred dollars — they return the whole deposit.
What This Page Does Not Have
We would rather scope this honestly than promise documents we do not host. South Dakota landlords also commonly want a rental application, a sublease or assignment agreement, a rent receipt, and an abandoned-property notice. Those are not yet published as South Dakota-specific forms.
We have also declined to publish four things other pages state confidently: court form numbers, filing fees, the permitted methods of service under § 43-8-9, and any late-fee or grace-period rule. In each case the primary source was not retrievable when this page was verified. The clerk of courts is the right place to confirm the first two, and the section itself the third.
Common South Dakota Landlord Form Mistakes
- Serving a three-day notice to quit as though the statute required it. SDCL 21-16-2 was repealed in 2024.
- Assuming the repeal overrides your lease. A contractual notice clause still binds you.
- Using thirty days to end a tenancy at will. It is fifteen since 2024 — over-generous rather than fatal, but it wastes a fortnight.
- Missing the two-month military notice. The exception covers a tenant on active service or a tenant with an immediate family member on active service.
- Applying the fifteen days to a commercial tenancy. A separate one-month rule governs.
- Telling the tenant four days to answer. It is five since 2024.
- Sending an entry notice with no reschedule route. Section 43-32-32 requires one.
- Starting the deposit clock at move-out. It needs the tenant’s mailing address or delivery instructions too.
- Treating the two-week statement and the forty-five day accounting as the same document. They are different obligations with different triggers.
- Missing the deposit deadline with a good claim. Non-compliance forfeits all rights to withhold.
Free Fillable Forms Versus the Paid South Dakota Form Sites
The South Dakota results are dominated by template funnels: the deepest ranking page is a lease packet product, and the membership-walled association directory lists about a dozen South Dakota form titles with no South Dakota law on the page at all. The searcher, as the ranking pages themselves reveal, wants both halves — the right form and the rule that governs it.
On this particular query there is an additional reason to care who you read. A page written before 2024 that still describes the three-day notice as mandatory, or thirty days as the termination period, is not merely dated — it will send a landlord down a route the legislature removed. Every deadline on this page has been checked against the current law and the two bills that changed it.
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.
South Dakota Landlord Forms: FAQ
Does South Dakota still require a three-day notice to quit?
No. Senate Bill 90 repealed SDCL 21-16-2 in 2024, so there is no longer a statutory pre-suit notice requirement for nonpayment of rent, and a landlord may file the forcible entry and detainer action directly. A notice clause in your own lease still binds you as a matter of contract.
How much notice ends a month-to-month tenancy in South Dakota?
Fifteen days under SDCL 43-8-8, reduced from thirty by Senate Bill 89 in 2024. The notice must specify the period and must be given in the manner prescribed by § 43-8-9. A separate one-month rule applies to commercial tenancies.
Do military tenants get longer notice in South Dakota?
Yes. Under SDCL 43-8-8 a tenant on active military service, or a tenant with an immediate family member on active military service, is entitled to two months’ notice. It does not apply where the tenant has engaged in sustained disruptive, illegal, destructive or negligent conduct or materially breached the implied lease conditions, or where the landlord has sold the property or it has passed to the landlord’s estate.
How long does a South Dakota tenant have to answer an eviction?
Five days. Senate Bill 90 amended SDCL 21-16-7 in 2024 to give the tenant one extra day, increasing the answer period for the summons and complaint from four days to five.
How much notice must a South Dakota landlord give before entering?
Reasonable notice, with entry only at reasonable times, under SDCL 43-32-32. Twenty-four hours’ written notice is presumed reasonable unless the lease sets mutually agreed alternatives. The notice must state the date or dates, a period during normal business hours, the purpose, and a means for the tenant to request rescheduling.
What is the South Dakota security deposit cap?
One month’s rent. A larger deposit is allowed only where the tenant agrees in writing and special conditions pose a danger to maintenance of the premises that makes a higher deposit reasonable.
How long does a South Dakota landlord have to return a deposit?
Two weeks after termination of the tenancy and receipt of the tenant’s mailing address or delivery instructions. Within that window the landlord must either return the deposit or furnish a written statement showing the specific reason for withholding it.
When must a South Dakota landlord give an itemised accounting?
Within forty-five days after termination of the tenancy, and only on the tenant’s request. It is a separate obligation from the two-week written statement, with a different trigger.
What happens if a South Dakota landlord misses the deposit deadline?
The lessor forfeits all rights to withhold any portion of the deposit — the entire sum must be returned regardless of the damage. Bad faith retention additionally exposes the lessor to punitive damages not exceeding two hundred dollars.
What may a South Dakota landlord deduct from a deposit?
Only amounts reasonably necessary to remedy tenant defaults in the payment of rent or other funds due under the agreement, or to restore the premises to their condition at the commencement of the tenancy, with ordinary wear and tear excepted.
Which court hears South Dakota evictions?
An eviction is a forcible entry and detainer action under SDCL chapter 21-16. Confirm the current filing forms and fee with the clerk of courts in the county where the property is located, and confirm the answer period at the same time since it changed in 2024.
Related South Dakota Guides
- South Dakota landlord-tenant laws — the full statutory overview.
- South Dakota eviction notice laws — the 2024 repeal and the forcible entry route.
- South Dakota security deposit laws — two weeks, forty-five days and forfeiture.
- South Dakota lease termination laws — fifteen days and the military exception.
- South Dakota breaking lease laws — early termination and mitigation.
- South Dakota rent increase laws — why South Dakota has no rent control.
- South Dakota late fee laws — what the code does and does not regulate.
- South Dakota landlord entry laws — the required contents of an entry notice.
- South Dakota habitability laws — the landlord’s repairing duties.
- South Dakota pet and ESA laws — pet deposits and assistance animals.
- South Dakota tenant screening laws — 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. For this page we worked from the current text of the South Dakota Codified Laws and from the record of the two 2024 bills that changed it — because a great many South Dakota guides, templates and form packs still describe a three-day notice the legislature repealed and a thirty-day period it halved.
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Last reviewed 2026. This page is general information about South Dakota landlord-tenant law, not legal advice. South Dakota changed several of these rules in its 2024 session, and we have deliberately omitted court form numbers, filing fees and the permitted methods of service under § 43-8-9 because we could not verify them from a primary source. Confirm the current requirements with the clerk of courts in your county or with a South Dakota attorney before you serve a notice or file a case.
