Missouri Landlord-Tenant Laws: The Complete 2026 Overview

Missouri caps the security deposit at two months’ rent under Mo. Rev. Stat. section 535.300, and the same statute locks down the return: a landlord must refund the deposit within thirty days after the tenant surrenders the unit, along with a written itemized statement of every deduction. Deductions are limited to unpaid rent and damage beyond ordinary wear and tear. Missouri does not require the landlord to pay interest on the deposit. The teeth are in the penalty – a landlord who wrongfully withholds a deposit can be liable for up to twice the amount wrongfully kept. In practice the thirty-day clock starts on actual surrender, and providing a written forwarding address is strongly advised because it is often treated as a condition precedent to the refund. Deposit disputes are typically heard in Missouri small claims court.

Read the full Missouri security deposit laws guide for permitted deductions, the wear-and-tear line, and the move-out timeline.

Missouri is not a just-cause state – a landlord may decline to renew a lease for almost any lawful reason. Evictions run mainly through the rent-and-possession process under Chapter 535, heard in Associate Circuit Court. For nonpayment, the landlord makes an immediate written demand for the rent; there is no statutory cure period before filing the petition, though paying the full amount owed can stop the action. The petition states the grounds, demands possession, and may claim back rent. The court typically sets a hearing ten to thirty days after filing, and an uncontested case usually resolves in thirty to sixty days. Self-help evictions – changing locks, removing doors, or shutting off utilities – are illegal and carry statutory penalties. Only a sheriff or constable acting on a writ of possession may physically remove a tenant.

Read the full Missouri eviction notice laws guide for the filing steps, the hearing timeline, and the writ of possession.

Missouri has no statute setting a fixed notice period before a landlord enters an occupied unit. Instead, entry is governed by the lease and by the tenant’s common-law right to quiet enjoyment, so the notice period is whatever the lease provides. In practice, the accepted norm is twenty-four hours’ written notice for non-emergency entry at reasonable times – roughly normal business hours. Genuine emergencies such as fire, flooding, or a gas leak permit immediate entry without notice. A landlord who enters without a legitimate purpose or without the notice the lease requires can face a trespass claim and liability for the intrusion. Because Missouri leaves the rule to the lease, spelling out the entry procedure – purpose, notice, and timing – in the lease is the single best way to avoid a dispute.

Read the full Missouri landlord entry laws guide for the permitted-entry reasons and how to write a compliant notice.

Missouri has no rent control. State law bars cities and towns from adopting their own rent-control ordinances, which means there is no legal cap on how much a Missouri landlord may raise the rent – the limits are about timing, notice, and motive, not the dollar amount. During a fixed-term lease the rent is locked at the agreed figure; an increase can take effect only at renewal or on a month-to-month tenancy. For a month-to-month tenancy, a landlord must give at least thirty days’ written notice stating the new rent and its effective date, the same period used to change or end the tenancy. The limits that do apply are anti-retaliation and anti-discrimination: a landlord may not raise the rent to punish a tenant for a good-faith code complaint or for exercising a legal right, and may not raise it on a discriminatory basis under the Fair Housing Act.

Read the full Missouri rent increase laws guide for the notice mechanics and the retaliation window.

Mo. Rev. Stat. section 535.060 governs Missouri residential late fees. There is no fixed dollar cap, but the fee must be a reasonable estimate of the landlord’s damages from a late payment, it must be stated in a written lease, and it may be charged only after the rent is actually past due. In practice, reasonable late fees run about five to ten percent of the monthly rent, or a modest flat amount. Missouri does not mandate a grace period, so any grace window is contractual – three to five days is the customary practice, and a fee charged during a lease-granted grace period is unenforceable. A returned-check, or NSF, fee is likewise enforceable only when the lease sets it, typically about twenty-five dollars, and it may be charged alongside a late fee. A fee that operates as a penalty rather than a genuine damages estimate is unenforceable.

Read the full Missouri late fee laws guide for the reasonableness test and grace-period practice.

Missouri recognizes an implied warranty of habitability through its courts rather than a single statute: a landlord must keep the unit fit to live in and in substantial compliance with the local municipal housing and building codes for the whole tenancy. The local code is the yardstick for what “habitable” means, so it is a Missouri landlord’s first reference point. The tenant triggers the repair duty with written notice, and the landlord must act within a reasonable time scaled to severity – a loss of heat or water demands a far quicker response. Missouri’s repair-and-deduct remedy under section 441.234 is deliberately narrow: it requires at least six months’ tenancy, all rent paid current, fourteen days’ written notice, and a city code certification, after which the tenant may spend and deduct the greater of three hundred dollars or one-half month’s rent. Retaliation against a tenant who asserts these rights is barred.

Read the full Missouri habitability laws guide for the repair-request procedure and the code-certification steps.

Missouri sits between two rules: a fixed-term lease is a binding contract, but the law recognizes a few grounds to terminate early and, even when none applies, the landlord’s duty to mitigate limits what the tenant owes. The strongest ground is federal – the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, section 3955, lets an active-duty servicemember terminate on permanent-change-of-station or ninety-day-plus deployment orders, and it overrides the lease with no early-termination fee. A domestic-violence victim has an affirmative defense under Mo. Rev. Stat. section 441.920 that relieves rent after vacating with proper documentation, though the statute still lets the landlord charge a reasonable termination fee, so it is not a cost-free exit. A seriously uninhabitable unit can ground constructive eviction under the warranty of habitability from Detling. For a tenant with no statutory ground, the common-law duty to mitigate under Kamada means the tenant owes only the vacancy gap a diligent landlord could not avoid, not the entire remaining term, and a flat penalty clause that exceeds that mitigated loss is vulnerable.

Read the full Missouri breaking lease laws guide for each ground and the notice-and-proof steps.

Ending a Missouri tenancy depends on its type. A month-to-month tenancy is terminated by written notice of at least one month under Mo. Rev. Stat. section 441.060, from either party. A fixed-term lease generally runs to its end date; where the lease or practice calls for it, non-renewal notice of one month before the end is the customary rule, and Missouri does not require just cause to decline to renew. A non-renewal still cannot be discriminatory under the Fair Housing Act or retaliatory for a protected complaint. A tenant who stays past the lease end without a new agreement becomes a holdover, and Missouri permits double rent against a willful holdover under section 441.060; the landlord may instead accept rent and treat the tenancy as a new month-to-month, which then requires the full one-month notice to end. When any tenancy ends, the deposit rules of section 535.300 still apply to the move-out.

Read the full Missouri lease termination laws guide for notice by tenancy type and holdover liability.

For an actual pet, Missouri allows pet deposits, pet fees, and pet rent, though any pet deposit counts toward the two-month security-deposit cap under section 535.300, and a private landlord may impose reasonable breed or weight policies. Assistance animals are treated completely differently. Under the federal Fair Housing Act, a service animal or emotional support animal is not a pet – a landlord may not charge any pet deposit, fee, or rent, and may not apply a breed or weight restriction or a no-pet policy to it. The Missouri Human Rights Act reinforces this protection in housing. When the disability or the animal’s role is not obvious, the landlord may request reliable documentation from a licensed professional, but may not demand certification or registration. The tenant remains liable for any actual damage the animal causes, and misrepresenting a pet as a service animal can carry consequences.

Read the full Missouri pet and ESA laws guide for accommodation requests and documentation limits.

Missouri leaves most of tenant screening to the landlord, so the binding rules are largely federal. With the applicant’s written authorization, a landlord may pull a consumer report covering credit, rental and payment history, income, and public records such as criminal convictions and civil judgments – the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires a permissible purpose and consent first. Missouri does not cap application or screening fees, but they should be reasonable, tied to the actual cost of the report, and charged consistently to every applicant. If a denial, a higher deposit, or a co-signer requirement rests in any part on a consumer report, the FCRA requires an adverse action notice naming the reporting agency. Blanket criminal-record bans are risky under HUD fair-housing guidance, so an individualized assessment is safer. Because Missouri regulates so little of the process, a written, consistent standard applied to every applicant is the landlord’s best protection.

Read the full Missouri tenant screening laws guide for the FCRA steps and the fair-housing baseline.