Landlord Atlas

Arkansas Landlord-Tenant Laws

Verified October 2, 2026 19 statements held

Local rent regulation in Arkansas

Cities and counties in Arkansas cannot regulate the amount charged for rent, rental application fees, or rental deposits on private residential or commercial property — state law preempts all three, leaving only the state's own deposit-cap law and housing the local government itself owns (Ark. Code Ann. §§ 14-16-601, 14-54-1409).

Cited to Ark. Code Ann. § 14-16-601, as amended by Act 459 of 2025 (official session law, eff. 2025-08-05) , Ark. Code Ann. § 14-54-1409 (municipal parallel, same act) · Verified October 2, 2026 · Full Arkansas rent-increase rules →

Arkansas landlord-tenant laws by topic

Arkansas security deposits

Arkansas caps security deposits at two months' rent and requires return — or an itemized written notice of deductions plus the balance — within 60 days of the tenancy ending, but none of it applies to the state's smallest landlords: the entire deposit law exempts an individual owner whose household and rental entities collectively own five or fewer dwelling units, unless a third party manages the units (even just collecting rent) for a fee.

Arkansas rent increase notice

Arkansas has no statute requiring advance notice of a rent increase, no limit on how large an increase can be, and no limit on how often rent can rise.

Arkansas late fees

Arkansas sets no cap on residential late fees and mandates no grace period — the fee is whatever the lease provides, policed only by the general contract-law rule against penalty clauses.

Arkansas entry notice

Arkansas requires no advance notice — not 24 hours, not 'reasonable notice,' nothing — before a landlord enters a rental unit: the state's access statute simply forbids the tenant from unreasonably withholding consent to entry for inspections, repairs, services, showings, or investigations of suspected lease violations or criminal activity.

Arkansas eviction process

To evict a tenant in Arkansas for unpaid rent, a landlord serves a written three-day notice to quit and demand for possession, then files an unlawful detainer suit in circuit court, where the tenant has five days - excluding Sundays and legal holidays - after service to file a written objection or the clerk issues a writ of possession and the sheriff removes the tenant.

Arkansas application & screening fees

Arkansas does not limit what a landlord may charge someone to apply for a rental home, and no state law requires that money to be receipted, refunded, or explained before it is collected.

Arkansas deposit interest

Arkansas requires no interest on a residential security deposit, and it imposes no rule about where the money is kept while the tenancy runs.

Arkansas habitability & repairs

Arkansas implies six quality standards into every residential lease entered into or renewed after November 1, 2021: hot and cold running water, electricity, potable drinking water, a conforming sewer system and plumbing, a functioning roof and building envelope, and a functioning heating and air conditioning system where one already served the premises.

Arkansas lease termination

In Arkansas either side may end a month-to-month tenancy with 30 days' written notice and a week-to-week tenancy with 7 days, and since 2021 a lease cannot shorten either period for either party.

Arkansas lease disclosures

Arkansas requires a residential landlord to disclose nothing at all: no owner or agent identity, no hazard, no flood risk, no utility or fee statement, and no document of any kind at or before signing.

Arkansas pets & assistance animals

Arkansas caps a security deposit at two months' rent, and a pet deposit counts inside that ceiling rather than on top of it.

Arkansas mobile home park laws

Arkansas has no manufactured-home community tenancy act, so a resident who owns the home and rents the lot gets no statutory notice before a lot-rent increase, no limit on how much or how often the rent rises, no cause requirement before the tenancy ends, no closure notice and no right to be told the community is for sale.

Arkansas Fair Market Rents (FY 2027) — HUD's benchmark rents for every Arkansas metro area and county.

Editable Arkansas deposit kit · Editable Arkansas disclosure packet — editable documents built on the verified Arkansas rules on this page, in Word, fillable PDF and Excel.

Statements held at an earlier date

Arkansas publishes its code only on a site whose terms do not allow automated reading, so this page is verified on the acts the legislature publishes and on court and agency sources. The 19 statements below rest on text only the code prints. Each keeps the date it was last verified; every other statement on this page was confirmed on October 2, 2026 ( how held statements work).

How this record was verified: Arkansas's official code is published via a LexisNexis portal without stable deep links (GA/TN-class sourcing), so verification pairs two independent current-code mirrors with official arkleg.state.ar.us session-law PDFs: every section that carries an answer here (A.C.A. 18-16-303, 18-16-304, 18-16-305, 18-16-306, 18-17-201, 18-17-202, 18-17-401, 18-17-602, 18-17-704, 18-17-705, 14-16-601) was read verbatim on FindLaw (current through 2024-03-28) and independently re-read on the Justia 2024 Arkansas Code edition , with all reads matching; chapter 18-17 was additionally read in FULL from a mirrored chapter PDF for negative checks (no late-fee, rent-increase, or entry-notice provision exists). Every amendment was traced to the official act text read from arkleg PDFs: Act 559 of 2009 (deposit return 30->60 days; 18-17-501 rewritten to defer to 18-16-301 et seq.), Act 1052 of 2021 (18-17-502 habitability, context), and Act 459 of 2025 (preemption expanded to application fees and deposits). Corroborated against the Arkansas Attorney General's landlord-tenant page (official state source) and Legal Aid of Arkansas. 2025 regular session swept for landlord-tenant acts (only Act 459 touches a figure shown here; SB 501 died in committee 2025-05-05 per the official arkleg bill page); the 2026 fiscal session amended no section of Title 18 or Title 14. September 5, 2026 addendum: the decisive figures touched by the 2025-2026 enactments reviewed that day were re-read on the official host — §§ 14-16-601, 14-54-1409 and 18-17-502 and Acts 2025, No. 459 on arkleg.state.ar.us and the State's official code service; the earlier reads stand as recorded. October 2026: the deposit, rent increase, late fee, entry and eviction answers were read again on the enrolled acts on arkleg.state.ar.us (Act 1004 of 2007 with Acts 311, 482 and 559 of 2009, Act 271 of 2011, Act 315 of 2019 and Act 1052 of 2021 for chapter 18-17; Act 1431 of 2005, Acts 535 and 728 of 2007, Act 1052 of 2021 and Act 414 of 2023 for the unlawful detainer sections; Act 159 of 2017; Act 459 of 2025), with the legislature's register of code sections amended for every session from 2013 to 2026, the court rules and opinions on opinions.arcourts.gov and Attorney General Opinion No. 2025-032. The code itself was not opened for that reading, and no act published there sets out the 1979 deposit sections 18-16-301 to 18-16-304 and 18-16-306. The statements that rest on text only the code prints are held: each is listed with the date it was last verified. Every other statement on the deposit, rent increase, late fee, entry and eviction pages was confirmed on October 2, 2026.