Delaware Landlord-Tenant Laws

Verified October 1, 2026 Correction October 8, 2026

Enacted but not yet in force. This page reflects the law in force today. The following measure has been signed and takes effect on the date shown:

SB 292 (153rd GA, 2026) — 'Grace Peterson Act' — Amends the Residential Landlord-Tenant Code to (1) close the 25 Del. C. § 5102 exclusion loophole that let unlicensed or uncertified residential operators claim exemption from the Code, including eviction procedure, and (2) add § 5512A duties when a tenant's rent is paid from a state reentry-services fund (landlord must assist with a discharge plan and notify the fund administrator and agencies before terminating; noncompliance brings one-year debarment from state funds; affected tenants may stay on without fund payments or terminate on 30-60 days' notice). Takes effect 6 months after enactment. Status: Signed by the Governor on September 9, 2026 and published as chapter 494 of volume 85 of the Laws of Delaware. It takes effect on March 9, 2027, six months after enactment, and the new requirements under 25 Del. C. § 5512A apply to rental agreements entered into on or after that date. It changes no figure shown here; from March 9, 2027 it changes the Code-applicability notes under § 5102 and adds pre-termination duties for tenancies whose rent is paid from a state reentry fund. The online Delaware Code now prints the amended sections and labels the new text effective March 8, 2027, one day earlier than the March 9, 2027 date on the General Assembly's bill record; the General Assembly and the Governor's office both record the signing as September 9, 2026. (checked October 1, 2026).

Delaware at a glance

Rule	Delaware	Cited to
Max security deposit	1 month's rent	25 Del. C. § 5514 +6 more
Deposit return deadline	20 days	25 Del. C. § 5514 +6 more
Rent-increase notice (month-to-month)	60 days	25 Del. C. § 5107 +8 more
Statewide rent control / rent cap	No	25 Del. C. § 5107 +8 more
Late-fee cap	5% of the monthly rent (25 Del. C. § 5501(d))	25 Del. C. § 5501 +1 more
Entry notice	48 hours	25 Del. C. § 5509 +3 more
Eviction notice (nonpayment)	7 days	25 Del. C. § 5101 +59 more
Application fee cap	The greater of 10% of one month's rent or $50, and in no case more than the specific cost of the credit or other investigation, so the lower of the two figures controls.	25 Del. C. § 5514 +15 more
Interest owed on deposits	No — no statute addresses it	25 Del. C. § 5514 (security deposit — escrow account, disclosure, penalties) +1 more
Repair deadline after tenant notice	30 days	25 Del. C. § 5301 — Landlord obligation; rental agreement (prohibited terms and the anti-waiver rule) +9 more
Repair and deduct	Yes — authorized by statute	25 Del. C. § 5301 — Landlord obligation; rental agreement (prohibited terms and the anti-waiver rule) +9 more
Landlord notice to end a month-to-month tenancy	60 days, from the first of the following month	25 Del. C. §§ 5101–5125 (Landlord-Tenant Code, general provisions) +8 more
Owner and agent identity disclosure	Required — in the lease or on request	25 Del. C. § 5101 +33 more
In-force state hazard disclosures beyond the federal lead-paint rule	1	25 Del. C. § 5101 +33 more
Pet deposit	Capped	25 Del. C. § 5514 +25 more
Assistance animals: the state instrument	Housing right, no documentation rule	25 Del. C. § 5514 +25 more

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Delaware Landlord-Tenant Laws (verified October 1, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/delaware/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Every figure above is cited to the Delaware statute it comes from on the linked topic page.

Local rent regulation in Delaware

No Delaware statute expressly addresses local rent control — state law neither prohibits nor authorizes rent regulation by cities or counties, and the codes of Wilmington, Dover, Newark and New Castle County contain no rent stabilization ordinance.

Cited to 22 Del. C. § 802 · Verified October 1, 2026 · Full Delaware rent-increase rules →

Delaware landlord-tenant laws by topic

Delaware security deposits

Delaware caps security deposits at one month's rent only for leases of a year or more — and for month-to-month tenancies once they pass the one-year mark — while shorter fixed-term leases, the first year of a month-to-month tenancy, and furnished units have no cap at all.

Delaware rent increase notice

Delaware landlords must give at least 60 days' written notice before a rent increase takes effect, because raising the rent renews the rental agreement on modified terms under 25 Del. C. § 5107 — an express statute that names rent and security-deposit changes and requires the notice to state the new amount and its effective date.

Delaware late fees

Delaware caps residential late fees at 5% of the monthly rent and forbids imposing the fee within the first 5 days after rent is due, and a late charge is only allowed at all if the rental agreement provides for one.

Delaware entry notice

Delaware landlords must give tenants at least 48 hours' notice before entering a rental unit and may enter only between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m., one of the few state codes that fixes both a notice period and a daily time window in the statute itself.

Delaware eviction process

To evict a residential tenant in Delaware the landlord must first serve a written notice - at least 7 days to pay or quit for unpaid rent (25 Del. C. § 5502(a), as amended effective September 1, 2026; the figure was 5 days before that, and the demand may now issue only after the § 5501(d) late-fee window has passed) or at least 7 days to cure a material breach of a lease rule or covenant (§ 5513(a)) - and then file an action for summary possession in the Justice of the Peace Court for the county where the rental unit is located (§ 5701).

Delaware application & screening fees

Delaware caps the rental application fee at the greater of 10% of one month's rent or $50, and separately forbids charging an applicant more than the specific cost of the credit or other investigation, so the lower of the two figures governs any given application.

Delaware deposit interest

Delaware does not require landlords to pay tenants interest on a security deposit, and no section of its landlord-tenant law addresses deposit interest at all.

Delaware habitability & repairs

Delaware requires a landlord to keep the rental unit fit for the purpose for which it is expressly rented, to comply with every applicable state and local code governing the property's maintenance, construction, use or appearance, and to keep the unit in as good a condition as it was, or ought to have been, when the tenancy began.

Delaware lease termination

Delaware requires 60 days' written notice from either the landlord or the tenant to end a month-to-month tenancy, and the count does not start when the notice is given.

Delaware lease disclosures

A Delaware landlord must give every new tenant the Attorney General's summary of the Landlord-Tenant Code and materials explaining the right to legal representation, name the owner or resident agent prominently in any written lease, and hand over a free copy of that lease.

Delaware pets & assistance animals

Delaware lets a landlord charge a pet deposit of up to one month's rent, and that deposit sits on top of the security deposit rather than inside it, so a tenant with a pet can be asked for two months of deposits in total.

Delaware mobile home park laws

Delaware's Manufactured Homes and Manufactured Home Communities Act, 25 Del. C. ch. 70, covers every community where two or more lots are rented for manufactured homes, and it is one of the most detailed such laws in the country: lot rent may rise only once a year, on 90 to 120 days' written notice, and a base increase is limited by statute to 3.5 percent plus half of a published 24-month inflation figure, never above 6.1 percent in normal conditions, unless the community owner instead moves the rent to market rent and phases it in over seven or ten years.

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

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

Changes since last full verification

The Verified date above (October 1, 2026) marks the last time every figure on this page was verified end-to-end against official sources. The changes below were published since then, each verified against the official source it names (what these dates mean).

Correction, October 8, 2026 — Illinois: the Rent Concession Act's legend ("Concession Granted" across the face and text of the lease) applies to a concession the written lease does not expressly mention (765 ILCS 730/2 and /3). Oregon: ORS 90.245 bars a rental agreement from making the tenant waive chapter 90 rights; it protects the tenant and does not bar the landlord from agreeing to a longer notice. Ohio: a written lease must give an entity owner's or agent's principal place of business in the county or, failing one there, in Ohio (section 5321.18(A)). Delaware: any lease term that conflicts with the Code is unenforceable unless the Code allows it (section 5101(a)). Colorado: section 38-12-106 calls the $300 pet deposit an additional security deposit and section 38-12-102.5 caps a security deposit at two months' rent; neither says whether the pet deposit counts inside the cap, and the pages now say so. New York: the good-cause page no longer names a fixed list of opted-in localities; the state housing agency publishes the current list and the Attorney General keeps its own. Maine: the Attorney General's Total Price Disclosure Statement is listed as a document (14 M.R.S. § 6030-J).
Correction, October 2, 2026 — Notice periods now print in the unit each statute uses (correction). Entry notice: the statutes of Alabama, Arizona, Hawaii, Kentucky, Rhode Island and Washington say two days and Oklahoma's says one day, and those pages show days; Delaware's and Vermont's say 48 hours, and their pages, which had shown 2 days, now show 48 hours. Eviction notice for unpaid rent: California, Florida and Utah give three days that leave out Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays, and their pages now show 3 business days, as does California's lease-violation notice; Nevada's shows 7 judicial days; Alabama's two notices show 7 business days. Each statute was read on its official site on October 1, 2026. No period changed.

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Delaware Code site (delcode.delaware.gov), each section these answers rest on read twice through independent official paths: the delcode HTML chapter pages (25 Del. C. ch. 51 subchapters I-II, ch. 53, ch. 55) and the official Title 25 PDF served from the same host, with every decisive figure matching verbatim (1-month deposit cap and its 1-year-lease / month-to-month-after-1-year scope; 20-day return and itemized-list deadline with 10-day tenant objection window; double damages and account-forfeiture penalties; 1-month pet deposit cap; application-fee cap at the greater of 10% or $50; 5% late-charge cap with the 5-day no-imposition window and 3-day extension for no in-county payment office; 48-hour entry notice and the 8:00 a.m.-9:00 p.m. window; 60-day renewal-with-modifications notice with the 45-day tenant rejection right; 60-day month-to-month termination notice with the first-of-following-month start). Sections read in full: 5101, 5102, 5106, 5107, 5108, 5116, 5123, 5124, 5141, 5310, 5311, 5501, 5502, 5509, 5510, 5514, 5514A, 5515, plus complete section listings of ch. 51 subch. I, ch. 53, and ch. 55 as sweep basis for verified negatives (no deposit-interest requirement, no other late-fee provision, no rent-increase tiers or frequency limits, no rent-control preemption statute in Title 25). The Delaware Attorney General's official Summary of the Residential Landlord-Tenant Code states the same 60-day notice for a lease renewed on amended or modified terms. 2025-2026 session sweep: the complete 153rd General Assembly docket (all 1,961 pieces of legislation) was retrieved from the official legis.delaware.gov AllLegislation API and title-filtered; one on-topic enactment incorporated (HB 217, 85 Del. Laws c. 295, key-surrender rules, signed 2026-06-24), two passed bills awaiting the Governor flagged (SB 235, SB 292), and three on-topic bills not enacted (SB 186 deposit e-communications, HB 229 summary-possession service window, HB 467 renters insurance). HB 455 (152nd GA statewide rent cap) confirmed dead in committee in 2024. Wilmington's 2025 rent-stabilization ordinance confirmed failed 6-5 in City Council on 2025-06-05. September 12, 2026 addendum: the two bills flagged as awaiting the Governor have both been signed since that sweep. SB 235 was signed July 23, 2026 (85 Del. Laws c. 358, in force on signature) and SB 292 was signed September 9, 2026 (85 Del. Laws c. 494, effective March 9, 2027); both are carried in the records above. October 1, 2026: every section named above, with §§ 5125, 5301, 5314, 5316, 5317 and 5507, chapters 54, 56 and 59 of Title 25, 16 Del. C. § 2612 and 22 Del. C. § 802, was read again on Delaware Code Online in the edition that includes all acts enacted as of September 4, 2026, which takes in SS 1 for SB 116 (85 Del. Laws c. 436, in force September 1, 2026). The General Assembly's bill records show SB 186, HB 229 and HB 467 still not enacted. The codes of Wilmington, Dover, Newark and New Castle County were searched for rent control and rent stabilization provisions; the only limit on rent increases found is Wilmington's condominium-conversion rule (City Code § 9-43(d)(4)).