Delaware Landlord-Tenant Laws

Verified July 11, 2026 Updated August 23, 2026

Legislative changes ahead — not yet in force. The rules on this page reflect the law in force today. The following measures would change it:

SS 1 for SB 116 (153rd GA, 2026), 85 Del. Laws c. 436 — Already SIGNED but not yet effective: on September 1, 2026 the nonpayment track changes. The 25 Del. C. § 5502(a) pay-or-quit demand period rises from not less than 5 days to not less than 7 days after the notice is given or sent, and the notice warns that the landlord may file a court action to terminate (rather than that the agreement 'shall be terminated'); because § 5112 excludes weekends and holidays only from periods of less than 7 days, the new 7-day period counts calendar days on its face. A rent-only action requires a proper demand and the lapse of the notice period (§ 5502(b)). Payment of all rent due by the tenant, or by anyone on the tenant's behalf, before filing bars a nonpayment possession action and after filing bars maintaining it — the old condition that the landlord accept the payment 'without a written reservation of rights' is deleted; the landlord may not refuse rent payments, may limit methods to those the lease accepts before judgment, and may require certified check or money order after judgment (§ 5502(c)-(d)). New § 5716A gives the tenant a right of redemption in any nonpayment summary-possession case (rental unit or manufactured-home lot): paying all past-due amounts as determined by the court, including all rent due under the lease plus court-awarded costs and fees, at any time before the writ is actually executed stays and then vacates the judgment of possession (minimum 5-day stay for filings; a stay request must be filed if payment comes after the writ is posted; the landlord may ask the court to wait for checks to clear); charitable and government checks count as the tenant's payment; the right is unavailable to a tenant with two nonpayment judgments of possession in the prior 18 months (vacated judgments count). The same act rewrites the manufactured-home-community 7-day notice language in § 7016(b)(3) and adds the same payment-before/after-filing rules for lot tenancies. The figures on this page state the law in force before September 1, 2026.Status: Signed by the Governor August 18, 2026 (85 Del. Laws c. 436, Governor's Advisory No. 54); section 4 makes the act effective September 1, 2026. Not incorporated until effective; the 5-day figure and the reservation-of-rights cure rule shown here remain the law through August 31, 2026. (checked 2026-08-23).
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: Passed both chambers 2026-06-24. As of 2026-07-26 the General Assembly's bill record (LegislationId 143172) still showed 'Ready for Governor'; the post-adjournment window under Del. Const. art. III, § 18 runs roughly to the end of July 2026. Not law as of 2026-08-04. If enacted it changes Code-applicability notes (§ 5102) and adds § 5512A pre-termination duties for reentry-fund tenancies; it changes no figure shown here. (checked 2026-08-04).
SB 235 (153rd GA, 2026) — Manufactured-home communities only (25 Del. C. ch. 70): repeals the sunset on the Rent Justification Act pilot calculations, making the § 7052A/§ 7052B CPI-linked justified-rent-increase calculations permanently replace the § 7052 grounds for lot-rent increases. Does not touch apartment/site-built rentals under chs. 51-59.Status: Passed both chambers 2026-06-30; awaiting the Governor's action as of 2026-07-11. It reaches lot tenancies only, so it is outside the scope of the answers on this page; it appears here because the rent-increase notes reference ch. 70. (checked 2026-07-11).

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 +4 more
Statewide rent control / rent cap	No	25 Del. C. § 5107 +4 more
Late-fee cap	5% of the monthly rent (25 Del. C. § 5501(d))	25 Del. C. § 5501 +1 more
Entry notice	2 days	25 Del. C. § 5509 +1 more
Eviction notice (nonpayment)	5 days	25 Del. C. § 5101 +57 more

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Delaware Landlord-Tenant Laws (verified July 11, 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 no Delaware municipality has adopted rent stabilization.

Verified August 12, 2026 · Full Delaware rent-increase rules →

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Delaware Eviction process

To evict a residential tenant in Delaware the landlord must first serve a written notice - at least 5 days to pay or quit for unpaid rent (25 Del. C. § 5502(a)) 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).

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Delaware Application 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.

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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.

Lot-rent, closure, park-sale and home-sale rules with statute citations →

Delaware Fair Market Rents (FY 2026) — HUD's benchmark rents for every Delaware metro area and county.

Changes since last full verification

The Verified date above (July 11, 2026) marks the last time every figure on this page was verified end-to-end against official state sources. The changes below were published since then, each verified against the official source it names (what these dates mean).

Updated, August 23, 2026 — Pending-legislation rows flag Delaware SS 1 for SB 116 (85 Del. Laws c. 436), signed August 18, 2026 and effective September 1, 2026: the 25 Del. C. § 5502(a) nonpayment demand period rises from not less than 5 to not less than 7 days and the notice states that the landlord may file to terminate; payment of all rent due by or on behalf of the tenant before filing bars a nonpayment possession action and after filing bars maintaining it, without the former reservation-of-rights condition, and the landlord may not refuse rent payments (method may be limited to lease-accepted forms before judgment and to certified check or money order after); new § 5716A gives the tenant a right of redemption in any nonpayment summary-possession case, for a rental unit or a manufactured-home lot, by paying all past-due amounts the court determines plus costs and fees at any time before the writ is executed, unavailable after two nonpayment possession judgments in the prior 18 months; § 7016(b)(3) for manufactured home communities is rewritten in parallel. The figures shown state the law in force before September 1, 2026.

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 or entry 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 corroborates the 60-day rent-increase-notice reading of section 5107 for month-to-month tenancies. 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 confirmed dead at the 2026-06-30 sine die adjournment (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.