Does the deposit have to be in an interest-bearing account in Alaska?

No statute addresses whether the account must bear interest. Prepaid rent and security deposits "shall be promptly deposited by the landlord, wherever practicable, in a trust account in a bank, savings and loan association, or licensed escrow agent", and the landlord must give the tenant the terms and conditions under which the money may be withheld (AS 34.03.070(c)). Two features of the rule are routinely lost in summary.

What happens if a landlord does not pay deposit interest in Alaska?

No statutory penalty reaches an interest violation specifically.

Does a landlord have to pay interest on a security deposit in Alaska?

Verified August 28, 2026 All Alaska topics →

What did not become law. None of the following is law; failed bills are sometimes still described as if enacted:

HB 115 (34th Legislature, 2025-2026) — Would add AS 34.03.020(f): a landlord could not raise rent more than once per calendar year and would have to give written notice at least 90 days before the increase takes effect; if a tenancy ends without that notice having been given, the unit could not be re-rented above the old rent until 90 days after termination (anti-evasion clause). Applies to rental agreements entered into on or after the effective date. Would convert Alaska from a derivation state (no express rent-increase notice statute) to an express 90-day state. Status: Introduced 2025 (Rep. Gray); referred to House State Affairs and Labor & Commerce 2025-02-26 and never heard. The 34th Legislature's second regular session adjourned sine die on May 20, 2026, which ended the bill — the special sessions that followed were limited to their call and did not include it, and it is absent from the legislature's passed-legislation list for the 34th Legislature. (checked August 26, 2026).

Alaska does not require landlords to pay tenants interest on a security deposit, and nothing in its residential landlord and tenant chapter addresses deposit interest.

Cited to AS 34.03.070 (security deposits and prepaid rent — trust account) (c) and 3 more cited sources · Verified August 28, 2026

Alaska does require a trust account, with a qualification most summaries drop: deposits and prepaid rent must be promptly deposited "wherever practicable" in a trust account at a bank, savings and loan association, or licensed escrow agent, and may not be commingled with the landlord's other funds (AS 34.03.070(c)). The same subsection expressly allows one account to hold every tenant's money, so long as each tenant's funds are accounted for separately and are never used for another tenant — so a summary saying Alaska requires a separate account for each tenant misreads the text. Two sub-statutory wrinkles get quoted more broadly than they read: a real-estate licensing regulation about trust accounts that happen to bear interest, and a paragraph in a 2018 printing of a state handbook that the issuing agency's current edition no longer carries.

Alaska deposit interest at a glance

Interest owed to the tenant	No — no statute addresses it
How the rate is set	No rate exists — there is no interest duty
Current figure	No published figure exists
Rate rules	No rate rules — no duty exists
Accrual and payment	No payment duty exists
Who and what is covered	No statutory conditions stated — see the summary and notes
Statute controls where or how the deposit is held	Yes
Interest-bearing account required	No statute addresses whether the account must bear interest
Custody rules	Prepaid rent and security deposits "shall be promptly deposited by the landlord, wherever practicable, in a trust account in a bank, savings and loan association, or licensed escrow agent", and the landlord must give the tenant the terms and conditions under which the money may be withheld (AS 34.03.070(c)). Two features of the rule are routinely lost in summary. The duty is qualified — "wherever practicable" — rather than absolute. And the separation it requires is between deposit money and the landlord's other money, not between one tenant and the next: the subsection expressly provides that nothing in the chapter prohibits commingling prepaid rents and security deposits in a single financial account, while requiring the landlord to account separately for each tenant's money and barring the use of one tenant's funds to refund another's deposit, pay another's accrued rent, or cover damages caused by another tenant. Commingling deposit money with other funds is prohibited. Nothing in the section requires the trust account to earn anything.
Penalty for violation	No statutory penalty reaches an interest violation specifically
Local rules	None noted for this state

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Alaska Security Deposit Interest Laws (verified August 28, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/deposit-interest/alaska/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

Check the verified Alaska answer — and every state and city that differs — in the deposit interest calculator — free, no signup, built on the same verified Alaska law as this page.

Notes and caveats

The account duty, with its qualifier — The operative words are "shall be promptly deposited by the landlord, wherever practicable, in a trust account in a bank, savings and loan association, or licensed escrow agent". The qualifier is part of the duty, not a gloss on it. The subsection then permits pooling: "Nothing in this chapter prohibits the landlord from commingling prepaid rents and security deposits in a single financial account; however, the landlord shall separately account for prepaid rent and security deposits received from each tenant. The landlord may not commingle prepaid rent and security deposits with other funds."
The broker regulation, in its own words — 12 AAC 64.210 is three lines long: "Trust account interest. If a trust account bears interest, that fact and the rate of interest must be disclosed to the trustor. To avoid commingling funds, interest earned does not belong to the broker." It is a real-estate licensing rule binding brokers, it operates only if an account happens to bear interest, and it requires nobody to open one. It contains no clause directing the interest to the tenant and no written-consent exception.
A state handbook passage readers still find — The Alaska Court System's 2018 printing of the state's landlord-tenant handbook carries a heading, "Can deposits earn interest?", under which it says the landlord-tenant law does not require the trust account to earn interest, and then adds that if the deposit does earn interest the tenant is entitled to it under general trust law principles unless both parties have agreed otherwise — a proposition the handbook attaches no citation to. The Department of Law's current 2024 edition of the same publication no longer carries that heading or that passage. The paragraph's second half also states the broker rule more strongly than 12 AAC 64.210 does, adding a direction to the tenant and a written-consent carve-out that the regulation does not contain. Neither version creates a statutory entitlement to interest.
Currency — AS 34.03.070 stands as published in the current Alaska Statutes, and the Legislature's record of bills affecting the section shows none in the 34th Legislature.

Common questions: Alaska deposit interest

Each answer is the verified value from the table above, restated as a direct answer. Free to quote with a link to this page.

What is the Alaska security deposit interest rate right now?: No published figure exists.
When must a landlord pay or credit deposit interest in Alaska?: No payment duty exists.
Does the deposit have to be in an interest-bearing account in Alaska?: No statute addresses whether the account must bear interest. Prepaid rent and security deposits "shall be promptly deposited by the landlord, wherever practicable, in a trust account in a bank, savings and loan association, or licensed escrow agent", and the landlord must give the tenant the terms and conditions under which the money may be withheld (AS 34.03.070(c)). Two features of the rule are routinely lost in summary.
What happens if a landlord does not pay deposit interest in Alaska?: No statutory penalty reaches an interest violation specifically.
Do any cities or counties in Alaska have their own deposit-interest rules?: None noted for this state.

Citations

AS 34.03.070 (security deposits and prepaid rent — trust account) · (c) (verified 2026) Official source
12 AAC 64.210 (trust account interest — real estate licensing regulation) (verified 2026) Official source
Alaska Department of Law, The Alaska Landlord & Tenant Act: what it means to you (2024 edition) (verified 2026) Official source
Alaska Court System, PUB-30 landlord and tenant handbook (10/18 printing) (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of AS 34.03.070, "Security deposits and prepaid rent", in full on the Legislature's own statute service, and of all 43 sections of AS chapter 34.03 reconstructed in full from the same source, with every occurrence of "interest" in the chapter examined in context (four, all property-sense: AS 34.03.070(f), 34.03.250(a) and two in 34.03.330); the text of 12 AAC 64.210 read in full in the Alaska Administrative Code published by the Legislature; the Alaska Court System's 2018 printing of the landlord-tenant handbook and the Department of Law's 2024 edition of the same publication both read and compared, heading by heading; and the Legislature's record of bills affecting AS 34.03.070 in the 34th Legislature checked, which lists none. The Legislature's statute page reached by a section fragment serves no statutory text and was not used for any conclusion.