Does a landlord have to pay interest on a security deposit in Kansas?
Kansas requires no interest on a residential security deposit, and — unusually — it imposes no duty at all about where the deposit is kept.
Cited to K.S.A. 58-2550 (Security deposits; amounts; retention; return; damages for noncompliance) (a)-(f) and 2 more cited sources · Verified August 28, 2026
There is no escrow, no trust account, no separate account, no named institution and no ban on mixing the money with the landlord's own funds anywhere in the Kansas Residential Landlord and Tenant Act. A Kansas landlord may lawfully hold a deposit in an ordinary operating account alongside rent receipts and personal money, and the act is indifferent to the choice. What K.S.A. 58-2550 does impose is a ceiling on the amount (one month's rent unfurnished, one and a half months furnished, plus half a month where pets are allowed), rules for applying the money and itemizing deductions when the tenancy ends, a return clock, damages of one and a half times any amount wrongfully withheld, forfeiture if the tenant tries to use the deposit as last month's rent, and successor liability. The widely repeated claim that Kansas requires deposits to be held in trust is false.
Kansas 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 | No statute addresses how the deposit is held |
| Interest-bearing account required | No statute addresses whether the account must bear interest |
| Custody rules | No statute addresses custody of the deposit |
| Penalty for violation | No statutory penalty reaches an interest violation specifically |
| Local rules | None noted for this state |
Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Kansas Security Deposit Interest Laws (verified August 28, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/deposit-interest/kansas/" — 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 Kansas answer — and every state and city that differs — in the deposit interest calculator — free, no signup, built on the same verified Kansas law as this page.
Notes and caveats
- The 'Kansas trust account' claim traces to a definitions list — The act's only use of the word 'trust' in anything like a financial sense is K.S.A. 58-2543(f), which defines "Organization" to include "a corporation, government, governmental subdivision or agency, business trust, estate, trust, partnership or association, two or more persons having a joint or common interest" and other entities. That is a list of the kinds of entity that can be a landlord or a tenant, not a duty about money. The runner-up candidate is K.S.A. 58-2549's "trust deed," which is a mortgage instrument. An automated summary hunting the act for 'trust' finds both and neither is a deposit rule.
- The definition itself forecloses the account reading — K.S.A. 58-2543(m) defines a security deposit as money "to be deposited with a landlord by a tenant as a condition precedent to the occupancy of a dwelling unit." The money is deposited with the landlord personally — not into anything. Kansas's deposit section then moves straight from the amount ceiling in (a) to what happens at the end of the tenancy in (b), with no subsection in between and none anywhere else addressing custody.
- Every other 'interest' in the act is an ownership or security interest — The word appears as the interest of a purchaser's successor (58-2541(b)), the holder of the landlord's interest in the premises (58-2550(f)), interests in abandoned property (58-2565), a landlord's unenforceable security interest in a tenant's goods (58-2567), and the phrase "interest of justice" (58-2570(d)). None is money earned on a deposit, and "accrued" in 58-2550(b) attaches to rent, not to interest.
- The section has stood unchanged since 1997 — K.S.A. 58-2550's history line ends at L. 1997, ch. 68, § 1 — twenty-nine years without an amendment. The Legislature's own presentation of the section for the 2025-26 biennium shows the same 1997 text.
Common questions: Kansas 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 Kansas security deposit interest rate right now?
- No published figure exists.
- When must a landlord pay or credit deposit interest in Kansas?
- No payment duty exists.
- Does the deposit have to be in an interest-bearing account in Kansas?
- No statute addresses whether the account must bear interest.
- What happens if a landlord does not pay deposit interest in Kansas?
- No statutory penalty reaches an interest violation specifically.
- Do any cities or counties in Kansas have their own deposit-interest rules?
- None noted for this state.
Citations
- K.S.A. 58-2550 (Security deposits; amounts; retention; return; damages for noncompliance) · (a)-(f) (verified 2026) Official source
- K.S.A. 58-2543 (Definitions; 'organization' and 'security deposit') · (f), (m) (verified 2026) Official source
- K.S.A. 58-2550 (Legislature's statute service, 2025-26 biennium presentation) (verified 2026) Official source
How this record was verified: Complete read of all thirty-four sections of the Kansas Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, K.S.A. 58-2540 through 58-2573, in the Office of Revisor of Statutes' published statute text, with K.S.A. 58-2550 (security deposits) additionally read on the Legislature's own statute service for the 2025-26 biennium and found word-for-word identical including its history line; every occurrence of 'interest', 'trust', 'escrow', 'account', 'bank', 'accrue', 'commingle', 'segregate' and 'separate account' across the act examined in context; and the thirty-two older landlord-and-tenant sections in the same article, K.S.A. 58-2501 through 58-2533, searched for any account, escrow or commingling duty, the one match being a law-review title in an annotation.