What reasons allow a landlord to enter a rental in South Carolina?

A South Carolina landlord may enter for inspection, necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations, or improvements, necessary or agreed services, and showings to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workmen, or contractors. For each of these the tenant may not unreasonably withhold consent to entry (27-40-530(a)).

Can a landlord enter without notice in an emergency in South Carolina?

Yes — South Carolina recognizes an emergency exception to the entry-notice requirement.

Are there time-of-day limits on when a landlord can enter in South Carolina?

Noticed entry has no clock hours — the statute requires only 'reasonable times.' The no-notice entries of 27-40-530(b) do carry clock windows.

How much notice must a landlord give before entering in South Carolina?

Verified July 9, 2026 All South Carolina topics →

South Carolina landlords must give tenants at least 24 hours' notice before entering a rental for inspections, repairs, services, or showings, and may enter only at reasonable times — but the statute carves out three no-notice situations: emergencies (expressly including approaching weather that threatens the property), regularly scheduled periodic services like filter changes or pest treatment between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. if the lease conspicuously reserves that right and the landlord announces the entry, and tenant-requested services between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. with an announcement at the door.

Cited to SC Code 27-40-530 (a)-(e) and 1 more South Carolina statute · Verified July 9, 2026

The 24-hour notice does not have to be in writing under the statute. Tenants may not unreasonably refuse lawful entry or change the locks without the landlord's permission, and the remedies run both ways under 27-40-780: harassing or unlawful entry lets the tenant win an injunction without bond or terminate the lease plus recover actual damages and attorney's fees, and a tenant who refuses lawful access faces the mirror-image remedies.

South Carolina entry notice at a glance

Advance notice required	24 hours
Notice standard	Except for the no-consent entries listed in 27-40-530(b), the landlord must give notice of intent to enter, may enter only at reasonable times, and must not abuse the right of access or use it to harass the tenant. The requirement sits in SC Code 27-40-530(c), which calls for 'at least twenty-four hours notice' of intent to enter. The statute does not require the notice to be written, and 'reasonable times' is undefined.
Permitted reasons	A South Carolina landlord may enter for inspection, necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations, or improvements, necessary or agreed services, and showings to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workmen, or contractors. For each of these the tenant may not unreasonably withhold consent to entry (27-40-530(a)). Subsection (d) makes the list of other access rights exhaustive: court order, the cross-referenced remedies of 27-40-720 (entry to fix tenant-caused health/safety breaches after 14 days' notice) and 27-40-730 (abandonment), entry accompanied by a law enforcement officer to serve ejectment process, or premises the tenant has abandoned or surrendered.
Emergency exception	Yes
Time-of-day restrictions	Noticed entry has no clock hours — the statute requires only 'reasonable times.' The no-notice entries of 27-40-530(b) do carry clock windows. Those windows are 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. for regularly scheduled periodic services (filter changes, pest treatment and the like), provided the right is conspicuously set forth in writing in the rental agreement and the landlord announces intent before entering; 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. for services the tenant requested, again with pre-entry announcement; and any time in an emergency — the statute expressly says prospective weather changes posing a likelihood of danger to the property may count as an emergency.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, South Carolina Landlord Entry Notice Laws (verified July 9, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/entry-notice/south-carolina/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Every figure above is cited to the South Carolina statute in the citations section below.

Notes and caveats

24 hours is the statutory phrase, verbatim — 27-40-530(c) requires 'at least twenty-four hours notice' of intent to enter.
The notice does not have to be in writing — The statute is silent on the form of the 24-hour notice, and many secondary sources silently add a writing requirement that is not in the text.
The two service-entry windows are the commonly missed exceptions — They sit in 27-40-530(b), and the 9-to-6 scheduled-services entry is not a free pass: it requires BOTH a conspicuous written lease provision and a pre-entry announcement.
South Carolina did not adopt the URLTA free-entry boilerplate — The URLTA language allowing free entry during the notice-to-vacate period or a tenant's extended absence was not adopted here. 27-40-530(d) is instead an exhaustive list: court order, the 27-40-720 and 27-40-730 remedies, entry accompanied by a law enforcement officer to serve ejectment process, and abandonment or surrender.
Abandonment turns on absence AFTER a rent default — Under 27-40-730(a) an unexplained absence of fifteen days after default in rent is construed as abandonment.
The ban on tenants changing the locks is unusual — 27-40-530(e) bars the tenant from changing the locks without the landlord's permission — an uncommon provision worth knowing about.
No one-month's-rent floor on the remedies — 27-40-780 gives actual damages plus attorney's fees, with no minimum-recovery floor. Arizona's minimum-recovery figure does not carry over to South Carolina.

Common questions: South Carolina entry notice

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

How many hours' notice must a landlord give before entering in South Carolina?: 24 hours. Except for the no-consent entries listed in 27-40-530(b), the landlord must give notice of intent to enter, may enter only at reasonable times, and must not abuse the right of access or use it to harass the tenant.
What reasons allow a landlord to enter a rental in South Carolina?: A South Carolina landlord may enter for inspection, necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations, or improvements, necessary or agreed services, and showings to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workmen, or contractors. For each of these the tenant may not unreasonably withhold consent to entry (27-40-530(a)).
Can a landlord enter without notice in an emergency in South Carolina?: Yes — South Carolina recognizes an emergency exception to the entry-notice requirement.
Are there time-of-day limits on when a landlord can enter in South Carolina?: Noticed entry has no clock hours — the statute requires only 'reasonable times.' The no-notice entries of 27-40-530(b) do carry clock windows.

Statute citations

SC Code 27-40-530 (a)-(e) (verified 2026) Official source
SC Code 27-40-780 (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official South Carolina Legislature site (scstatehouse.gov), Code of Laws Title 27: sections 27-40-410, 27-40-530, 27-40-770, 27-40-710, 27-40-310, 27-40-120, and 27-39-60 each read twice independently with all key figures matching verbatim (30-day deposit deadline and its three-trigger clause, 3x penalty, more-than-four-adjoining-units posting rule, 24-hour entry notice, 9-6 and 8-8 no-notice service windows, 30-day/7-day periodic termination notice, 5-day nonpayment cure). Also read once: 27-40-720 and 27-40-730 (cross-referenced access rights), 27-40-210(11) rent definition, 27-40-10 and 27-40-110 (short title, statewide territorial application). Negative checks run against the full chapter text: no deposit cap, no escrow/trust requirement, no deposit interest, no late-fee amount or grace-period regulation. Pending-bill check 2026-07-09, corrected 2026-08-12: H. 3346 (Rent Control Act) died in House LCI committee at sine die 2026-05-14, but H. 3569 (domestic violence in rental properties) did not die — it was ratified R180 on 2026-05-14 and approved 2026-05-18 as Act No. 184, in force on approval; its enacted text (new section 27-40-350 and definitions 27-40-210(19)-(20)) was read in full on the official bill page 2026-08-12, and its deposit-return exception and five-day perpetrator termination notice are now recorded on this page. The post-sine-die special session was limited to redistricting and the budget.