How much notice must a landlord give before entering in Utah?

Verified July 10, 2026 All Utah topics →

Utah landlords must give at least 24 hours' notice before entering a rental unit — but only if the lease doesn't say otherwise, because the statute expressly yields to the rental agreement (Utah Code 57-22-4(2)).

That makes Utah's rule a default, not a floor: a lease clause can shorten the notice period or eliminate it entirely, which is the opposite of states where the statutory notice is a minimum the lease cannot waive. The one-sentence statute is also unusually bare — it does not require the notice to be in writing, does not list permitted entry purposes, does not restrict entry to reasonable times, and contains no express emergency exception (emergency entry rests on the lease and general law rather than on the Fit Premises Act). Enforcement is limited: under 57-22-4(9), a renter may not sue the landlord or treat the lease as excused over an entry-notice violation, so the rule matters mainly as a lease-drafting baseline and in defensive contexts. Tenants who want written notice, purpose limits, or daytime-only entry must negotiate them into the rental agreement.

Utah entry notice at a glance

Advance notice required	24 hours
Notice standard	Default-with-opt-out: 'Except as otherwise provided in the rental agreement, an owner shall provide the renter at least 24 hours prior notice of the owner's entry into the renter's residential rental unit' (57-22-4(2)). The 24-hour rule applies only where the rental agreement is silent — the lease may set a shorter, longer, or no notice period. The statute does not require the notice to be written and sets no other conditions.
Permitted reasons	None specified — unlike URLTA states, Utah's statute lists no permitted entry purposes, no 'reasonable times' limit, and no restriction on frequency. Entry rights and purposes are otherwise a matter of the rental agreement and general trespass/covenant law.
Emergency exception	Not addressed by statute
Time-of-day restrictions	None — the statute sets no clock hours and contains no 'reasonable times' language.

Notes and caveats

notice_hours encoded as 24 — statutory phrase 'at least 24 hours prior notice' read verbatim on both the official versioned text (C57-22-S4_2021050520210505, eff. 5/5/2021, Ch. 98 = HB 68) and Justia's 2025 mirror. The default-versus-lease relationship is the load-bearing nuance: 'except as otherwise provided in the rental agreement' means the lease CONTROLS and the 24 hours applies only in its silence — secondary sources often present 24 hours as a hard minimum, which is wrong in Utah. emergency_exception is null (not false) because the statute is silent: it neither grants an emergency-entry right nor requires notice in an emergency; whether an owner may enter without notice in an emergency is governed by the lease and common law, not this section. permitted_reasons and time restrictions: statute has none (one sentence total on entry) — Utah did not adopt the URLTA inspection/repair/showing list found in AZ/OK-style acts. Enforcement gap: 57-22-4(9) bars a renter cause of action for entry-notice violations — do not import other states' injunction/termination remedies. The section has not been amended since 2021; no 2026 legislation touched it (official code page shows a single current version; 2026 session negative check on the /data endpoint).

Statute citations

Utah Code § 57-22-4 (2), (9) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Utah Legislature site (le.utah.gov): the versioned section content files behind the xcode pages for Utah Code 57-17-1 through 57-17-5, 57-22-2, 57-22-3, 57-22-4, 57-22-7, 57-20-1, 78B-6-802, and 10-8-85.5, plus the chapter tables of contents for Title 57 Chapters 17 and 22 (negative checks). Every load-bearing figure re-read on law.justia.com's 2025 Utah Code mirror and matched verbatim: the 30-day deposit return clock and its vacate-plus-return-of-possession trigger, the five-business-day cure window and $100 civil penalty with the 57-17-3(3) notice prerequisite, the late-fee cap ('the greater of 10% of the rent agreed to in the rental agreement; or $75'), the 24-hour entry-notice default and its 'except as otherwise provided in the rental agreement' carve-out, the 57-22-4(9) no-cause-of-action clause, the 15-calendar-day month-to-month termination notice of 78B-6-802(1)(b)(i), and the 57-20-1 rent and fee control prohibition. Bill attributions and statuses verified against le.utah.gov's own bill-status JSON endpoint and enrolled/introduced bill texts: 2021 HB 68 (Ch. 98, late-fee cap and entry notice, eff. 5/5/2021), 2025 HB 480 (Ch. 275, electronic deposit returns, eff. 5/7/2025), 2026 HB 591 (Ch. 401, nuisance-only changes to 78B-6-802, eff. 5/6/2026). 2026 General Session (adjourned sine die March 2026, no carryover) checked: HB 478 (rent-increase/fee notice) and HB 516 both died 'House/ filed' 3/6/2026; no enacted 2026 law touches the four topics.