How many hours' notice must a landlord give before entering in Vermont?

2 days. A Vermont landlord has two lawful routes into the unit: entry at any time with the tenant's consent, which may not be unreasonably withheld, or unilateral entry on at least 48 hours' notice, between 9:00 A.M. and 9:00 P.M., for four listed purposes.

What reasons allow a landlord to enter a rental in Vermont?

Notice-based entry is limited to four purposes: necessary inspections, necessary or agreed repairs and improvements, supplying agreed services, and showings. Consent-based entry is not purpose-limited.

Can a landlord enter without notice in an emergency in Vermont?

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

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

Notice-based entry only between 9:00 A.M. and 9:00 P.M. (4460(b)). No time window applies to consented entry or to emergency entry on a reasonable belief of imminent danger.

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

Verified July 12, 2026 All Vermont topics →

Vermont landlords must give at least 48 hours' notice before entering a rental unit and may enter only between 9:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. — one of the few states with both a fixed notice period and a statutory time-of-day window.

Cited to 9 V.S.A. § 4460 (a)-(c) and 2 more cited sources · Verified July 12, 2026

The 48-hour route covers four purposes: necessary inspections; necessary or agreed repairs, alterations, or improvements; supplying agreed services; and showing the unit to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workers, or contractors. Alternatively, the landlord may enter at any time with the tenant's consent, and the tenant may not unreasonably withhold it. Entry without either consent or notice is allowed only when the landlord reasonably believes there is imminent danger to any person or to property — a genuinely narrow emergency valve, with no broader 'impracticable' loophole. The notice does not have to be in writing: the statute asks for bare 'notice,' unlike the formally defined written 'actual notice' Vermont requires for rent increases and terminations, though written notice remains the provable choice. Lease clauses that cut back these protections are void under the chapter's anti-circumvention rule. One niche exception took effect July 1, 2026: employees of certified recovery residences may enter at reasonable times as needed to run the residence, notwithstanding the 48-hour rule.

Vermont entry notice at a glance

Advance notice required	2 days
Notice standard	A Vermont landlord has two lawful routes into the unit: entry at any time with the tenant's consent, which may not be unreasonably withheld, or unilateral entry on at least 48 hours' notice, between 9:00 A.M. and 9:00 P.M., for four listed purposes. Both routes are in 9 V.S.A. 4460 — subsection (a) for consent, subsection (b) for unilateral entry 'between the hours of 9:00 A.M. and 9:00 P.M. on no less than 48 hours' notice.' The statute requires 'notice,' not written notice — chapter 137 uses the defined written-notice term 'actual notice' elsewhere (4451(1)) and conspicuously does not use it here.
Permitted reasons	Notice-based entry is limited to four purposes: necessary inspections, necessary or agreed repairs and improvements, supplying agreed services, and showings. Consent-based entry is not purpose-limited. The four statutory purposes are: (1) when necessary to inspect the premises; (2) to make necessary or agreed repairs, alterations, or improvements; (3) to supply agreed services; or (4) to exhibit the dwelling unit to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workers, or contractors (4460(b)). Consent for the consent-based route may not be unreasonably withheld.
Emergency exception	Yes
Time-of-day restrictions	Notice-based entry only between 9:00 A.M. and 9:00 P.M. (4460(b)). No time window applies to consented entry or to emergency entry on a reasonable belief of imminent danger.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Vermont Landlord Entry Notice Laws (verified July 12, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/entry-notice/vermont/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

Notes and caveats

48 hours is an express statutory figure — 4460(b) requires 'no less than 48 hours' notice,' and the figure is unchanged since enactment (1985, No. 175 (Adj. Sess.)).
The 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM window is decisive — Notice-based entry is allowed only between 9:00 AM and 9:00 PM. Charts that render Vermont as a bare '48-hour state' — or, worse, a '24-hour' state — drop it.
The notice does not have to be in writing — 4460 says 'notice' where the chapter's defined term 'actual notice' (4451(1)) means received written notice. The drafters' word choice cuts against implying a writing requirement.
Consent is an alternative to notice, not an addition — The consent route is separate and not purpose-limited, and consent may not be unreasonably withheld. It is structurally like Alaska's consent-plus-notice design, except that Vermont makes consent an alternative to notice rather than an additional requirement.
The emergency valve is narrow — Entry without consent or notice requires a 'reasonable belief that there is imminent danger to any person or to property.' There is no URLTA-style 'impracticable' extension, in contrast to Montana, South Dakota and Alaska.
No entry-specific remedy section — Violations sound in the chapter's general remedies and in contract; 4454 voids lease carve-outs.
New and easy to miss: the recovery-residence entry carve-out — 2026 Act 103 sec. 3, effective 2026-07-01, added 4452(b)(3): 'Notwithstanding section 4460,' an employee of a certified recovery residence may enter at reasonable times as necessary to operate the residence.
The official page is stale on that carve-out — The same act cancelled the previously scheduled 2026-07-01 repeal of the whole recovery-residence subsection, so the statutes site's '(b) [Repealed.]' version note is stale. As of 2026-07-12 legislature.vermont.gov had not absorbed Act 103, or Act 176's new 4468b cannabis lease-restriction section.
Farm-employee housing is still covered by the entry rule — 4460 is not among the sections disapplied by 4469a(h), which reaches only 4455, 4461 and 4467.
Where the 48-hour figure is published — The per-section page and the full-chapter view on legislature.vermont.gov carry 4460(b)'s 48-hour figure in identical terms.

Common questions: Vermont 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 Vermont?: 2 days. A Vermont landlord has two lawful routes into the unit: entry at any time with the tenant's consent, which may not be unreasonably withheld, or unilateral entry on at least 48 hours' notice, between 9:00 A.M. and 9:00 P.M., for four listed purposes.
What reasons allow a landlord to enter a rental in Vermont?: Notice-based entry is limited to four purposes: necessary inspections, necessary or agreed repairs and improvements, supplying agreed services, and showings. Consent-based entry is not purpose-limited.
Can a landlord enter without notice in an emergency in Vermont?: Yes — Vermont recognizes an emergency exception to the entry-notice requirement.
Are there time-of-day limits on when a landlord can enter in Vermont?: Notice-based entry only between 9:00 A.M. and 9:00 P.M. (4460(b)). No time window applies to consented entry or to emergency entry on a reasonable belief of imminent danger.

Citations

9 V.S.A. § 4460 · (a)-(c) (verified 2026) Official source
9 V.S.A. § 4454 (verified 2026) Official source
2026 Act 103 (S.157), Sec. 3 (amending 9 V.S.A. § 4452(b); recovery-residence entry carve-out, eff. 2026-07-01) · Sec. 3, § 4452(b)(3) (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Vermont General Assembly site (legislature.vermont.gov): the complete text of every section of 9 V.S.A. chapter 137 (4451 through 4475, all four subchapters) read twice via two independent official endpoints — the per-section pages and the full-chapter view — with every key figure (60 days' actual notice for rent increases in 4455(b); the 14-day deposit return clock, its discovery/noticed-vacate-date triggers, the 60-day seasonal clock, and the forfeiture-plus-willful-double penalty in 4461(c)-(e); the 48-hour / 9 AM-9 PM entry rule in 4460(b); the three-day mail-receipt presumption in 4451(1)) matching verbatim across both reads. 10 V.S.A. 6251 and a full sweep of 10 V.S.A. chapter 153 (mobile home parks) read for the note-only lot-rent regime. Session sweep run against the official 2025-2026 biennium data: all 178 regular acts, all 12 municipal (charter) acts, and all 13 vetoed bills enumerated, plus the official Acts-Affecting-VSA-Sections table (2,693 rows) filtered to Title 9 chapter 137 — exactly three hits, each verified in the enacted act text (Act 69 of 2025 sec. 10 amending 4456a; Act 103 of 2026 amending 4452(b) and cancelling its scheduled repeal, effective 2026-07-01; Act 176 of 2026 sec. 30 adding new 9 V.S.A. 4468b, effective 2026-07-01). Act 103 and Act 176 read from their official As Enacted PDFs; both postdate the statutes site's current text (the site still shows 4452(b) as repealed effective 2026-07-01 and lacks 4468b — flagged in notes). Verified negatives (no deposit cap, no state deposit-interest or separate-account rule, no late-fee or grace-period statute, no rent-control or preemption provision, no increase-frequency limit) established by the full-chapter double read plus a targeted Title 24 municipal-powers check (24 V.S.A. 2291; chapter 123). Late-fee case law (Highgate Associates, Ltd. v. Merryfield, 157 Vt. 313 (1991)) corroborated via the statewide CVOEO tenant-landlord guidance and multiple independent secondary descriptions; advance.lexis.com not used. Dead 2025-2026 bills (S.91, H.399, H.440) verified dead on their official bill-status pages; the biennium has adjourned sine die.