How much notice does a landlord have to give before filing an eviction for unpaid rent in Alabama?

7 business days. Those 7 days are BUSINESS days and they run from the tenant's receipt of the written notice, not from mailing or posting, so in practice the period stretches across nine to eleven calendar days. Paying the rent and late fees stated in the notice within that window prevents termination (Ala. Code 35-9A-421(b)).

How much notice is required to evict for a lease violation in Alabama?

7 business days. Those 7 days are BUSINESS days running from the tenant's receipt of a written notice that specifies the acts and omissions constituting the breach and states the termination date. The default is cure: remedy the breach before that date and the agreement does not terminate (Ala. Code 35-9A-421(a)).

How long does an eviction take in Alabama?

About 23 to 25 calendar days from receipt of the notice to the earliest moment a writ of possession can issue, counting only the statutory periods. A realistic uncontested Alabama residential eviction runs materially longer, commonly several weeks to well over a month.

Can a landlord change the locks or shut off utilities instead of going to court in Alabama?

No — Alabama bars self-help eviction by statute; a landlord must go through the court process. Alabama prohibits self-help by statute. A landlord may not recover or take possession of the dwelling unit by action or otherwise, including by willfully interrupting heat, running water, hot water, electricity, gas, or other essential service, except on abandonment, surrender, or as chapter 9A permits (Ala. Code 35-9A-427).

What is the eviction process and timeline in Alabama?

Verified October 1, 2026 Correction October 2, 2026 All Alabama topics →

In Alabama, a landlord must give a tenant at least seven business days' written notice to pay the rent owed or fix a lease violation before the lease ends and an eviction case can be filed.

Cited to Ala. Code § 35-9A-421 (Noncompliance with rental agreement; failure to pay rent) subsecs. (a), (b), (d); as amended by Act 2018-473 (eff. June 1, 2018) and 20 more cited sources · Verified October 1, 2026

Those are business days counted from when the tenant actually receives the notice, so in practice the period usually stretches across nine to eleven calendar days. If the tenant pays or fixes the problem in time, the lease continues -- but a tenant cannot cure more than twice in any twelve months, and repeating substantially the same violation within six months cannot be cured at all. Some grounds skip the cure option entirely: lying about a material fact on the rental application, illegal drug activity, illegal firearm use on the property, and criminal assault of a tenant or guest all support a seven-day notice with no right to fix it. After the notice period runs out, the landlord files an eviction (unlawful detainer) case in the district court for the county where the property sits, and the tenant has seven calendar days after being served to file a written answer or lose by default. If the landlord wins, an automatic seven-day stay runs before the court will issue a writ of possession, and the landlord has to actually apply for that writ in writing before the sheriff can carry out the lockout. Either side can appeal to circuit court within seven days of the judgment, and a tenant who appeals can hold off the lockout only by paying into the circuit court clerk all rent that has come due since the case was filed and continuing to pay rent as it comes due. Alabama flatly forbids landlords from doing it themselves -- changing locks or shutting off heat, water, gas, or electricity exposes the landlord to the greater of three months' rent or the tenant's actual damages, plus the tenant's attorney fees.

Alabama eviction process at a glance

Nonpayment notice (pay-or-quit)	7 business days
Nonpayment notice rules (day counting, cure rights, service)	Those 7 days are BUSINESS days and they run from the tenant's receipt of the written notice, not from mailing or posting, so in practice the period stretches across nine to eleven calendar days. Paying the rent and late fees stated in the notice within that window prevents termination (Ala. Code 35-9A-421(b)). Ala. Code 35-9A-421(b): if rent is unpaid when due the landlord may deliver a written notice to terminate the lease specifying the amount of rent and any late fees owed, stating the rental agreement terminates on a date 'not less than seven business days after receipt of the notice'; if the breach is not remedied within the seven business days the rental agreement terminates. COUNTING: business days, not calendar days -- this is an express exception to Ala. Code 35-9A-141(3), which otherwise provides that 'day' means calendar day 'notwithstanding Rule 6 of the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure' and rolls a deadline that lands on a weekend or official holiday to the next official business day when the court is open. The clock runs from the tenant's RECEIPT of the notice, not from mailing or posting. CURE: paying the rent and late fees stated in the notice within the seven business days prevents termination; there is no statutory right to cure after the period expires, and Ala. Code 35-9A-424 provides that a landlord who accepts rent with knowledge of the default waives the right to terminate for that breach unless otherwise agreed after the breach. CURE CAPS (35-9A-421(d)): no breach may be cured more than two times in any 12-month period without the landlord's express written consent, and a repeat of substantially the same breach within six months of the first is a noncurable default. If the same conduct breaches both 35-9A-421(a) and (b), the statute directs that the nonpayment notice period in subsection (b) governs. DELIVERY: Chapter 9A prescribes written notice delivered to the tenant but does not itself mandate a service method for the pre-filing notice; the posting-and-first-class-mail method in 35-9A-461(c) governs service of the eviction COMPLAINT, not the termination notice. No separate demand for possession is required before filing -- the 35-9A-421 notice terminates the possessory interest, and 35-9A-141(5) then defines 'eviction' as the tenant's failure to deliver possession after that termination.
Lease-violation notice period	7 business days
Lease-violation notice rules (cure vs. termination)	Those 7 days are BUSINESS days running from the tenant's receipt of a written notice that specifies the acts and omissions constituting the breach and states the termination date. The default is cure: remedy the breach before that date and the agreement does not terminate (Ala. Code 35-9A-421(a)). Ala. Code 35-9A-421(a): for material noncompliance with the rental agreement, an intentional misrepresentation of a material fact in a rental agreement or application, or noncompliance with Ala. Code 35-9A-301 materially affecting health and safety, the landlord may deliver written notice specifying the acts and omissions constituting the breach and stating that the agreement terminates on a date 'not less than seven business days after receipt of the notice.' CURE vs QUIT: the default is cure -- if the tenant adequately remedies the breach before the date specified, the agreement does not terminate. Two carve-outs make the notice unconditional: (1) an intentional misrepresentation of a material fact in a rental agreement or application 'may not be remedied or cured' (35-9A-421(a)); and (2) the noncurable defaults listed in 35-9A-421(d). MATERIAL NONCOMPLIANCE is not exhaustively defined; 35-9A-301 sets the tenant's health-and-safety obligations, and 35-9A-442(a) lets the landlord terminate under 35-9A-421 when a tenant refuses lawful access. REPEAT-VIOLATION ESCALATION (35-9A-421(d)): no term or obligation of the lease may be cured more than twice in any 12-month period absent the landlord's express written consent, and any breach involving substantially the same acts or omissions as one previously noticed and cured is noncurable if the second breach occurs within six months of the first. COUNTING: business days, expressly displacing the calendar-day default in 35-9A-141(3); the period runs from receipt. SEPARATE MECHANISM: Ala. Code 35-9A-422 gives the landlord a different, non-terminating remedy -- where a 35-9A-301 breach materially affecting health and safety can be fixed by repair, replacement, or cleaning, the landlord may give seven days' written notice (stated in that section without the word 'business'), then enter, do the work, and bill the actual and reasonable cost as rent.
Unconditional-quit grounds	Two statutory routes remove the tenant's right to cure. (1) Ala. Code 35-9A-421(a): an intentional misrepresentation of a material fact in a rental agreement or application 'may not be remedied or cured' -- the seven-business-day notice under (a) still issues, but it operates as a quit notice rather than a cure-or-quit notice. (2) Ala. Code 35-9A-421(d): the landlord 'may terminate the rental agreement upon a seven-day notice' and 'the tenant shall have no right to remedy such a default unless the landlord consents' for a non-exhaustive list of acts or omissions by a tenant or occupant -- (d)(1) manufacture, cultivation, importation, transportation, possession, furnishing, administering, or use of illegal drugs in the dwelling unit or common areas; (d)(2) illegal use, manufacture, importation, possession, furnishing, or discharging of a firearm or firearm ammunition on the premises, except self-defense, defense of a third party, or as permitted by Ala. Code 13A-3-23; (d)(3) criminal assault of a tenant or guest on the premises, subject to the same defenses; and (d)(4) any breach involving substantially the same acts or omissions as a breach previously noticed and cured, where the second breach occurs within six months of the first. Subsection (d) also caps cures at two in any rolling 12-month period absent the landlord's express written consent, so a third breach in that window is noncurable. Alabama provides no zero-day or immediate-possession eviction: even a noncurable ground requires a seven-day notice before the tenancy ends and suit may be filed.
Court and action	District court of the county where the property is located. Ala. Code 6-6-330 makes forcible entry and detainer and unlawful detainer 'cognizable before the district court of the county in which the offense is committed,' and Ala. Code 35-9A-461(b) provides that district and circuit courts, 'according to their respective established jurisdictions,' have jurisdiction over eviction actions with venue in the county where the leased property is located, and that eviction actions 'shall be entitled to precedence in scheduling over all other civil cases.' Practically, residential possession cases are filed in district court, which has exclusive small-claims and concurrent civil jurisdiction under Ala. Code Title 12, Chapter 12; circuit court hears the case on de novo appeal, and may also hear it from the start where a money claim joined with it falls within the circuit court's jurisdiction: concurrent with the district court above $6,000 and exclusive above $20,000 (Ala. Code 12-11-30, 12-12-30, 12-12-31). THE ACTION: styled 'eviction' as defined in Ala. Code 35-9A-141(5), and 'unlawful detainer' as defined in Ala. Code 6-6-310(2) (one who lawfully entered as tenant 'fails or refuses, after the termination of the possessory interest of the tenant, to deliver possession'). The Alabama Unified Judicial System form is the Statement of Claim -- Eviction/Unlawful Detainer. GOVERNING RULES: Ala. Code 35-9A-461(a) provides that a landlord's action for eviction, rent, monetary damages, or other relief in a Chapter 9A tenancy 'shall be governed by the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure and the Alabama Rules of Appellate Procedure except as modified by this chapter'; Ala. R. Civ. P. 12(dc) supplies the shortened answer period. Chapter 9A is the exclusive remedy for residential rental agreements statewide and preempts county and municipal landlord-tenant ordinances (Ala. Code 35-9A-121). Non-residential and other leases outside Chapter 9A instead use the older Article 8 procedure (Ala. Code 6-6-310 et seq.) with the 10-day notice to quit in Ala. Code 35-9-6.
Filing to hearing	ANSWER DEADLINE: seven calendar days. Ala. R. Civ. P. 12(dc)(1) provides that in the district courts all 30-day periods are reduced to 14 days for all actions 'other than an action for unlawful detainer as defined in § 6-6-310(2), Ala. Code 1975, and an action for eviction as defined in §35-9A-141(5), Ala. Code 1975, in which actions a defendant shall serve an answer within seven (7) calendar days after service of the summons and complaint.' The rule names the action, not the claim, and the statewide complaint form (Form C-59) tells the defendant to answer the complaint within seven days; one county court's filing guide lists 14 days to answer a money claim filed in district court. Failure to answer permits a default judgment. SERVICE: under Ala. Code 35-9A-461(c) service is made under the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure, but if the sheriff, constable, or process server cannot serve the defendant personally, service may be made on any person sui juris residing on the premises, or -- if after reasonable effort no one is found residing there -- by posting a copy on the door and, the same day or by the close of the next business day, mailing a first-class copy to the premises address (or the defendant's last known address if the premises have none); service by posting is complete on the date of mailing. The parallel provision for Article 8 unlawful detainer is Ala. Code 6-6-332(b), which also requires that notice be served at least six days before the return day of the process. NO STATUTORY HEARING DATE: Alabama sets no maximum interval between filing (or service) and trial in a residential eviction. The only statutory pressure is the scheduling-precedence directive in Ala. Code 35-9A-461(b). Actual time to hearing is set by the district court's docket and varies by county.
Writ of possession and lockout	The possession writ is the 'writ of possession' (also called a writ of restitution). Ala. Code 35-9A-461(e): 'If an eviction judgment enters in favor of a landlord, a writ of possession shall issue upon application by the landlord. Notwithstanding Rule 62 of the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure, the automatic stay on the issuance of the writ of possession or restitution shall be for a period of seven days.' EARLIEST ISSUANCE: seven days after entry of the eviction judgment -- these are calendar days under Ala. Code 35-9A-141(3), with a deadline falling on a weekend or official holiday rolling to the next day the court is open. The stay is automatic and displaces Ala. R. Civ. P. 62. The writ does not issue on the court's own motion: the landlord must file a written application (no filing fee under Alabama Unified Judicial System practice). A timely post-judgment motion suspends the running of the appeal time under 35-9A-461(d) and in practice defers enforcement until it is resolved. EXECUTION: the sheriff or constable executes. Under Ala. Code 6-6-337(a) the writ commands the officer 'to restore the plaintiff to possession or place him in possession,' successive writs may issue as needed, and a defendant who refuses to obey the writ or re-enters without just cause or legal excuse 'shall be guilty of resisting an officer and contempt of court'; 35-9A-461(e) repeats the contempt and successive-writ provisions for Chapter 9A evictions. Under Ala. Code 6-6-333 a sheriff or constable who neglects or refuses to execute the process forfeits $200 to the party aggrieved, recoverable by an action in circuit court. NO STATUTORY EXECUTION DEADLINE: Alabama fixes no number of days within which the sheriff must carry out the lockout after the writ issues; timing is set by county sheriff practice.
Appeal window	7 days
Best-case uncontested timeline (derived from statutory minimums — contested cases run longer)	About 23 to 25 calendar days from receipt of the notice to the earliest moment a writ of possession can issue, counting only the statutory periods. A realistic uncontested Alabama residential eviction runs materially longer, commonly several weeks to well over a month. The span is DERIVED from statutory minimums; it is not a prediction of how long any case takes. Day 0: rent comes due and is unpaid, and the landlord delivers the written termination notice; the tenant RECEIVES it. Receipt + 7 business days (Ala. Code 35-9A-421(b)) = roughly 9 to 11 calendar days depending on the weekday of receipt and any intervening official holiday; the tenancy terminates then if the rent and late fees are not paid. The landlord may then file the eviction complaint in district court (Ala. Code 6-6-330, 35-9A-461(b)) -- no statutory waiting period, but clerk processing and sheriff service consume unpredictable additional time that no statute bounds. Service + 7 calendar days = the answer deadline (Ala. R. Civ. P. 12(dc)(1)); if no answer is filed the landlord may seek a default judgment, and there is no statutory minimum interval before the court may enter it. Judgment + 7 calendar days = expiration of the automatic stay on the writ of possession (Ala. Code 35-9A-461(e)), after which the writ issues on the landlord's written application. The sheriff then executes on a timetable no statute fixes. ADDING ONLY THE STATUTORY PERIODS produces the span given above, which excludes filing, service, docketing, entry of judgment, and the lockout itself. CONTESTED CASES TAKE LONGER: a filed answer forces a trial setting; a timely post-judgment motion suspends the appeal clock; and either party may appeal to circuit court within 7 days for a trial de novo that must be set within 60 days of the appeal (Ala. Code 35-9A-461(d)), during which the tenant can hold off the writ by paying rent into the clerk. Court congestion, sheriff backlog, and any federal protection (for example servicemember or subsidized-housing rules) extend the timeline further.
Self-help eviction (lockout, utility shutoff) barred	Yes
Self-help scope and tenant remedies	Alabama prohibits self-help by statute. A landlord may not recover or take possession of the dwelling unit by action or otherwise, including by willfully interrupting heat, running water, hot water, electricity, gas, or other essential service, except on abandonment, surrender, or as chapter 9A permits (Ala. Code 35-9A-427). Statutorily prohibited. Ala. Code 35-9A-427 ('Recovery of Possession Limited'): 'A landlord may not recover or take possession of the dwelling unit by action or otherwise, including willful diminution of services to the tenant by interrupting or causing the interruption of heat, running water, hot water, electric, gas, or other essential service to the tenant, except in case of abandonment, surrender, or as permitted in this chapter.' SCOPE: the ban reaches lockouts and constructive evictions alike -- shutting off heat, running water, hot water, electricity, gas, or other essential services is expressly named. The only carve-outs are genuine abandonment, surrender, or a procedure Chapter 9A itself permits (that is, judgment and a writ of possession); the landlord's lawful entry rights under Ala. Code 35-9A-303 do not authorize an ouster. TENANT REMEDIES: Ala. Code 35-9A-407 provides that if a landlord unlawfully removes or excludes the tenant, or willfully diminishes services by interrupting heat, running water, hot water, electric, gas, or other essential service, the tenant may either recover possession or terminate the rental agreement and, in either case, recover 'an amount equal to not more than three months' periodic rent or the actual damages sustained by the tenant, whichever is greater, and reasonable attorney's fees.' If the tenant terminates, the landlord must return all security recoverable under Ala. Code 35-9A-201 and all unearned prepaid rent. A tenant subjected to excessive or harassing entry demands has separate injunctive and actual-damage remedies under Ala. Code 35-9A-442(b). Note the cap language is 'not more than' three months' rent, so the statutory-damages figure is a ceiling the court may award up to, measured against actual damages, whichever is greater.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Alabama Eviction Process Laws (verified October 1, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/eviction-process/alabama/" — 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

Official court documents are stale — the biggest trap in this state — The Alabama court system's own unlawful-detainer filing packet still states 'Seven (7) calendar days' for nonpayment and 'Fourteen (14) calendar days notice for all other' — the pre-2014 version of § 35-9A-421 — and a state-court-hosted copy of the original 2006 act likewise shows 14 days. Act 2014-279 cut the lease-violation period to seven days, and Act 2018-473 (effective June 1, 2018) changed both periods to seven BUSINESS days and tightened the cure caps. The current statute controls; anyone relying on those official PDFs gets the notice period wrong.
Old bill prints show the pre-2018 figures — Bill texts printed before Act 2018-473 took effect reproduce § 35-9A-421 as Act 2014-279 left it: 'not less than seven days' in subsections (a) and (b), and no more than four cures 'in any 12-month period' without the landlord's written consent. The 2018 committee substitute for House Bill 453, still printed on the Legislature's site, shows that older text. Act 2018-473 (House Bill 421), effective June 1, 2018, changed both figures to seven business days and two cures, and the Legislative Services Agency's official summary of Act 2018-473 says the same.
The statute itself is inconsistent about 'business' days — The operative sentences of § 35-9A-421(a) and (b) say 'seven business days,' but (b)'s final sentence refers back to 'the seven-day notice period,' (d) authorizes termination for noncurable defaults 'upon a seven-day notice' without the word 'business,' and the § 35-9A-422 repair-and-bill notice likewise says 'seven days.' Because § 35-9A-141(3) makes an unqualified 'day' a calendar day, the (a)/(b) termination notices are business-day periods while the (d) notice is most naturally a calendar-day period — but the statute does not say so, and no Alabama appellate decision construing the point was located. A residual wrinkle: the official act summary describes the 2018 business-day clarification as covering 'a notice to a tenant of noncompliance with a lease,' which reaches nonpayment as a species of noncompliance without naming subsection (b) expressly.
'Business day' is itself undefined — Chapter 9A defines 'day' but never 'business day' — whether court holidays, state holidays, or only weekends are excluded from the seven-business-day count is unresolved by statute and by any located case, and the answer can shift the real-world notice period by one to three calendar days.
No separate 'demand for possession' before filing — Chapter 9A layers no demand on top of the termination notice: the § 35-9A-421 notice itself terminates the possessory interest, and § 35-9A-141(5) then defines 'eviction' as the tenant's failure to deliver possession after that termination — unlike states that require a distinct pre-filing demand.
The 7-day appeal window is for possession — money judgments get 14 — The seven-day window to appeal to circuit court is squarely statutory (§ 35-9A-461(d), with § 6-6-350 as the Article 8 parallel), counted in calendar days with weekend/holiday rollover, and a timely post-judgment motion suspends it. The official court packet describes a separate 14-day appeal window for a money judgment; the seven days is for possession.
The appeal stay runs on rent payments, not a classic bond — § 35-9A-461(d) conditions the stay on the tenant paying all rent properly payable since the filing date into the court clerk and continuing to pay as it comes due — failure to keep paying triggers issuance of the writ on motion. The residential statute directs payment to the circuit court clerk while the parallel Article 8 provision (§ 6-6-351) says district court clerk, an unexplained discrepancy, and the precise bond-versus-rent-payment mechanics appear to vary by county: § 6-6-353 (the older Article 8 path) references a supersedeas bond, and the official Russell County packet describes a judge-set cash 'appeal bond' that an Affidavit of Substantial Hardship does not waive.
Most of the eviction clock is not statutory — Alabama sets no maximum interval from filing or service to trial (only the seven-calendar-day answer deadline plus § 35-9A-461(b)'s scheduling-precedence directive) and no deadline for the sheriff to execute the writ — the 'about seven days' lockout figure common in secondary guides is county practice, not law. The derived 23-25-day timeline is pure statutory minimums: a floor, not a forecast. The six-days-before-the-return-day service rule (§ 6-6-332(b)) belongs to the older Article 8 procedure; Rule 12(dc)'s Committee Comments apply the seven-day answer period regardless of which statute the action proceeds under.
Scope: Chapter 9A residential tenancies only, statewide — § 35-9A-122 excludes institutional residence, purchase-contract occupancy, fraternal-organization housing, hotels and transient lodging, employment-conditioned occupancy, condominium and co-op owners, primarily agricultural rentals, and post-sale seller occupancy up to 36 months. Leases outside Chapter 9A (including commercial and agricultural) instead use the older Article 8 procedure with the 10-day notice to quit of § 35-9-6. Chapter 9A also preempts county and municipal landlord-tenant ordinances statewide (§ 35-9A-121), so no local variation applies to the notice periods.
Mobile-home LOT rentals are an unresolved gray area — A manufactured home rented as a home is a 'dwelling unit' within Chapter 9A (§ 35-9A-141(4)), but a bare lot or pad rental — where the tenant owns the home and rents only the ground — is not clearly covered, and Alabama has no separate mobile-home-park tenancy act. Lot rentals fall outside these answers.
Ending a periodic tenancy is a different track — Holdover and no-fault terminations run under § 35-9A-441, not the breach-notice machinery: 7 days' written notice for week-to-week, 30 days for month-to-month (given before the periodic rental date), and a willful bad-faith holdover exposes the tenant to the greater of three months' rent or actual damages, plus attorney fees.
Federal overlays are not reflected here — The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, VAWA, and the CARES Act 30-day notice requirement for covered subsidized and federally backed properties (to the extent still operative) are not reflected in these state-law values.
The self-help ban is statutory, not judge-made — § 35-9A-427 is an express statutory prohibition on lockouts and utility shutoffs, not a case-law doctrine — which is why it is stated here as a flat rule.
Where the code text lives — Code sections are cited to the Legislature's official ALISON code viewer, anchored by further official State of Alabama sources that independently confirm the decisive figures: the Judicial System's published Rule 12 (which supplies the seven-calendar-day answer deadline and cross-references the eviction statutes by section number) and the official Statement of Claim eviction form (which independently confirms the seven-day answer period and the posting-plus-mailing service method). No headline value rests on a blog or law-firm summary, and the Legislative Services Agency's official 2018 summary corroborates the 'seven business days' and two-cures figures.
Currency — Section text is that of the current Code of Alabama on the Legislature's code service, which includes the acts of the 2026 Regular Session; the amendment history ends at Act 2018-473 for § 35-9A-421 and Act 2009-633 for § 35-9A-461, and no act passed from 2019 through 2026 amended these sections. Act 2024-237 did not amend chapter 9A; it created chapter 9B, whose section 35-9B-9 is described in the note on squatters.
A holdover tenant is not a squatter, and the squatter route is not an eviction — A 2024 act created a separate chapter, Title 35 chapter 9B, letting an owner ask law enforcement to remove a squatter on a sworn affidavit instead of filing an eviction. Section 35-9B-9 draws the line: a squatter is someone occupying a dwelling who is not entitled to be there under a lease or rental agreement and is not authorized by a tenant, and the term does not include a tenant who holds over in a periodic tenancy under section 35-9A-441. Occupancy by a squatter sits outside chapters 9 and 9A altogether, so removing one does not require an eviction action; conversely, a tenant who stays on after the term ends is still removed only through the eviction process described on this page.
As-of date — These answers state Alabama law as of October 1, 2026; every figure rests on the text of a statute or a court rule, and every source cited resolved at that date.

Common questions: Alabama eviction process

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 much notice does a landlord have to give before filing an eviction for unpaid rent in Alabama?: 7 business days. Those 7 days are BUSINESS days and they run from the tenant's receipt of the written notice, not from mailing or posting, so in practice the period stretches across nine to eleven calendar days. Paying the rent and late fees stated in the notice within that window prevents termination (Ala. Code 35-9A-421(b)).
How much notice is required to evict for a lease violation in Alabama?: 7 business days. Those 7 days are BUSINESS days running from the tenant's receipt of a written notice that specifies the acts and omissions constituting the breach and states the termination date. The default is cure: remedy the breach before that date and the agreement does not terminate (Ala. Code 35-9A-421(a)).
How long does an eviction take in Alabama?: About 23 to 25 calendar days from receipt of the notice to the earliest moment a writ of possession can issue, counting only the statutory periods. A realistic uncontested Alabama residential eviction runs materially longer, commonly several weeks to well over a month.
How long does a tenant have to appeal an eviction judgment in Alabama?: 7 days.
Can a landlord change the locks or shut off utilities instead of going to court in Alabama?: No — Alabama bars self-help eviction by statute; a landlord must go through the court process. Alabama prohibits self-help by statute. A landlord may not recover or take possession of the dwelling unit by action or otherwise, including by willfully interrupting heat, running water, hot water, electricity, gas, or other essential service, except on abandonment, surrender, or as chapter 9A permits (Ala. Code 35-9A-427).

Changes since last full verification

The Verified date above (October 1, 2026) marks the last time every figure on this page was verified end-to-end against official sources. The changes below were published since then, each verified against the official source it names (what these dates mean).

Correction, October 2, 2026 — Notice periods now print in the unit each statute uses (correction). Entry notice: the statutes of Alabama, Arizona, Hawaii, Kentucky, Rhode Island and Washington say two days and Oklahoma's says one day, and those pages show days; Delaware's and Vermont's say 48 hours, and their pages, which had shown 2 days, now show 48 hours. Eviction notice for unpaid rent: California, Florida and Utah give three days that leave out Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays, and their pages now show 3 business days, as does California's lease-violation notice; Nevada's shows 7 judicial days; Alabama's two notices show 7 business days. Each statute was read on its official site on October 1, 2026. No period changed.
Correction, October 2, 2026 — Alabama (correction): the eviction page had shown the notices for unpaid rent and for a lease violation as 7 days. The statute gives seven business days after the tenant receives the notice (Ala. Code 35-9A-421(a) and (b)), and the page now shows business days. The business-day wording dates from Act 2018-473, effective June 1, 2018, not from the 2014 act the late fee page had named. Also corrected: a tenant who appeals holds off the writ by paying the circuit court clerk the rent that has come due since the case was filed, not all rent owed (35-9A-461(d)); a sheriff or constable who neglects or refuses to execute the process forfeits $200 to the party aggrieved, which the page had called a fine (6-6-333); the circuit court may hear a case from the start where a money claim joined with it exceeds $6,000 (12-11-30); the notice for a default that cannot be cured is a seven-day notice the statute does not require to be written (35-9A-421(d)); the bar on local rent control leaves a local government free to manage property in which it has a property interest (11-80-8.1). The entry page now says that the sentence setting two days' notice speaks of showing the premises, and that a general notice or schedule given more than two days ahead covers repairs, maintenance and pest control (35-9A-303(c) and (d)).

Citations

Ala. Code § 35-9A-421 (Noncompliance with rental agreement; failure to pay rent) · subsecs. (a), (b), (d); as amended by Act 2018-473 (eff. June 1, 2018) (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-461 (Landlord's action for eviction, rent, monetary damages, or other relief) · subsecs. (a), (b), (c), (d), (e) (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-141 (Definitions) · (3) 'day' means calendar day notwithstanding Ala. R. Civ. P. 6, with weekend/holiday rollover; (5) 'eviction' (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-427 (Recovery of possession limited) · entire section (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-407 (Tenant's remedies for landlord's unlawful ouster, exclusion, or diminution of service) · entire section (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-424 (Waiver of landlord's right to terminate) · acceptance of rent with knowledge of default waives right to terminate for that breach (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-422 (Failure to maintain) · seven days' written notice; landlord repair-and-bill remedy (non-terminating) (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-441 (Periodic tenancy; holdover remedies) · (a) 7 days week-to-week; (b) 30 days month-to-month; (c) holdover damages (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-121 (Territorial application; local ordinances superseded) · exclusive remedy; county/municipal ordinances superseded (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-122 (Exclusions from application of chapter) · (1)-(8) exclusions (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 6-6-310 (Forcible entry and unlawful detainer — definitions) · (2) 'unlawful detainer' (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 6-6-330 (Jurisdiction — district court) · entire section (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 6-6-332 (Process — form of notice; service and return) · (b) service at least six days before the return day; posting-and-mailing (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 6-6-337 (Proceedings upon determination for either plaintiff or defendant) · (a) writ of execution restoring possession; successive writs; contempt (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 6-6-350 (Appeal to circuit court from district court) · seven days after entry of judgment; trial set within 60 days (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 6-6-351 (Writs of restitution or possession — suspension upon payment of rent by defendant) · (a)-(b) appeal does not stay writ absent payment of rent into court (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9-6 (Notice to quit for breach or default of terms of lease — non-URLTA leases) · 10 days' notice to quit; no other notice or demand of possession necessary (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. R. Civ. P. 12(dc)(1) (District court rule — seven calendar days to answer an eviction or unlawful detainer) · Rule 12(dc)(1), as amended 11-28-2012 (Alabama Judicial System, official publication) (verified 2026) Official source
Alabama Unified Judicial System Form C-59 (Rev. 10/26) — Statement of Claim, Eviction/Unlawful Detainer (Notice to Defendant; posting-and-mailing return of service) · Notice to Defendant(s) — answer within seven (7) days after service or posting (verified 2026) Official source
Act 2018-473 (HB421), summarized in Legislative Services Agency, 'Summaries of General Laws Enacted' (2018 Regular Session), pp. 40-41 - amends Ala. Code 35-9A-421 · Act 2018-473, HB421 entry (effective June 1, 2018) (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9B-9 (Relation to Chapters 9 and 9A) (Act 2024-237, § 5) · (a) definition of squatter excludes a section 35-9A-441 holdover tenant; (b) squatter occupancy excluded from chapters 9 and 9A (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Every section these answers rest on was read on October 1, 2026 on the Legislature's Code of Alabama service at alison.legislature.state.al.us, which includes the acts of the 2026 Regular Session: all of Title 35, chapter 9A; sections 35-9-6 and 35-9B-9; Title 6, chapter 6, article 8; sections 12-11-30 and 12-12-30; and section 11-80-8.1, each with its credit line. The history of the 60-day deposit deadline and the seven-business-day notices was read in the enrolled Acts 2014-279 and 2018-473 on the Secretary of State's acts roll, and in Act 2006-316 with its Alabama Comments on the state judiciary's site. The district court provisions of the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure (Rules 6, 12, 55 and 62) were read on judicial.alabama.gov and the eviction complaint form C-59 on eforms.alacourt.gov. No act from 2019 through 2026 amended a section cited here: each section's credit line, the 2026 table of code sections affected and the 2025 and 2026 act lists were searched, and the 2026 special session dealt only with redistricting. Negative answers (no late-fee cap, no grace period, no deposit interest, no separate account, no rent-increase notice) rest on the full text of chapter 9A and a search of the whole code for each subject; the manufactured-home chapters (Title 35, chapter 12A and Title 24, chapters 5 and 6) hold no tenancy terms on these subjects.