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

10 days. The written notice must say that the landlord will terminate the lease unless the rent is paid, and paying in full before the notice period expires defeats the termination. A written lease can shorten the notice or waive it entirely, and many Indiana leases do.

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

No statutory period — see the notes on this page. Indiana has no statutory cure-or-quit notice period for lease violations. A violation-based termination runs on whatever notice the lease itself sets, and six situations require no notice at all.

How long does an eviction take in Indiana?

Roughly three weeks from notice to lockout in an uncontested nonpayment case filed as soon as the notice expires, or as soon as the lease waives it. That is a floor built from statutory minimums, not a promise, and the largest variable is the county court's calendar rather than any statute.

How long does a tenant have to appeal an eviction judgment in Indiana?

No eviction-specific deadline — the standard civil appeal window applies (see notes).

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

No — Indiana bars self-help eviction by statute; a landlord must go through the court process. Changing the locks, adding an excluding device, removing doors, windows, fixtures or appliances, and shutting off electricity, gas, water or other essential services are all barred without a court order. A locked-out tenant can be back before a judge within three business days.

What is the eviction process and timeline in Indiana?

Verified July 21, 2026 All Indiana topics →

Indiana requires a 10-day notice to pay or quit before a landlord can evict for unpaid rent, and the tenancy survives if the tenant pays in full before the notice period expires — but a written lease can waive the notice entirely, and no notice at all is required for a fixed-term lease that has ended, a tenant at sufferance, or the other situations listed in IC 32-31-1-8.

Cited to IC 32-31-1-6 and 20 more Indiana statutes · Verified July 21, 2026

There is no statutory cure period for lease violations; those terminations run on the lease's own terms. The eviction itself is an action for possession, usually filed on the small claims docket when past-due rent is $10,000 or less, with an informal trial on a court-set date rather than a statutory deadline — though a landlord who files the possession affidavit gets a hearing floor of five business days after service, and either side can invoke an emergency possessory order (lockouts, utility shutoffs, waste, crimes affecting health and safety, or application fraud) that must be heard within three business days. After judgment the court issues an order of possession to the sheriff, who may remove occupants no earlier than 48 hours after serving it, and the tenant's belongings can only be removed under a court order, with a 45-day window to claim them from storage and essentials released without payment. Self-help eviction — changing locks, removing doors or appliances, or cutting off electricity, gas, or water — is squarely illegal without a court order, and a locked-out tenant can be back before a judge within three business days. Best case, an uncontested nonpayment eviction runs roughly three weeks from notice to lockout, driven mostly by the county court's calendar. Appeals follow the standard 30-day civil window.

Indiana eviction process at a glance

Nonpayment notice (pay-or-quit)	10 days
Nonpayment notice rules (day counting, cure rights, service)	The written notice must say that the landlord will terminate the lease unless the rent is paid, and paying in full before the notice period expires defeats the termination. A written lease can shorten the notice or waive it entirely, and many Indiana leases do. IC 32-31-1-6: if a tenant 'refuses or neglects to pay rent when due, a landlord may terminate the lease with not less than ten (10) days notice' — UNLESS (1) 'the parties otherwise agreed' (a written lease can shorten or eliminate the notice entirely, and many Indiana leases do) or (2) 'the tenant pays the rent in full before the notice period expires' (payment in full within the 10 days defeats the termination). The statute does not specify calendar vs business days; the days are ordinarily counted as calendar days — contrast IC 32-31-6-5 and IC 32-30-3-2, which say 'business days' expressly when the legislature means it. There is NO statutory post-filing or post-judgment reinstatement ladder: the only codified cure right is payment in full before the notice expires; after that, reinstatement is a matter of lease terms or landlord agreement. Service under IC 32-31-1-9: on the tenant personally; if the tenant cannot be found, on a person residing at the premises with an explanation of the contents; if no such person is found, by affixing a copy to a conspicuous part of the premises. A statutory notice form is supplied by IC 32-31-1-7.
Lease-violation notice period	No statutory period — see the notes on this page
Lease-violation notice rules (cure vs. termination)	Indiana has no statutory cure-or-quit notice period for lease violations. A violation-based termination runs on whatever notice the lease itself sets, and six situations require no notice at all. IC 32-31-1 (secs. 1-23) fixes notice periods only for nonpayment (10 days), tenancy at will (1 month), year-to-year (3 months), and short periodic tenancies (notice equal to the period, IC 32-31-1-4). Violation-based terminations run on the lease's own notice terms, and IC 32-31-1-8 dispenses with notice altogether in six situations, listed among the unconditional-quit grounds. The closest statutory cure structure is IC 32-31-7-7(b): before suing to ENFORCE a tenant obligation (damages/injunction, not possession), the landlord must give notice of the noncompliance and 'a reasonable amount of time to remedy' — no fixed day count, and it does not govern possession actions.
Unconditional-quit grounds	Indiana frames this as notice being unnecessary rather than as an unconditional-quit notice. IC 32-31-1-8: notice is NOT required to terminate where (1) the lease is for a specified period, (2) the termination time is specified in the contract, (3) a tenant at will commits waste, (4) the tenant is a tenant at sufferance, (5) the lease requires advance rent and the tenant refuses/neglects to pay it in advance, or (6) no landlord-tenant relationship exists. Separately, a landlord may skip the ordinary track and petition for an EMERGENCY possessory order (heard within 3 business days) if the tenant has committed or threatens waste (waste expressly excludes nonpayment, IC 32-31-6-7(a)), if a tenant or tenant's guest 'has committed a crime that affects the health and safety' of another tenant, the landlord, or the landlord's agent, or if the tenant materially falsified information to induce the lease (IC 32-31-6-3(a)(2)-(3), as amended by P.L.157-2025).
Court and action	Indiana has no 'unlawful detainer' label: the umbrella term is 'eviction action' — an action for possession of the rental premises or to evict the tenant, including an emergency possessory order petition (IC 32-31-10-2) — resting on the ejectment/recovery-of-possession action of IC 32-30-2-1 with the prejudgment possession procedure of IC 32-30-3. Most residential evictions are filed on the small claims docket: IC 33-29-2-4(b)(2)-(3) gives small claims dockets jurisdiction over 'possessory actions between landlord and tenant in which the rent due at the time the action is filed does not exceed ten thousand dollars ($10,000)' plus emergency possessory actions under IC 32-31-6; Marion County's township small claims courts have matching jurisdiction (IC 33-34-3-3). Above the $10,000 past-due-rent line the case goes to circuit or superior court plenary dockets. Small claims procedure is governed by the Indiana Small Claims Rules — informal trials, appearance constitutes a general denial (IC 33-29-2-5) — and a defendant may demand a jury within 10 days of receiving the notice of claim, which transfers the case to the plenary docket (Small Claims Rule 4(C)); Marion County small claims courts sit without juries (IC 33-34-3-10).
Filing to hearing	No fixed statutory window for the ordinary eviction hearing: Small Claims Rule 2(B)(3) requires only that the appearance date be 'set by the court with the objective of dispensing speedy justice' — actual settings are county-calendar-driven, commonly two to three weeks. Two statutory anchors do exist: (1) if the landlord files the possession affidavit under IC 32-30-3-1, the clerk issues an order to show cause and the possession hearing 'may take place no earlier than five (5) business days after the date of service on the defendant' (IC 32-30-3-2(a)); a PREJUDGMENT possession order from that hearing requires the plaintiff to post a surety undertaking (IC 32-30-3-6), and the tenant can stay it with a counter-undertaking (IC 32-30-3-8); (2) an emergency possessory order petition must be heard 'not later than three (3) business days after the petition is filed' (IC 32-31-6-5) — both figures expressly in business days.
Writ of possession and lockout	Indiana's statutory instrument is the 'order of possession' (colloquially a writ of possession in county practice), directed to the sheriff or other executing officer (IC 32-30-3-7), served on the defendant personally, at the abode, or by mail to the last known address (IC 32-30-3-9). The executing officer removes the occupants 'not earlier than forty-eight (48) hours after the order of possession is served' (IC 32-30-3-10). No statute imposes a minimum wait between final judgment and issuance — in eviction practice the court typically sets a move-out date in the possession order; a final judgment supersedes any prejudgment possession order (IC 32-30-3-12). Tenant belongings: after a possession award the landlord may seek a court order to remove the tenant's personal property and deliver it to a warehouseman or approved storage facility upon personally served notice (IC 32-31-4-2(d)-(e), 32-31-4-3); the tenant has 45 days after notice to claim the property before it may be sold (IC 32-31-4-5), and exempt property (medically necessary items, trade tools, a week's clothing, blankets, child-care items) must be released without payment.
Appeal window	No eviction-specific deadline — the standard civil appeal window applies (see notes)
Best-case uncontested timeline (derived from statutory minimums — contested cases run longer)	Roughly three weeks from notice to lockout in an uncontested nonpayment case filed as soon as the notice expires, or as soon as the lease waives it. That is a floor built from statutory minimums, not a promise, and the largest variable is the county court's calendar rather than any statute. The arithmetic: about 10 days of notice, plus roughly a week from service to hearing, plus 2 or more days to enforcement. The filing-to-hearing leg is court-calendar-driven rather than statutory, so county small claims calendars commonly stretch the middle leg, and contested cases, jury demands (which transfer the case to the plenary docket), and appeals run longer. The chain behind the figure: a 10-day pay-or-quit notice (calendar days, and skippable entirely if the lease waives notice under IC 32-31-1-6(1) or an IC 32-31-1-8 exception applies), then filing and service, then a hearing on a court-set date (statutory floor of 5 business days after service where the IC 32-30-3 show-cause route is used), then the order of possession, then removal no earlier than 48 hours after the order is served.
Self-help eviction (lockout, utility shutoff) barred	Yes
Self-help scope and tenant remedies	Changing the locks, adding an excluding device, removing doors, windows, fixtures or appliances, and shutting off electricity, gas, water or other essential services are all barred without a court order. A locked-out tenant can be back before a judge within three business days. IC 32-31-5-6(c): 'Except as authorized by judicial order, a landlord may not deny or interfere with a tenant's access to or possession of the tenant's dwelling unit by commission of any act', expressly including changing locks or adding an excluding device, removing doors, windows, fixtures, or appliances, and interrupting, reducing, or shutting off electricity, gas, water, or other essential services (interruption is permitted only for emergency, good-faith repairs, or necessary construction). The prohibition does not apply to an ABANDONED unit, narrowly defined: rent unpaid/unoffered AND circumstances a reasonable person would read as surrender — a lease may not define abandonment more loosely (32-31-5-6(a)-(b)). Remedy: the tenant petitions for an emergency possessory order on the small claims docket (IC 32-31-6-2, -3(a)(1)); the court must hear it within 3 business days (IC 32-31-6-5) and, on a preponderance finding of violation plus immediate and serious injury, SHALL order possession returned and/or the violation stopped, and may make other just orders including a follow-up hearing on related claims (IC 32-31-6-6). Unlike many states, Indiana codifies no multiple-damages formula for lockouts; monetary relief runs through ordinary damages actions. Retaliatory eviction for protected tenant activity is separately prohibited (IC 32-31-8.5-4, -5).

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Indiana Eviction Process Laws (verified July 21, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/eviction-process/indiana/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Every figure above is cited to the Indiana statute in the citations section below.

Notes and caveats

The 10-day notice is a floor — and a lease can waive it entirely — IC 32-31-1-6 says 'not less than' ten days, and it is waivable by lease under clause (1). Most summaries miss that a lease clause eliminates the notice — the single biggest practical fact in Indiana evictions.
The 10 days are calendar days — by contrast, not by statement — The statute is silent on day-counting; the periods here are counted in calendar days because IC 32-31-6-5 and IC 32-30-3-2 say 'business days' expressly when the legislature means it.
Two empty answers are genuine absences — and appeals run the normal route — No cure-or-quit statute for lease violations exists, and no eviction-specific appeal window exists. Marion County small claims judgments after June 30, 2018 appeal to the Court of Appeals 'in the same manner as a judgment from a circuit or superior court' (IC 33-34-3-15.1(b)) — i.e., the 30-day Notice of Appeal of Appellate Rule 9(A)(1) — and other small claims dockets are dockets of circuit or superior courts that follow the same route.
The 48-hour rule is borrowed from the prejudgment chapter — The 48-hour removal rule sits in the prejudgment-possession chapter and is applied here to orders of possession issued under IC 32-30-3 generally — a flagged judgment call. Final-judgment enforcement timing is otherwise court-set.
2022 guardrails: dismissal duties and record-sealing — P.L.164-2022 added procedural guardrails: plaintiffs must dismiss resolved cases (IC 32-31-10-3), stale cases (180 days inactive) are dismissed with record-sealing under IC 32-31-11 (IC 32-31-10-4), and eviction-diversion programs must be voluntary.
2025 laws: broader emergency petitions, and a non-eviction squatter path — P.L.157-2025 expanded landlord emergency petitions (crime affecting health/safety, application fraud). P.L.191-2025 added the separate squatter-removal chapter (IC 32-31-12), which excludes anyone who ever had a rental agreement — not an eviction path.
Out of scope: mobile home communities and RV tenancies — Mobile home communities and RV tenancies are not covered by these figures.
Uniform statewide, but county calendars vary — Local units may not regulate the landlord-tenant relationship, including eviction procedure (IC 32-31-1-20), so these state rules are uniform across counties — though hearing-setting speed varies by county calendar.
Current through the 2026 session — Every cited provision comes from the 2026-edition Indiana Code, published June 30, 2026 and incorporating the 2026 session; the court rules are the current versions published by the Indiana courts.

Common questions: Indiana 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 Indiana?: 10 days. The written notice must say that the landlord will terminate the lease unless the rent is paid, and paying in full before the notice period expires defeats the termination. A written lease can shorten the notice or waive it entirely, and many Indiana leases do.
How much notice is required to evict for a lease violation in Indiana?: No statutory period — see the notes on this page. Indiana has no statutory cure-or-quit notice period for lease violations. A violation-based termination runs on whatever notice the lease itself sets, and six situations require no notice at all.
How long does an eviction take in Indiana?: Roughly three weeks from notice to lockout in an uncontested nonpayment case filed as soon as the notice expires, or as soon as the lease waives it. That is a floor built from statutory minimums, not a promise, and the largest variable is the county court's calendar rather than any statute.
How long does a tenant have to appeal an eviction judgment in Indiana?: No eviction-specific deadline — the standard civil appeal window applies (see notes).
Can a landlord change the locks or shut off utilities instead of going to court in Indiana?: No — Indiana bars self-help eviction by statute; a landlord must go through the court process. Changing the locks, adding an excluding device, removing doors, windows, fixtures or appliances, and shutting off electricity, gas, water or other essential services are all barred without a court order. A locked-out tenant can be back before a judge within three business days.

Statute citations

IC 32-31-1-6 (verified 2026) Official source
IC 32-31-1-8 (verified 2026) Official source
IC 32-31-1-9 (a)-(c) (verified 2026) Official source
IC 32-31-5-6 (a)-(c) (verified 2026) Official source
IC 32-31-6-3 (a) (verified 2026) Official source
IC 32-31-6-5 (verified 2026) Official source
IC 32-31-6-6 (a)-(c) (verified 2026) Official source
IC 32-30-2-1 (verified 2026) Official source
IC 32-30-3-2 (a) (verified 2026) Official source
IC 32-30-3-6 (verified 2026) Official source
IC 32-30-3-10 (verified 2026) Official source
IC 32-31-4-2 (d)-(e) (verified 2026) Official source
IC 32-31-4-5 (verified 2026) Official source
IC 32-31-7-7 (b), (f) (verified 2026) Official source
IC 32-31-10-2 (verified 2026) Official source
IC 33-29-2-4 (b) (verified 2026) Official source
IC 33-34-3-3 (verified 2026) Official source
IC 33-34-3-15.1 (b) (verified 2026) Official source
Ind. Small Claims Rule 2 (B)(3) (verified 2026) Official source
Ind. Small Claims Rule 4 (C) (verified 2026) Official source
Ind. Appellate Rule 9 (A)(1) (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Official-host verbatim reads on the iga.in.gov 2025 code viewer, completed 2026-07-10: IC 32-31-1-20 in full (subsections (a)-(c), the seven-item enumerated list in (c), the void-and-unenforceable clause, and the history line 'As added by P.L.2-2002, SEC.16. Amended by P.L.266-2017, SEC.1; P.L.168-2020, SEC.17; P.L.215-2021, SEC.1'), IC 32-31-1-6, and IC 32-31-1-7 — all matching the previously recorded mirror-verified text with no substantive differences. SEA 148-2020's designation was pinned from the official iga.in.gov bill record: vetoed 2020-03-25, veto overridden Senate 2021-02-08 (Roll Call 64: 30-17) and House 2021-02-17 (Roll Call 159: 67-33), 'Public Law 168' entered 2021-02-17; the code viewer cites it as P.L.168-2020. Original verification basis (2026-07-09): Indiana's official code viewer requires interactive access, so text was verified on two independent code mirrors and reconciled verbatim: FindLaw (codes.findlaw.com, 'current as of January 01, 2026') and Justia's archived official-text PDFs of IC 32-31 chapters 1, 3, and 5 (statecodesfiles.justia.com, 2013 edition, carrying the official 'As added by P.L.' history lines). Sections double-read across both hosts with figures matching verbatim: IC 32-31-3-12, 32-31-3-14, 32-31-3-15, 32-31-3-16 (45-day deadline, forfeiture rule, attorney fees), 32-31-5-4 (30-day modification notice), 32-31-5-6 (entry, all subsections), 32-31-1-1, 32-31-1-2, and 32-31-1-4 (termination-notice periods); 32-31-3-12/-14/-15/-16 were additionally read on law.onecle.com. IC 32-31-1-20 (preemption) was read verbatim on FindLaw (current through Jan. 1, 2026) and in the pre-amendment 2013 official text; the current-text official-host read was completed 2026-07-10 (see above). Scope sections IC 32-31-2.9-1/-3/-4, 32-31-5-1, and 32-31-5-3 read on FindLaw/2013 PDF. 2025-2026 session sweeps (IGA subject list 'Landlords and Tenants', LegiScan) on 2026-07-09 found no enacted change to any answer in this record; 2026 bills SB 127 and HB 1435 died at the session's March 2026 sine die adjournment, and HEA 1001-2026 (signed) addresses zoning/permitting only.