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

10 days. The statute requires not less than 10 days' notice and prescribes no wording; the optional form in IC 32-31-1-7 tells the tenant to vacate unless the rent due is paid within ten days. 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 in days — 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 October 2, 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 23 more cited sources · Verified October 2, 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 statute requires not less than 10 days' notice and prescribes no wording; the optional form in IC 32-31-1-7 tells the tenant to vacate unless the rent due is paid within ten days. 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 in days — 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. 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). 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 October 2, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/eviction-process/indiana/" — 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

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.
Where the 48-hour rule comes from — The 48-hour removal rule is IC 32-30-3-10, in the chapter that governs actions to recover possession of real estate (IC 32-30-3). That chapter's sections on the order of possession (IC 32-30-3-7 to 32-30-3-10) do not separate an order issued before judgment from one issued on a final judgment, and IC 32-30-3-6 names both kinds. No other section of IC 32-30 or IC 32-31 sets a removal period for an order issued on a final judgment, which supersedes any prejudgment order (IC 32-30-3-12).
2022 guardrails: dismissal duties and record-sealing — P.L.164-2022 added procedural guardrails: plaintiffs must dismiss resolved cases (IC 32-31-10-3), a case the plaintiff leaves without action for 180 days can be dismissed after the court's notice, and the dismissal order seals the records under IC 32-31-11 (IC 32-31-10-4), and eviction diversion programs must be voluntary. P.L.128-2025 went further for a tenant who loses: on the tenant's motion the court must order the record sealed, and may do so without a hearing, once the tenant has satisfied a money judgment entered in the eviction, or seven years after a final judgment that carried no money judgment. A judgment sealed under the automatic route is also no longer a lien on real estate.
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 rental rates or the parts of the landlord-tenant relationship listed in IC 32-31-1-20(c), including the rights of the parties to a lease, and the eviction procedure here is set by state statute and the Indiana court rules, so it is 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.
Three eviction outcomes seal themselves, with no motion and no hearing — Where an eviction action is dismissed, where judgment is entered in the tenant's favor, or where a judgment against the tenant is later overturned or vacated on appeal, the court must order on its own motion that the clerk and the operators of any state, regional or local case management system withhold every record in the case, including the landlord's petition for possession, and must direct the clerk to redact or permanently seal the court's own records. The order issues at the moment of the dismissal, the tenant's judgment, or the appellate opinion becoming final, without an additional hearing, and a money or costs judgment covered by such an order is not a lien on real estate. Sealed records may still go to a person under a court order, to a law enforcement agency for an authorized activity, or where the chapter or other law requires (IC 32-31-11-3(a), (c), (d), (g)).
The emergency route ends in a seven-day order to give up possession — On the emergency track, the hearing comes within three business days and the standard of proof is a preponderance of the evidence on every route. Where the court finds that the tenant or the tenant's guest committed a crime affecting the health and safety of another tenant, the landlord or the landlord's agent, and that immediate and serious injury, loss or damage has been or will be suffered, or that the tenant gave materially false information to induce the landlord to lease or give possession, the court must order the tenant to return possession not later than seven days from the date of the emergency hearing. On the waste route the order is to return possession, to stop the waste, or both, with no day count attached. Failure to pay rent is expressly not waste (IC 32-31-6-5, 32-31-6-7, 32-31-6-7.1).

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 statute requires not less than 10 days' notice and prescribes no wording; the optional form in IC 32-31-1-7 tells the tenant to vacate unless the rent due is paid within ten days. 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 in days — 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.

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
Ind. Code § 32-31-11-3 (nondisclosure orders in eviction cases; as amended by P.L.128-2025) · (a)-(b), (g) (verified 2026) Official source
IC 32-31-6-7.1 · (a)-(b) (verified 2026) Official source
IC 32-31-6-7 · (a)-(c) (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Every section these answers rest on was read on October 2, 2026 in the Indiana General Assembly's own publication of the Indiana Code at iga.in.gov (the 2026 edition, published June 30, 2026, which carries the acts of the 2026 session in each section's history line): IC 32-31-1 (termination notices, the ten-day notice for unpaid rent and its optional form, and the bar on local regulation in IC 32-31-1-20), IC 32-31-2.9 (the tenancies the residential statutes do not reach), IC 32-31-3 (security deposits, read whole), IC 32-31-4 to 32-31-7 (a tenant's property, the entry and lockout rules of IC 32-31-5-6, the 30-day notice of IC 32-31-5-4, emergency possessory orders, tenant duties), IC 32-31-10 to 32-31-12, IC 32-30-2 and 32-30-3 (actions for possession and the order of possession), IC 33-29-2-4, 33-34-3-3 and 33-34-3-15.1 (the courts), IC 36-1-2-23 (what a unit of local government is), IC 24-7-5-5 and IC 16-41-27 (mobile home communities). No 2026 public law amended IC 32-31, IC 32-30-2 or IC 32-30-3, and the 2025 and 2026 editions of those chapters are identical. Senate Enrolled Act 148 of 2020 was read as enrolled, with the General Assembly's roll calls on the veto override (Senate, February 8, 2021; House, February 17, 2021) and its record of the Governor's veto on March 25, 2020. Small Claims Rules 2 and 4 and Appellate Rule 9 were read on the Indiana courts' rules site, each with its effective date, and Gershin v. Demming, 685 N.E.2d 1125 (Ind. Ct. App. 1997), in the reporter. September 5, 2026 addendum: the decisive figures touched by the 2025-2026 enactments reviewed that day were re-read on the official host — IC 32-31-11-3 on iga.in.gov; the earlier reads stand as recorded.