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

No fixed statutory period — the summary above explains what, if anything, must precede filing. No pre-filing notice of any kind is statutorily required in South Dakota, and there is no statutory cure right. The three days that survive are an arrears wait before the landlord may sue, not a notice the tenant receives.

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

No statutory period — see the notes on this page. South Dakota sets no statutory notice period for a lease violation. Termination rides on the lease's own clause rather than on a statutory period, and the state has no two-number cure-or-quit statute, having never adopted URLTA.

How long does an eviction take in South Dakota?

Roughly 11 to 14 days from the missed rent due date for a nonpayment case the tenant does not defend -- among the shortest statutory floors in the country. That figure is a derivation from statutory minimums, not a promise and not an observed average.

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

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 South Dakota?

No — South Dakota bars self-help eviction by statute; a landlord must go through the court process. SDCL 43-32-6 makes a residential landlord who unlawfully removes or excludes a tenant, or willfully cuts electric, gas, water or other essential service, liable for two months' rent plus return of any advance rent and deposit. The tenant may also sue for possession, or terminate the lease.

What is the eviction process and timeline in South Dakota?

Verified July 25, 2026 All South Dakota topics →

To evict a tenant in South Dakota a landlord files a verified complaint and summons for forcible entry and detainer -- and since July 1, 2024 serves NO advance notice to quit, because SDCL 21-16-2, which had required three days' written notice, was repealed outright by 2024 S.D. Sess. Laws ch. 75, sec. 1.

Cited to SDCL 21-16-1 subdivisions (1)-(7); (4) nonpayment and holdover; (7) lease violation and 47 more South Dakota statutes · Verified July 25, 2026

For nonpayment the landlord simply waits until the tenant "fails to pay his rent for three days after the same shall be due" (SDCL 21-16-1(4)) and then files; those three days are a waiting period on the lawsuit, not a notice the tenant receives, and there is no statutory right to cure by paying the arrears. For a lease violation there is no statutory period at all -- the lease's own terms must operate to terminate the tenancy (SDCL 21-16-1(7)), or the landlord terminates under SDCL 43-32-18 for use contrary to the lease or for failure to repair within a reasonable time after request. The case goes to either a circuit court or a magistrate court presided over by a magistrate judge (SDCL 21-16-3). The tenant has five days from service to appear and plead, or thirty days after publication of service, whichever comes sooner (SDCL 21-16-7); because that period is under eleven days, weekends and legal holidays do not count against it (SDCL 15-6-6(a)). Trial may be set on two days' notice once issue is joined (SDCL 21-16-8). Judgment for the plaintiff is for delivery of possession (SDCL 21-16-10), enforced by a writ of execution served by the sheriff, a constable or a court-appointed referee (SDCL 15-18-5), and "[n]o execution for possession can be served except in the daytime" (SDCL 21-16-12). Landlord self-help is barred for residential tenancies: a lessor who unlawfully removes or excludes a tenant, or willfully interrupts electric, gas, water or other essential service, owes two months' rent plus return of advance rent and deposit, and the tenant may recover possession by suit (SDCL 43-32-6). One month-to-month wrinkle: a no-cause eviction still needs one month's termination notice first (SDCL 43-32-15).

South Dakota eviction process at a glance

Nonpayment notice (pay-or-quit)	No fixed statutory period — the summary above explains what, if anything, must precede filing
Nonpayment notice rules (day counting, cure rights, service)	No pre-filing notice of any kind is statutorily required in South Dakota, and there is no statutory cure right. The three days that survive are an arrears wait before the landlord may sue, not a notice the tenant receives. SDCL 21-16-2 -- which required that "[i]n all cases arising under subdivisions 21-16-1(4), (5), and (6), three days' written notice to quit must be given to the lessee, subtenant, or party in possession, before proceedings can be instituted" -- was REPEALED by 2024 S.D. Sess. Laws ch. 75, sec. 1 (SB 90, signed March 14, 2024; effective July 1, 2024 under SDCL 2-14-16). The codified section now reads only "21-16-2. Repealed." with the repealing act in its source note. What survives is an arrears precondition on the cause of action, not a notice: an action is maintainable under SDCL 21-16-1(4) only where a lessee "holds over after the termination of his lease or expiration of his term, or fails to pay his rent for three days after the same shall be due." Those three days are a maturity condition on the claim, computed under the general statutory rule SDCL 2-14-14 ("excluding the first day and including the last, unless the last is a holiday") -- CALENDAR days: intermediate Saturdays and Sundays are counted, and a Saturday or Sunday last day is not extended (only a holiday is). SDCL 21-16-6 states exhaustively what must be served, and it is not a notice to quit: "The complaint shall be in writing and verified by the plaintiff or the plaintiff's agent or signed by the plaintiff's attorney, and served with a summons." No statute requires the complaint to allege that notice was given. There is no pay-and-stay: nothing in ch. 21-16 or ch. 43-32 lets a tenant defeat a filed action by tendering arrears, and no statute fixes a cure deadline; the only tender-linked provision is SDCL 21-16-7, which conditions an adjournment longer than fourteen days on the defendant posting an undertaking for accruing rent and costs. Service: by "[a] sheriff, any person legally authorized to effect service under sec. 15-6-4(c), or constable of the county," who "shall attempt to serve a lessee, subtenant, or party in possession with a minimum of two service attempts. Each attempt shall be at least one week apart and both attempts shall be within thirty days" (SDCL 21-16-6); on the second attempt the summons may be posted conspicuously on the property, delivered to a person residing there if one can be found, and sent first class mail. Alternatively, "[o]n the same day as the first attempted service under sec. 21-16-6" the plaintiff may publish the summons once in a legal newspaper (SDCL 21-16-6.1), which changes the appearance deadline. One pre-filing overlay survives for no-cause cases only: a periodic or unspecified-term tenancy must first be terminated before a holdover ground exists, and SDCL 43-32-15 requires notice "at least as long before the expiration thereof as the term of the hiring itself, not exceeding one month" -- so a month-to-month tenancy needs one month's termination notice, but that is a termination notice, not a nonpayment notice.
Lease-violation notice period	No statutory period — see the notes on this page
Lease-violation notice rules (cure vs. termination)	South Dakota sets no statutory notice period for a lease violation. Termination rides on the lease's own clause rather than on a statutory period, and the state has no two-number cure-or-quit statute, having never adopted URLTA. The absence is genuine, not missing data. SDCL 21-16-1(7) makes an action maintainable "[i]f a lessee commits waste upon the leased premises, or does or fails to perform any act which, under the terms of the lease operates to terminate the same" -- the operative termination is supplied by the lease, and the statute carries no day count. SDCL 43-32-18 separately provides that "[a] landlord may terminate a lease and reclaim the premises before the end of the agreed term: (1) When the tenant uses or permits a use of the premises in a manner contrary to the lease agreement; or (2) When the tenant does not within a reasonable time after request make such repairs as he may be bound to make." Again no day count; the only temporal standard anywhere is "a reasonable time after request" on the repair ground. Critically, this absence does not arise from the 2024 repeal: the repealed SDCL 21-16-2 reached only "subdivisions 21-16-1(4), (5), and (6)" and never reached subdivision (7), so lease-violation evictions in South Dakota have never had a statutory notice period. There is no statutory cure window, no statutory definition of material noncompliance, and no repeat-violation escalation ladder. Because no notice period exists there is no termination date and no cure window to distinguish, so no figure is shown here and none is implied. Limits on the ground: SDCL 43-32-18.1 voids any lease term authorizing eviction of a tenant "who calls or otherwise seeks assistance from law enforcement or other emergency responders because of an alleged incident of domestic abuse, unlawful sexual behavior, or stalking," and provides that "[n]othing in this chapter authorizes the eviction of a tenant solely because the tenant or a member of the tenant's household is the victim" of such conduct; SDCL 43-32-27 makes a notice to vacate "not based upon a breach of the terms of the lease" actionable as retaliation if it follows a protected act within 180 days.
Unconditional-quit grounds	Since July 1, 2024 South Dakota has no cure-versus-quit split at all: no ground carries any statutory notice, so every ground is effectively unconditional and the landlord's first document is the summons and verified complaint. The grounds are enumerated in SDCL 21-16-1: (1) entry "by force, intimidation, fraud, or stealth" upon another's prior actual possession; (2) turning the party in possession out "by force, threats, or menacing conduct" after a peaceable entry; (3) holding possession "by force or by menaces and threats of violence"; (4) a lessee holding over after termination or expiration of the term, or failing "to pay his rent for three days after the same shall be due"; (5) remaining in possession after a mortgage, execution or judicial sale once redemption has expired and a deed has been executed and delivered; (6) remaining in possession after a partition judgment or a court-ordered sale; and (7) a lessee committing waste, or doing or failing to do any act "which, under the terms of the lease operates to terminate the same." South Dakota has NO illegal-activity, drug or criminal-nuisance eviction ground -- the phrases "controlled substance," "illegal activity" and "criminal activity" appear nowhere in SDCL title 21 or title 43. One statute-specific quit ground exists outside ch. 21-16: SDCL 43-32-36 allows a lessor to evict, plus a damage fee up to $1,000, where a person "is found to have knowingly made a false claim of having a disability that requires the use of a service animal or assistance animal or of knowingly providing fraudulent supporting documentation." Repeat violations get no separate statutory treatment.
Court and action	The action is "forcible entry and detainer, or of detainer only" under SDCL ch. 21-16. Jurisdiction is CONCURRENT and a page must not name a single court: "Any circuit court or magistrate court presided over by a magistrate judge has jurisdiction in any case of forcible entry and detainer, or of detainer only, of real property or an occupied structure within its county" (SDCL 21-16-3) -- a magistrate court with a clerk magistrate presiding may not hear one, because 21-16-3 names only a magistrate court presided over by a magistrate judge. A magistrate judge's general civil jurisdiction is capped at $12,000 in "debt, damage, claim, or value of the property involved" (SDCL 16-12B-13). If "the title to or boundary of the real property or the title to an occupied structure in any wise comes in question, in magistrate court, the case shall be certified to the circuit court as provided by rule of the Supreme Court" (SDCL 21-16-9). Governing procedure: forcible entry and detainer is a designated SPECIAL PROCEEDING -- Appendix A to SDCL ch. 15-6 lists "21-16 Forcible entry and detainer," and SDCL 15-6-81(a) provides that the rules of civil procedure do "not govern pleadings, practice, and procedure" in such proceedings "insofar as they are inconsistent or in conflict with this chapter"; where ch. 21-16 is silent the rules of civil procedure fill the gap, and SDCL 15-6-81(d) directs that any act a statute says shall be done "in the manner provided by law" be done under ch. 15-6. "Occupied structure" takes the criminal-code definition in SDCL 22-1-2(28). Joinder is restricted: the action "cannot be brought in connection with any other except for rents and profits or damages" (SDCL 21-16-4). Jury trial is available, with a special venire if no jury is in attendance (SDCL 21-16-8). The court "may tax as a part of the costs in the case, to the prevailing party, reasonable attorney fees, whether a trial is had or not" (SDCL 21-16-11). Since July 1, 2026 the $25 responsive-pleading surcharge is not collected in an FED action (SDCL 16-2-58.2(1), added by 2026 S.D. Sess. Laws ch. 93, sec. 1).
Filing to hearing	Statutory, and it runs from SERVICE (or from publication), never from filing: "The time for appearance and pleading shall be five days from the time of service on the defendant or thirty days after the publication of service under sec. 21-16-6.1, whichever occurs sooner" (SDCL 21-16-7, raised from four days to five by 2024 S.D. Sess. Laws ch. 75, sec. 2). Because that period is under eleven days, SDCL 15-6-6(a) excludes intermediate Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays, so the five days span roughly seven calendar days. Trial timing is a MINIMUM notice, not a deadline: "An action under this chapter may be brought on for trial upon two days' notice after issue is joined" (SDCL 21-16-8) -- also under eleven days and so also computed excluding weekends and holidays. No statute fixes a latest date by which the court must hear the case, and no statute sets a deadline to accomplish service; SDCL 21-16-6 instead bounds the service attempts themselves ("a minimum of two service attempts," "at least one week apart," "both attempts shall be within thirty days"), so the window is bounded at the tenant's end only. Continuances: "No adjournment or continuance shall be made for more than fourteen days, unless the defendant applying therefor shall give an undertaking to the plaintiff with good and sufficient surety ... conditioned for the payment of the rent that may accrue, together with costs" (SDCL 21-16-7).
Writ of possession and lockout	The judgment itself awards possession: "If the finding of the court or the verdict of the jury be in favor of the plaintiff, the judgment shall be for the delivery of possession to the plaintiff, and for rents and profits or damages, including those authorized by sec. 21-3-8, where the same are claimed in the complaint, and for costs" (SDCL 21-16-10). It is enforced by a WRIT OF EXECUTION -- South Dakota has no separately named writ of possession or writ of restitution. SDCL 15-18-2: "When a judgment requires the payment of money or the delivery of real or personal property, it shall be enforced by execution against the property of the defendant"; SDCL 15-18-1 permits the writ at any time within twenty years of entry. The writ issues in the name of the State of South Dakota, attested and sealed by the court and subscribed by the clerk, but "[i]f issued from the court of a magistrate, it shall be signed by the magistrate or clerk and no seal is required" (SDCL 15-18-5). Who executes it: "the term 'officer' means sheriff, constable, or referee appointed by the court either in the judgment or by motion after notice following judgment" (SDCL 15-18-5); the officer must endorse the day and hour of receipt and "proceed to execute the same with diligence" (SDCL 15-18-15). The one eviction-specific timing limit on the lockout is SDCL 21-16-12: "No execution for possession can be served except in the daytime." No statute prescribes a minimum waiting period after judgment before the writ issues in an FED, and none gives the tenant a grace period to remove belongings. In circuit court the general rule SDCL 15-6-62(a) automatically stays execution for thirty days after entry, but expressly not "upon default judgment," and the court may order otherwise "for good cause shown" -- so the uncontested case is not stayed. On appeal from magistrate court, filing the cost bond stays enforcement: "All other proceedings before the magistrate court in the matter shall cease and be stayed from the time of the filing of the undertaking" (SDCL 15-38-27). Property left behind: personal property worth $500 or less "left on leased residential premises by the lessee for ten days after the lessee has quit the premises" is presumed abandoned and may be disposed of (SDCL 43-32-25); property worth more than $500 must be stored, the lessor has a lien for handling and storage costs, and "[a]fter storing the property for thirty days or more the lessor may treat the property as abandoned and dispose of it" (SDCL 43-32-26).
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 11 to 14 days from the missed rent due date for a nonpayment case the tenant does not defend -- among the shortest statutory floors in the country. That figure is a derivation from statutory minimums, not a promise and not an observed average. The chain, adding the statutory minimums cited on this page: 3 days of arrears before the action is maintainable (SDCL 21-16-1(4), counted under SDCL 2-14-14 with weekends included) + 0 days of notice (no notice to quit has been required since July 1, 2024, SDCL 21-16-2 having been repealed by 2024 S.D. Sess. Laws ch. 75, sec. 1) + same-day filing and personal service of the verified complaint and summons (SDCL 21-16-6) + 5 days for appearance and pleading measured from service (SDCL 21-16-7), which because the period is under eleven days excludes intermediate Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays under SDCL 15-6-6(a) and therefore spans about 7 calendar days + default judgment for delivery of possession (SDCL 21-16-10), on which SDCL 15-6-62(a)'s thirty-day automatic stay of execution does not bite because it excepts default judgments + issuance and daytime service of the execution for possession (SDCL 21-16-12; SDCL 15-18-5, 15-18-15). Three things lengthen it and must not be omitted: if personal service fails and the landlord needs the posting-and-mail route, SDCL 21-16-6 requires the two service attempts to be "at least one week apart," adding at least 7 days; if service is by publication, appearance is due 30 days after publication or 5 days after service, whichever occurs sooner (SDCL 21-16-7, 21-16-6.1); and a no-cause holdover case against a month-to-month tenant must be preceded by one month's termination notice under SDCL 43-32-15, which more than doubles the floor. A defended case adds the two days' trial notice after issue is joined (SDCL 21-16-8), the trial itself, and any adjournment of up to fourteen days (SDCL 21-16-7), and runs materially longer.
Self-help eviction (lockout, utility shutoff) barred	Yes
Self-help scope and tenant remedies	SDCL 43-32-6 makes a residential landlord who unlawfully removes or excludes a tenant, or willfully cuts electric, gas, water or other essential service, liable for two months' rent plus return of any advance rent and deposit. The tenant may also sue for possession, or terminate the lease. The bar is statutory and residential-specific, and it is expressed as liability plus a possession remedy rather than as a "landlord shall not" prohibition. SDCL 43-32-6, second paragraph: "If the lessor of residential property unlawfully removes or excludes the tenant from the premises or willfully diminishes services to the tenant by interrupting or causing the interruption of electric, gas, water, or other essential service to the tenant, the tenant may sue for injunctive relief, recover possession by suit, or terminate the rental agreement and, in any case, recover from the lessor damages in an amount equal to two months rent and the return of any advance rent and deposit paid to the lessor by the lessee." Note the asymmetry: the utility-shutoff limb is unqualified (willful interruption of electric, gas, water or other essential service is itself actionable), while the lockout limb is qualified by "unlawfully removes or excludes." Scope: residential premises only -- the first paragraph of 43-32-6 (quiet enjoyment) applies to all lessors, but the remedy paragraph reaches only "the lessor of residential property," so commercial tenants get no equivalent. Remedies are set by statute and are cumulative: injunctive relief, recovery of possession by suit, or termination of the rental agreement, and in every case liquidated damages equal to two months' rent plus return of advance rent and deposit. The same remedies are borrowed for retaliation: SDCL 43-32-28 gives a lessee who proves retaliatory conduct under SDCL 43-32-27 "the remedies provided in sec. 43-32-6" plus discretionary attorney's fees. Forcible self-help is independently actionable by the ousted party under the FED chapter itself: SDCL 21-16-1(1)-(3) make an action maintainable against anyone who enters "by force, intimidation, fraud, or stealth" upon another's prior actual possession, who after a peaceable entry "turns out by force, threats, or menacing conduct, the party in possession," or who holds possession "by force or by menaces and threats of violence." South Dakota has no statute permitting any form of self-help repossession, and the terms "self-help" and "lockout" appear nowhere in the code.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, South Dakota Eviction Process Laws (verified July 25, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/eviction-process/south-dakota/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Every figure above is cited to the South Dakota statute in the citations section below.

Notes and caveats

The headline — the notice-to-quit statute no longer exists — SDCL 21-16-2, which required three days' written notice to quit, was repealed by 2024 S.D. Sess. Laws ch. 75, sec. 1 (SB 90), signed March 14, 2024 and effective July 1, 2024 by operation of SDCL 2-14-16. The same act, sec. 2, raised the appearance-and-pleading period in 21-16-7 from four days to five.
Every '3-day notice' chart is wrong — virtually every secondary source still in circulation, including pages dated 2026, describes South Dakota as a '3-day notice' state. Any template that carries a 3 in the nonpayment-notice field will be wrong.
An official .sd.gov page is itself serving the repealed law — the Attorney General's consumer-protection site hosts a scanned print of ch. 21-16 captured 10/12/22 (consumer.sd.gov/docs/LLTenEviction_Statutes21-16.pdf) that still sets out 21-16-2 in full, with its 'three days' written notice to quit must be given ... before proceedings can be instituted.' A landlord reading that state PDF today gets law repealed two years ago; it is noted here only as evidence of how the stale figure keeps circulating, never as authority.
Why the repealing act itself feeds the error — in a repeal the entire operative text is reprinted as overstrike — 2024 SB 90's own legend says 'Overstrikes indicate deleted language' — so a naive text extraction of the act reports 'three days' written notice to quit must be given' as though it were current law.
The three days that survive are an arrears clock, not a notice — an action is maintainable under 21-16-1(4) only where a lessee 'fails to pay his rent for three days after the same shall be due.' That is a maturity condition on the cause of action — there is nothing for the tenant to receive or respond to during it — and the landlord's first document is the summons and verified complaint.
The absence is affirmative, not a gap — the notice statute was expressly repealed, and 21-16-6 enumerates what the landlord must serve — a verified complaint with a summons — without mentioning notice. On this point South Dakota is one of only two states covered here that require no pre-suit notice of any kind; West Virginia is the other.
The old notice never covered lease violations — the repealed text reached only 'subdivisions 21-16-1(4), (5), and (6)' and never subdivision (7), the waste and lease-violation ground. So the absence of a lease-violation notice period is genuine and predates 2024 — it is not a side-effect of the repeal.
Two day counts in one state — one calendar, one business — the three-day arrears clock in 21-16-1(4) is computed under SDCL 2-14-14 (first day excluded, last day included unless it is a holiday), which counts intermediate weekends and does not extend a Saturday or Sunday last day. The five-day appearance period in 21-16-7 and the two-day trial notice in 21-16-8 are procedural periods under eleven days, so SDCL 15-6-6(a) excludes intermediate Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays and pushes a weekend or holiday last day forward. The 3 is calendar; the 5 is effectively business.
Whether the business-day rule reaches magistrate court is unsettled — 15-6-1 says ch. 15-6 'governs the procedure in the circuit courts,' no statute extends the rules of civil procedure to magistrate court, and chs. 16-12A and 16-12B contain no civil-procedure provisions. 15-6-6(a) is worded broadly ('any period of time prescribed or allowed by this chapter, by order of court, or by any applicable statute') and magistrate courts are established 'within each judicial circuit' (16-12A-2.2), which favors applying it; on a strict reading of 15-6-1, though, a magistrate-court case would be governed only by 2-14-14, so the same five-day window would count weekends in magistrate court and exclude them in circuit court — with the landlord choosing the forum under 21-16-3. Neither reading is adopted here; both computation statutes are cited.
The two-attempt service rule admits two readings — 21-16-6 says the officer 'shall attempt to serve ... with a minimum of two service attempts' and 'each attempt shall be at least one week apart,' which read literally would add at least seven days to every case. The following paragraph ties the second attempt to substituted service ('On the second service attempt, the summons may be posted in a conspicuous place ...'), which indicates the two attempts are the precondition for posting-and-mail rather than a universal requirement surviving successful personal service. The timeline given here assumes the second reading; on the literal reading the uncontested floor rises by about a week.
No single appeal deadline — it depends on the forum — from magistrate court, appeals 'must be taken within ten days after the attestation and filing of the order or judgment appealed from' (15-38-22, echoed by 16-12B-16); from circuit court to the Supreme Court the window is thirty days after the judgment is signed, attested, filed and written notice of entry has been given to the adverse party (15-26A-6). Because 21-16-3 gives the two courts concurrent jurisdiction an eviction judgment can sit on either track, so both figures are real and neither governs generally — and nothing in ch. 21-16 mentions appeal at all.
Unresolved — does the $12,000 magistrate cap limit an eviction? — 21-16-3 grants eviction jurisdiction to 'any circuit court or magistrate court presided over by a magistrate judge' with no amount limit, while 16-12B-13 caps a magistrate judge's general civil jurisdiction at $12,000 in 'debt, damage, claim, or value of the property involved.' Whether that cap constrains an eviction — and if so whether 'value of the property involved' means the realty, the rent claimed, or nothing at all in a possession-only action — is resolved by neither text.
Whether the 30-day stay of execution applies is arguable — Appendix A to ch. 15-6 lists forcible entry and detainer as a special proceeding and 15-6-81(a) withholds the rules 'insofar as they are inconsistent or in conflict with' the special proceeding, so a thirty-day stay is arguably inconsistent with ch. 21-16's compressed design; and because 15-6-1 limits ch. 15-6 to circuit courts, it is separately arguable the stay never applies in magistrate court. The point is largely academic for the uncontested case, since 15-6-62(a) expressly excepts default judgments, but it matters for a contested case tried in circuit court.
Self-help is barred, but the statute reads as a remedy — 43-32-6 is drafted as liability plus a possession remedy rather than as a 'landlord shall not' prohibition, and its lockout limb carries the word 'unlawfully' ('unlawfully removes or excludes') while its utility limb does not. It is treated as a prohibition here because the provision is squarely residential landlord-tenant, names interruption of electric, gas, water or other essential service as actionable without any lawfulness qualifier, attaches liquidated damages of two months' rent, and gives the tenant a statutory right to 'recover possession by suit' — which presupposes that a landlord's extrajudicial retaking is wrongful. It remains a judgment call: a reader who insists only a 'shall not' sentence counts would read it the other way.
Statutes only — no case law, and no URLTA — South Dakota never adopted the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act. Every value on this page rests on statutory text alone; no court decision is reflected here.
Out of scope — hotels, campgrounds and RV parks — 43-32-37 lets 'a hotel, campground, or RV park establishment ... eject a person from the establishment premises, without return of the person's rental payment' on ten enumerated grounds including nonpayment of charges. That is an extrajudicial ejection which bypasses ch. 21-16 entirely and must not be blended into the residential figures here.
Out of scope — mobile and manufactured homes — 43-32-31 requires 'no less than ninety days notice to vacate and remove the home' where the leased real property 'is developed for an alternate use,' and expressly does not apply where the notice is based on a breach of the lease; 43-32-27 also extends its retaliation cause of action to 'a manufactured or mobile home community owner.' South Dakota has no separate mobile-home-park eviction chapter — park tenancies otherwise run through ch. 21-16 and ch. 43-32 like any other lease.
Out of scope — farm tenancies — agricultural leases have their own termination rule: written notice by September first terminates the tenancy the following March first (43-32-22.1). No employer-housing, farm-labor or public-housing-specific eviction scheme was found in South Dakota.
Local overlays — only rent regulation is preempted — 6-1-13 bars any local governmental unit from enacting, maintaining or enforcing anything 'that would have the effect of controlling the amount of rent charged for leasing private residential property,' but nothing preempts a municipality from imposing longer notice periods or just-cause requirements, and nothing in the code reserves eviction procedure to the state. No official state registry of such local ordinances exists, so no locality list is published here.
'Notice to quit' survives in exactly one place — double damages are available against a tenant 'willfully holding over ... after notice to quit has been duly given, and demand of possession made' (21-3-8) — a damages measure that presupposes a notice rather than requiring one, and now the only place the phrase 'notice to quit' survives anywhere in SDCL titles 15, 21 or 43.
Currency — as of July 25, 2026 the official codified laws were current through statutes effective July 1, 2026. No section of ch. 21-16 was touched by the 2025 or 2026 sessions — the chapter's most recent amendment is SL 2024, ch 75 — and no enacted-but-not-yet-effective 2025 or 2026 provision affects anything on this page.
What the 2025 and 2026 sessions actually did — across the 666 bills of the 2026 session and the 571 of the 2025 session, only two touched landlord, tenant, eviction, detainer, lease, rent, forcible entry or possession subject matter, both in 2026: HB 1014, enacted and in force, which merely exempts eviction actions from the $25 responsive-pleading surcharge (16-2-58.2(1)), and HB 1231 on assistance-animal documentation in rental dwelling units, which was tabled in House committee on February 11, 2026 and is dead — nothing from it is reflected here. The 2025 session produced nothing on these subjects.
Two official artefacts show the repeal — as of July 25, 2026 two independent official artefacts carry the repeal — the codified section, which returns '21-16-2. Repealed.' with the source note 'SL 2024, ch 75, SEC. 1,' and the enrolled 2024 SB 90, whose Section 1 reads 'That SEC. 21-16-2 be REPEALED' followed by the whole of the old text as overstrike. Current text on this page comes from the codified sections throughout; the 2024 act serves only to establish that the repeal occurred and to recover the repealed wording. The five-day appearance window in 21-16-7 is independently corroborated by its own source note pointing at the same act ('SL 2024, ch 75, SEC. 2').

Common questions: South Dakota 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 South Dakota?: No fixed statutory period — the summary above explains what, if anything, must precede filing. No pre-filing notice of any kind is statutorily required in South Dakota, and there is no statutory cure right. The three days that survive are an arrears wait before the landlord may sue, not a notice the tenant receives.
How much notice is required to evict for a lease violation in South Dakota?: No statutory period — see the notes on this page. South Dakota sets no statutory notice period for a lease violation. Termination rides on the lease's own clause rather than on a statutory period, and the state has no two-number cure-or-quit statute, having never adopted URLTA.
How long does an eviction take in South Dakota?: Roughly 11 to 14 days from the missed rent due date for a nonpayment case the tenant does not defend -- among the shortest statutory floors in the country. That figure is a derivation from statutory minimums, not a promise and not an observed average.
How long does a tenant have to appeal an eviction judgment in South Dakota?: 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 South Dakota?: No — South Dakota bars self-help eviction by statute; a landlord must go through the court process. SDCL 43-32-6 makes a residential landlord who unlawfully removes or excludes a tenant, or willfully cuts electric, gas, water or other essential service, liable for two months' rent plus return of any advance rent and deposit. The tenant may also sue for possession, or terminate the lease.

Statute citations

SDCL 21-16-1 subdivisions (1)-(7); (4) nonpayment and holdover; (7) lease violation (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 21-16-2 repealed - source note citing SL 2024, ch 75, sec. 1 (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 21-16-3 concurrent jurisdiction of circuit court and magistrate court (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 21-16-4 joinder limited to rents and profits or damages (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 21-16-6 verified complaint served with summons; two service attempts, one week apart, both within thirty days (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 21-16-6.1 service by publication once, on the day of first attempted service (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 21-16-7 five days from service, or thirty days after publication, whichever sooner; fourteen-day continuance cap (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 21-16-8 trial upon two days' notice after issue is joined (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 21-16-9 certification to circuit court on title or boundary (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 21-16-10 judgment for delivery of possession (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 21-16-11 attorney fees taxed as costs to the prevailing party (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 21-16-12 no execution for possession except in the daytime (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 21-3-8 double damages for willful holdover after notice to quit duly given (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 43-32-6 second paragraph - unlawful removal or exclusion and interruption of essential services (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 43-32-13 month-to-month lease modification on thirty days' written notice (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 43-32-15 termination of unspecified-term tenancy - notice as long as the term, not exceeding one month (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 43-32-18 subdivisions (1)-(2) - landlord termination for use contrary to lease or failure to repair (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 43-32-18.1 eviction limits - domestic abuse, unlawful sexual behavior, stalking (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 43-32-24 security deposit return within twenty-one days; amended by SL 2026, ch 179, sec. 1 (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 43-32-25 property worth $500 or less presumed abandoned after ten days (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 43-32-26 property worth over $500 stored; abandoned after thirty days (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 43-32-27 retaliatory conduct; 180-day defense; manufactured or mobile home community owners (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 43-32-28 retaliation remedies borrow SDCL 43-32-6; attorney's fees (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 43-32-31 ninety days' notice to vacate for mobile or manufactured home - out of scope (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 43-32-36 eviction for false disability claim or fraudulent service-animal documentation (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 43-32-37 hotel, campground, RV park ejection - out of scope (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 15-6-1 rules of civil procedure govern procedure in the circuit courts (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 15-6-4(c) by whom summons served (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 15-6-6(a) computation of time - periods under eleven days exclude intermediate Saturdays, Sundays, legal holidays (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 15-6-62(a) automatic thirty-day stay of execution; excepted upon default judgment (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 15-6-81(a) rules do not govern special proceedings insofar as inconsistent (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 15-6-81(d) chapter incorporated into statutes (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL ch. 15-6, Appendix A Appendix A, Special Proceedings (see SDCL 15-6-81(a)) - entry for "21-16 Forcible entry and detainer" (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 15-18-1 writ of execution available within twenty years of judgment (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 15-18-2 judgment for delivery of real property enforced by execution (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 15-18-5 form of writ; magistrate court variant; "officer" means sheriff, constable, or referee (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 15-18-15 officer must endorse receipt and execute with diligence (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 15-38-22 appeal from magistrate court to circuit court within ten days (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 15-38-27 cost bond on appeal stays magistrate court proceedings (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 15-26A-6 appeal to Supreme Court within thirty days of signed, attested, filed judgment plus notice of entry (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 16-12B-13 magistrate judge civil jurisdiction capped at twelve thousand dollars (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 16-12B-16 right of appeal from magistrate court to circuit court (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 16-2-58.2 subdivision (1) - responsive surcharge not collected in forcible entry and detainer (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 2-14-14 computation of time in statutes - exclude first day, include last unless a holiday (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 2-14-16 acts without a stated effective date take effect July 1 after passage (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 6-1-13 local rent control of private residential property prohibited (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 22-1-2(28) definition of "occupied structure" incorporated by SDCL 21-16-1 (verified 2026) Official source
2024 S.D. Sess. Laws ch. 75 (SB 90), secs. 1-2 sec. 1 repealing SDCL 21-16-2 (struck text of the former three-day notice to quit); sec. 2 amending SDCL 21-16-7 from four to five days; signed March 14, 2024 (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text served by the official South Dakota Legislature site (sdlegislature.gov, SDLRC codified laws): the complete text of every section of SDCL chapter 43-32 (43-32-1 through 43-32-37, including all decimal sections and the repealed 43-32-7) read via the site's chapter endpoint, with every section these answers rest on (43-32-6.1, 43-32-24, 43-32-13, 43-32-32, 43-32-12, 43-32-15) read a second, independent time via the per-section endpoint — all figures matched verbatim across reads (one month's rent cap; twenty-one days / forty-five days deposit clocks; $200 punitive ceiling; thirty-day modification notice with fifteen-day tenant termination right; twenty-four-hour written-notice entry presumption). SDCL 6-1-13 and 6-1-12 (rent-control preemption) double-read the same way. The 2026 amendment to 43-32-24 additionally pinned character-for-character from the official enrolled 2026 SB 4 (SL 2026, ch 179) and its introduced strike/underline version via the Legislature's document API; bill history from the official action log (signed by the Governor 2026-02-12; no effective-date clause, so effective 2026-07-01 under SDCL 2-14-16, read from the official site). Session sweeps run against the official bill lists: 2026 regular session (666 bills — SB 4 enacted and incorporated; HB 1231 on assistance-animal documentation tabled 2026-02-11, dead), 2025 regular session (571 bills — no landlord-tenant bills), 2025 special session (2 bills, corrections real estate only). Negative findings (no deposit interest or separate-account rule, no late-fee statute or grace period, no enumerated entry-reasons list) verified against the full chapter text in both reads. Note: sdlegislature.gov statute pages are served through an interactive viewer, but all text was read from the same official host's published data endpoints — no mirrors were needed or used.