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

3 days. Those three days are business days, not calendar days, and the notice must state the alternative — pay, or surrender the premises. Paying the rent and other amounts due inside the window defeats the eviction entirely, and a notice served on a Friday does not expire until the following Wednesday.

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

3 days. For a lease violation other than nonpayment the three days are calendar days — the unit flips from the nonpayment notice. The notice must offer a choice: perform the condition, or leave. Performing it saves the lease; a breach that cannot be fixed drops into the quit-only track.

How long does an eviction take in Utah?

Roughly 8 to 10 calendar days for the fastest realistic uncontested nonpayment case — about six business days of statutory waiting before a lockout can occur, plus however long service and clerk and court scheduling actually take.

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

No — Utah bars self-help eviction by statute; a landlord must go through the court process. Utah makes it unlawful for an owner to willfully shut a tenant out of the premises except by judicial process. The only carve-out is the statutory abandonment procedure, and no statute fixes damages — a locked-out tenant's remedy is an ordinary civil action.

What is the eviction process and timeline in Utah?

Verified August 5, 2026 All Utah topics →

To evict a tenant in Utah, serve the right written notice - three business days to pay or vacate for unpaid rent, three calendar days to cure or vacate for another lease violation, 15 calendar days to end a month-to-month tenancy - then, only after the notice period expires uncured, file an unlawful detainer complaint in district court, where the summons gives the tenant just three business days to appear.

Cited to Utah Code 78B-6-801 (10); (11); (2) and 40 more Utah statutes · Verified August 5, 2026

Utah is among the fastest eviction states in the country, and the day-counting is the trap: the rent notice runs in business days while the lease-violation, month-to-month and vacate-the-premises periods run in calendar days, all inside the same statute (Utah Code 78B-6-802). A tenant is not an "unlawful detainer" defendant at all until the notice has run out uncomplied with (78B-6-801(10)), so a complaint filed early states no claim. The feature landlords come to Utah for is the damages multiplier: on a judgment the court "shall enter the judgment against the defendant for the rent and for three times the amount of the damages assessed under Subsections (2)(a) through (2)(e)" (78B-6-811(3)) - the rent is entered once and it is the assessed damages that are trebled. Judgment carries an order of restitution enforceable immediately, giving the tenant three calendar days after service to vacate before a sheriff or constable removes them, and the court must award costs and reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing party. Either party has 10 days to appeal. Locking a tenant out without judicial process is unlawful under 78B-6-814.

Utah eviction process at a glance

Nonpayment notice (pay-or-quit)	3 days
Nonpayment notice rules (day counting, cure rights, service)	Those three days are business days, not calendar days, and the notice must state the alternative — pay, or surrender the premises. Paying the rent and other amounts due inside the window defeats the eviction entirely, and a notice served on a Friday does not expire until the following Wednesday. Utah Code 78B-6-802(1)(c) makes a tenant guilty of unlawful detainer only if the tenant "continues in possession ... after default in the payment of any rent or other amounts due and after a notice in writing requiring in the alternative the payment of the rent and other amounts due or the surrender of the detained premises, has remained uncomplied with for a period of three business days after service." It is a true pay-or-quit (cure) notice: the writing must state the alternative - pay, or surrender - and paying the rent and other amounts due within the three business days defeats the unlawful detainer entirely, because 78B-6-801(10) defines "unlawful detainer" as "unlawfully remaining in possession of property after receiving a notice to quit, served as required by this chapter, and failing to comply with that notice." No statutory grace period: the same subsection says the notice "may be served at any time after the rent becomes due." Counting: Utah Code 68-3-7 excludes the first day (the day of service) and includes the last day, and if the last day is a legal holiday, a Saturday, or a Sunday the period runs to the end of the next day that is not; because this period is stated in business days, intervening Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays are not counted either (Utah R. Civ. P. 6(a)(1) supplies the general day-counting method only for periods in rules, orders and statutes that do not specify a method, and lists the legal holidays at 6(a)(6)). A notice served Friday therefore does not expire until the following Wednesday. Service (78B-6-805(1)): personal delivery to the tenant; registered mail, certified mail or an equivalent means to the tenant's residence, leased property or usual place of business; leaving a copy with a person of suitable age and discretion there if the tenant is absent; or, only if no such person can be found, affixing a copy in a conspicuous place on the leased property. There is no statutory pre-notice, no mediation step and no mandated form. Separately, if the landlord files a possession bond under 78B-6-808, the tenant who pays accrued rent, all other amounts due and costs including attorney fees within three calendar days of service of the possession-bond notice keeps the contract in force and the complaint must be dismissed (78B-6-808(4)(a)). For a CARES Act covered dwelling, 78B-6-802(5) preserves the federal 30-day notice-to-vacate overlay but expressly "does not require that a tenant be given more than three business days after service to pay rent and other amounts due" under the 78B-6-802(1)(c) notice.
Lease-violation notice period	3 days
Lease-violation notice rules (cure vs. termination)	For a lease violation other than nonpayment the three days are calendar days — the unit flips from the nonpayment notice. The notice must offer a choice: perform the condition, or leave. Performing it saves the lease; a breach that cannot be fixed drops into the quit-only track. Utah Code 78B-6-802(1)(h) covers "a neglect or failure to perform any condition or covenant of the lease or agreement under which the property is held, other than those previously mentioned," and requires "notice in writing requiring in the alternative the performance of the conditions or covenant or the surrender of the property, served upon the tenant and upon any subtenant in actual occupation of the premises," which must remain "uncomplied with for three calendar days after service." The general lease-violation notice is therefore a cure-or-quit notice in the same alternative form as the rent notice. 78B-6-802(2) adds that "After service of the notice and the time period required for the notice, the tenant, any subtenant in actual occupation of the premises, any mortgagee of the term, or other person interested in the lease's continuance may perform the condition or covenant and save the lease from forfeiture, except that if the covenants and conditions of the lease violated by the lessee cannot afterwards be performed, or the violation cannot be brought into compliance, a notice provided for in Subsections (1)(d) through (g) may be given" - incurable breaches drop out of the cure track into the quit-only track. Two other calendar-day periods sit in the same section and are routinely confused with the violation notice: ending a month-to-month or other periodic tenancy requires notice served "15 calendar days or more before the end of that month or period" (78B-6-802(1)(b)(i)), and a tenancy at will ends on "a notice of not less than five calendar days" (78B-6-802(1)(b)(ii)). A fixed-term tenancy "shall be terminated without notice at the expiration of the specified term or period" (78B-6-802(1)(a)). Utah sets no statutory repeat-violation escalation and no notice-content requirements beyond the writing and the stated alternative.
Unconditional-quit grounds	Four grounds carry a three calendar days' notice to quit with no statutory cure right, all in Utah Code 78B-6-802(1): (d) assigning or subletting "contrary to the covenants of the lease, or commits or permits waste on the premises"; (e) setting up or carrying on "any unlawful business on or in the premises"; (f) suffering, permitting or maintaining "any nuisance, including private nuisance as defined in Section 78B-6-1107"; and (g) committing "a criminal act on the premises" and remaining in possession. Each reads "after service of a three calendar days' notice to quit" - a demand to leave, not an alternative performance-or-surrender demand - and 78B-6-802(2) expressly authorizes a (1)(d)-(g) notice where the breach "cannot afterwards be performed" or "cannot be brought into compliance." A drafting quirk sits in (1)(f) as amended by H.B. 591 (2026): the subsection cites Section 78B-6-1107 for the private-nuisance definition, but the same act repealed that section — 'private nuisance' is now defined at Section 78B-6a-101(10). The criminal-act track has a fast lane: on request the court holds an evidentiary hearing within 10 days after the complaint is filed, with notice of that hearing served with the summons at least three calendar days beforehand, and if the court finds it more likely than not that the act occurred it "shall issue an order of restitution" and a constable or the county sheriff "shall return possession of the property to the plaintiff immediately," subject to a discretionary delay of up to 72 hours (78B-6-810(3)(a)(ii), (3)(b), (3)(c), (3)(d), (3)(e)). There is no statutory unconditional-quit ground for repeat nonpayment.
Court and action	District court. The action is unlawful detainer under Title 78B, Chapter 6, Part 8, Forcible Entry and Detainer; the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure govern and there is no separate summary-process track or housing court. Justice courts cannot hear it - 78A-7-106 gives them class B and C misdemeanors, ordinance violations, infractions and small claims, while 78A-5-102(1) gives the district court "original jurisdiction in all matters civil and criminal" except as otherwise provided. The mechanic that defines the case is that unlawful detainer is defined by reference to the notice: 78B-6-801(10) provides that "'Unlawful detainer' means unlawfully remaining in possession of property after receiving a notice to quit, served as required by this chapter, and failing to comply with that notice," and every ground in 78B-6-802(1) is framed as the tenant being "guilty of an unlawful detainer" only once the stated notice has been served and has "remained uncomplied with" for its period. The tenant is therefore not an unlawful detainer defendant, and the landlord has no cause of action to plead, until the notice period has run out uncured - a complaint filed before expiry states no claim. The complaint must set forth the facts relied on and, where the detainer follows a default in rent, "shall state the amount of rent due or other amounts due" (78B-6-807(1), (2)). Only the tenant, a lease signer and any subtenant in actual occupation when the action is commenced may be named (78B-6-806(1)(a)); anyone entering under the tenant after commencement is bound by the judgment anyway (78B-6-806(2)(b)). Unlawful detainer may also be brought as a counterclaim (78B-6-809(3), 78B-6-807(3)(b)).
Filing to hearing	The appearance deadline is set by statute, not by rule, and it is short: 78B-6-807(3)(a) provides that "The summons shall include the number of days within which the defendant is required to appear and defend the action, which shall be three business days from the date of service, unless the defendant objects to the number of days, and the court determines that the facts of the case should allow more time." Once an answer or response is filed, either party may demand the occupancy hearing: 78B-6-810(2)(a) requires the court to "hold an evidentiary hearing, upon request of either party, within 10 business days after the day on which the defendant files an answer or response," at which "the court shall determine who has the right of occupancy during the litigation's pendency" and, if all issues can be resolved, "shall adjudicate all issues and enter judgment on the merits" (78B-6-810(2)(b)). Trial must begin "within 60 days after the day on which the complaint is served, unless the parties agree otherwise," and the court "shall expedite the proceedings, including the resolution of motions and trial" (78B-6-810(1)(b), (1)(a)). Two further clocks: a nuisance claim alleging an act that would be criminal gets an evidentiary hearing on request within 10 days of filing, noticed with the summons at least three calendar days ahead (78B-6-810(3)(a)(ii), (3)(b)); and if the landlord posts a possession bond, a defendant who demands a hearing within three days of being served with notice of the bond "shall be granted a hearing within three days of the defendant's demand" (78B-6-808(4)(c)). If the defendant fails to appear after notice, the court "shall issue an order of restitution and enter a judgment of default against the defendant, unless the court makes a finding for why the order of restitution or judgment of default should not be issued" (78B-6-810(4)(a)).
Writ of possession and lockout	The possession instrument is an order of restitution, not a writ. The court may "issue an order of restitution regardless of whether a judgment is entered," and a judgment for the plaintiff "shall include an order for the restitution of the premises as provided in Section 78B-6-812" (78B-6-811(1)(a)(ii), (1)(b)). There is no post-judgment waiting period: in an unlawful detainer case "the court shall issue execution upon the judgment immediately after the entry of the judgment" and "In all cases, the judgment may be issued and enforced immediately" (78B-6-811(4)), which displaces the ordinary 28-day execution delay in Utah R. Civ. P. 62(a). The order must "direct the defendant to vacate the premises, remove the defendant's personal property, and restore possession of the premises to the plaintiff, or be forcibly removed by a sheriff or constable" and must "advise the defendant that the defendant has three calendar days after service of the order to vacate the premises," unless a constable or sheriff immediately returns possession under 78B-6-810(3)(d), the parties agree otherwise, or the court has ordered restitution on the defendant's failure to appear under 78B-6-810(4) (78B-6-812(2)(b)). In those default and proven-criminal-act cases the constable or county sheriff "shall return possession of the property to the plaintiff immediately" (78B-6-810(4)(b), (3)(d)), with discretion for up to 72 hours in the criminal-act case (78B-6-810(3)(e)). Execution is by "a sheriff or constable," who at the plaintiff's direction "may enter the premises by force using the least destructive means possible to remove the defendant" and may remove and store the tenant's property, delegating inventory, moving and storage to the plaintiff (78B-6-812(4)(a), (4)(b)); the tenant must be given reasonable access within five business days to retrieve clothing, identification, financial and immigration or employment documents, public-service documents, medical information, prescription medication and medical equipment (78B-6-812(4)(c)). A request for hearing or other pleading "may not stay enforcement of the restitution order" unless the defendant furnishes a bond approved under 78B-6-808(4)(b) and the court orders the stay (78B-6-812(3)(b)); a dispute over the manner of enforcement gets a hearing within 10 calendar days of the request, or as soon as practicable (78B-6-812(5)(b)).
Appeal window	10 days
Best-case uncontested timeline (derived from statutory minimums — contested cases run longer)	Roughly 8 to 10 calendar days for the fastest realistic uncontested nonpayment case — about six business days of statutory waiting before a lockout can occur, plus however long service and clerk and court scheduling actually take. This is a floor derived from the cited statutory minimums, not a promise and not an observed average. The chain: three business days on the pay-or-quit notice after service (78B-6-802(1)(c)) + filing and service of a summons giving the tenant three business days from service to appear (78B-6-807(3)(a)) + a default order of restitution the court "shall issue" if the tenant does not appear, on which a constable or the sheriff returns possession "immediately" (78B-6-810(4)(a), (4)(b)). If the order of restitution is served rather than executed on the spot, add the three calendar days the tenant has to vacate after service (78B-6-812(2)(b)). A tenant who answers moves the case onto the occupancy-hearing track (evidentiary hearing within 10 business days of the answer, 78B-6-810(2)(a)) with trial within 60 days of service of the complaint (78B-6-810(1)(b)), so contested cases run materially longer.
Self-help eviction (lockout, utility shutoff) barred	Yes
Self-help scope and tenant remedies	Utah makes it unlawful for an owner to willfully shut a tenant out of the premises except by judicial process. The only carve-out is the statutory abandonment procedure, and no statute fixes damages — a locked-out tenant's remedy is an ordinary civil action. The ban is statutory and flatly worded. Utah Code 78B-6-814 provides: "It is unlawful for an owner to willfully exclude a tenant from the tenant's premises in any manner except by judicial process, provided, an owner or his agent shall not be prevented from removing the contents of the leased premises under Subsection 78B-6-816(2) and retaking the premises and attempting to rent them at a fair rental value when the tenant has abandoned the premises." "Willful exclusion" is defined as "preventing the tenant from entering into the premises with intent to deprive the tenant of entry" (78B-6-801(11)) - broad enough on its face to reach lock changes and comparable exclusion methods, although the section names no specific conduct and does not separately mention utility shutoffs. The only carve-out is abandonment, which is itself statutory: presumed under 78B-6-815(1) (no notice of absence plus failure to pay rent within 15 days after the due date, with no reasonable evidence of occupancy other than the tenant's property; or failure to pay when due with the tenant's property removed and no reasonable evidence of occupancy), and established as a matter of law under 78B-6-815(2) only after the owner serves a declaration of abandonment that the tenant fails to dispute or rebut. On abandonment the owner may retake and rerent, and before disposing of property left behind must post notice conspicuously and mail it to the tenant's last known address, giving the tenant 15 calendar days from the date of the notice to retrieve the property on payment of inventory, moving and storage costs (78B-6-816(1), (2)(b)). Utah's statute sets no damages multiplier, no statutory-damages figure and no fee award for an unlawful exclusion; a locked-out tenant's remedy is an ordinary civil action, and no recoverable amount is fixed by 78B-6-814.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Utah Eviction Process Laws (verified August 5, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/eviction-process/utah/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Every figure above is cited to the Utah statute in the citations section below.

Notes and caveats

Day-counting is the biggest trap in Utah — 78B-6-802 mixes units deliberately: (1)(c) nonpayment is 'three business days after service'; (1)(h) other lease violations and the (1)(d)-(g) quit-only grounds are 'three calendar days'; (1)(b)(i) periodic-tenancy termination is '15 calendar days'; and (1)(b)(ii) tenancy at will is 'five calendar days.'
The other clocks, and which unit each one uses — 78B-6-807(3)(a) appearance time is 'three business days'; 78B-6-810(2)(a) occupancy hearing is '10 business days'; 78B-6-810(3)(a)(ii) criminal-act nuisance hearing is '10 days'; 78B-6-812(2)(b) time to vacate after service of the order of restitution is 'three calendar days'; 78B-6-812(4)(c) access to essential property is 'five business days'; and 78B-6-812(5)(b)(i)(A) enforcement-dispute hearing is '10 calendar days.'
Any 'flat 3-day notice' summary is wrong for rent — any template that renders Utah as a flat 3-day-notice state is wrong for the rent notice, which runs in business days.
No Utah statute defines 'business day' for evictions — the term is not among the code-wide definitions in 68-3-12.5 and Part 8 supplies no local definition, so it carries its ordinary meaning of a day other than a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday. Utah R. Civ. P. 6(a)(6) enumerates the legal holidays for court purposes.
How the days are counted — 68-3-7 excludes the day of the triggering event and includes the last day, extending the period past a last day that falls on a legal holiday, Saturday or Sunday. Utah R. Civ. P. 6(a)(1) supplies the same method for periods 'in any statute that does not specify a method of computing time.'
Treble damages: exactly what gets tripled — 78B-6-811(3) reads in full: 'The court shall enter the judgment against the defendant for the rent and for three times the amount of the damages assessed under Subsections (2)(a) through (2)(e).' The trebled set is what the jury or court assesses under 78B-6-811(2): (a) forcible entry; (b) forcible or unlawful detainer; (c) waste of the premises during the tenancy, if alleged in the complaint and proved at trial; (d) the amounts due under the contract; and (e) abatement by eviction of a private nuisance under 78B-6a-303. 'The rent' is entered separately and is not itself multiplied by the structure of that sentence.
The rent-versus-contract-amounts overlap — subsection (2)(d), 'the amounts due under the contract,' sits inside the trebled set while 'the rent' sits outside it — a real drafting overlap. The statutory text alone does not settle how a court allocates unpaid rent between the two; that allocation is worked out in Utah appellate decisions, which are deliberately outside this page's primary-source scope.
Costs and fees go to whoever wins — 78B-6-811(5)(a) awards costs and reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing party, either side.
The judgment can be reopened for 180 days — the court may modify the judgment for additional amounts owed on a motion filed within 180 days of the earlier of enforcement of the order of restitution or the defendant vacating (78B-6-811(5)(b)).
Forfeiting the lease does not end the rent obligation — a forfeiture 'does not release a defendant from any obligation for payments on a lease for the remainder of the lease's term,' subject to the duty to mitigate (78B-6-811(1)(d)).
Why the appeal window is a hard 10 days — an eviction-specific statute and an eviction-specific appellate rule both set it and they agree: 78B-6-813(1) — 'Except as provided in Subsection (2), either party may, within 10 days, appeal from the judgment rendered' — and Utah R. App. P. 4(a)(1), which requires the notice of appeal in a statutory forcible entry or unlawful detainer action to be filed within 10 days after the date of entry of the judgment or order appealed from.
The appellate rule supplies the missing trigger — URAP 4(a)(1) is the express carve-out from the ordinary 30-day civil window in URAP 4(a), and it supplies the trigger the statute leaves unstated — entry of the judgment or order. The version in force is effective 12/9/2025.
Private-nuisance appeals get three days instead — a private nuisance action under 78B-6a-303 carries a three-day appeal window (78B-6-813(2)).
Appealing does not by itself stop the lockout — a request for hearing or other pleading 'may not stay enforcement of the restitution order' unless the defendant furnishes a corporate bond, cash bond, certified funds or a property bond in an amount approved by the court under 78B-6-808(4)(b) and the court orders the stay (78B-6-812(3)(b)).
The security is a bond, not rent paid into court — Utah R. Civ. P. 62(b) is the general bond-for-stay rule, and its only subject-matter carve-outs, in 62(j), are domestic-relations rather than eviction. No statute requires ongoing rent payments into court as a condition of the stay.
The occupancy hearing is Utah's distinctive interim step — under 78B-6-810(2), on either party's request the court must hold an evidentiary hearing within 10 business days after the answer and decide 'who has the right of occupancy during the litigation's pendency,' and it may enter judgment on the merits there if everything can be adjudicated.
What HB 480 changed in 2025 — H.B. 480, Laws of Utah 2025, ch. 275, effective 5/7/2025, rewrote that hearing, replaced the old court-set vacate period in the order of restitution with the flat three calendar days now in 78B-6-812(2)(b), and added the 10-business-day hearing after a denied order of restitution (78B-6-810(1)(e)).
The older possession-bond route still exists — the possession-bond machinery of 78B-6-808 remains on the books alongside the occupancy hearing and gives a landlord who posts a bond a second, faster route to possession.
How current this page is — the figures here follow the Utah Code as published by the Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel on le.utah.gov, incorporating the 2026 General Session. Each section carries its own effective-date label rather than a single edition statement.
The 2026 nuisance act changed no eviction figure — 78B-6-801, 802, 805, 806, 811 and 813 are in force as amended by H.B. 591, Laws of Utah 2026, ch. 401 (Nuisance Amendments), effective 5/6/2026. The enrolled text changed no notice period, not the treble-damages sentence and not the 10-day appeal period, and it renumbered the nuisance provisions from 78B-6 Part 11 into new Chapter 6a, updating the cross-references in this part — with one exception, described in the next bullet.
The nuisance quit-ground cites a repealed section — 78B-6-802(1)(f), as amended by H.B. 591 itself, still reads 'any nuisance, including private nuisance as defined in Section 78B-6-1107' — but the same act repealed 78B-6-1107, and 'private nuisance' is now defined at Section 78B-6a-101(10). The enrolled bill inserted only the word 'private' into (1)(f) (the prior text read 'including nuisance as defined in Section 78B-6-1107') and redirected every other nuisance cross-reference it touched to Chapter 6a; this one was left naming the repealed section, and the official code page's link on it leads nowhere. The quotation here is the enacted text as written.
Constable amendments, same effective date — 78B-6-801 was also amended by S.B. 218, Laws of Utah 2026, ch. 130 (Constable Modifications), effective 5/6/2026.
Sections 810 and 812 date from 2025 — both were last substantively amended by H.B. 480, Laws of Utah 2025, ch. 275, effective 5/7/2025.
Enacted but not yet in force: 9/1/2026 — a version of 78B-6-812 takes effect 9/1/2026 under S.B. 149, Laws of Utah 2026, ch. 44 (Licensing Modifications). The sole change is a cross-reference for who may serve the order of restitution, from Subsection 78B-8-302(2) to 78B-8-302(3), so no figure on this page changes that day.
Forward-dated to January 1, 2027 — 78B-6-801(2)(b) already provides that 'Constable' includes an individual who, beginning January 1, 2027, is licensed under Title 58, Chapter 91, Constables Licensing Act. A version of 57-22-5.1 effective 1/1/2027 (Laws of Utah 2026, ch. 445) revises the crime-victim and domestic-violence lock-change and lease-termination rules.
Source-quality warning: H.B. 516 is not law — le.utah.gov hosts introduced bill prints next to enacted law. H.B. 516 (2026 General Session, 'Landlord Communication Amendments') is on the site as an introduced PDF and amends unlawful detainer provisions, but it does not appear in the 2026 passed-bills list and no enrolled version exists — it is not law and its text must not be used.
Out of scope: mobile homes — 78B-6-802(3) states that 'Unlawful detainer by an owner resident of a mobile home is determined under Title 57, Chapter 16, Mobile Home Park Residency Act' — a separate scheme with its own grounds and notice periods, none of which are reflected here.
Out of scope: rooming houses, lots and occasional rentals — rooming and boarding houses, mobile home lots and recreational property rented on an occasional basis are excluded from the Utah Fit Premises Act definition of 'residential rental unit' (57-22-2(5)), so that chapter's habitability duties and renter remedies do not reach them.
Squatter removal is not an eviction shortcut — 78B-6-817 lets an owner ask law enforcement to remove a trespasser with no court action at all, but only where the occupant 'is not a current or former tenant of the real property under a written rental agreement authorized by the property owner' (78B-6-817(1)(d)).
After a foreclosure — post-foreclosure occupants are handled by 78B-6-802.5, and a bona fide tenant after foreclosure by 78B-6-802(1)(i) via the federal Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act.
Tenant-side counterweight: the Fit Premises Act — a renter serving a compliant notice of deficient condition triggers a corrective period of three calendar days for a standard of habitability or 10 calendar days for a rental-agreement requirement (57-22-6(1)(a)). The renter may elect rent abatement with termination or repair-and-deduct capped at two months' rent (57-22-6(4)(a)), and in an enforcement action the summons requires the OWNER to appear within three business days (57-22-6(5)(b)).
Eviction records can be expunged without a petition — 78B-6 Part 8a provides expungement without a petition where the entire case was dismissed, no appeal is pending and three years have passed since filing, or where the parties stipulate, for evictions filed on or after July 1, 2022 (78B-6-852).
Local overlays are preempted for rent and fees — 'A county, city, or town may not enact an ordinance or resolution that would control rents or fees on private residential property unless it has the express approval of the Legislature' (57-20-1(1)). 57-22-7 separately bars counties and municipalities from adopting anything inconsistent with the Fit Premises Act, or from using an administrative remedy to modify a corrective period or limit a tenant's remedies.
No just-cause preemption, and no local list — neither section is a general just-cause-eviction preemption, and the notice periods themselves sit in Title 78B with no express preemption clause. No Utah city is known to impose a longer notice period or a just-cause requirement, and no official state registry of local landlord-tenant ordinances exists, so no list of localities is published here.
The 2020 rewording of the save-the-lease sentence — 78B-6-802(2) was reworded by Laws of Utah 2020, Sixth Special Session, ch. 19, from 'Within three calendar days after the service of the notice' to 'After service of the notice and the time period required for the notice.' The current phrasing is awkward, so it is quoted here word for word rather than paraphrased into a statement of how late a cure remains effective; the defensible statement is that the save-from-forfeiture right is tied to the applicable notice period fixed in 78B-6-802(1).
The business-versus-calendar split, subsection by subsection — as of July 24, 2026 the units alternate across adjacent subsections of 78B-6-802 — (1)(c) 'has remained uncomplied with for a period of three business days after service'; (1)(d), (e) and (g) each 'three calendar days' notice to quit'; (1)(h) 'remains uncomplied with for three calendar days after service'; (1)(b)(i) fifteen calendar days and (1)(b)(ii) not less than five calendar days — alongside the reworded cure sentence of (2), the 10-day appeal right of 78B-6-813(1) and the self-help ban of 78B-6-814. Section 802 is stamped 'Effective 5/6/2026' and 813 'Amended by Chapter 401, 2026 General Session.' The codified sections and, where a section was touched in 2025 or 2026, the enrolled acts carry every figure in identical terms.

Common questions: Utah 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 Utah?: 3 days. Those three days are business days, not calendar days, and the notice must state the alternative — pay, or surrender the premises. Paying the rent and other amounts due inside the window defeats the eviction entirely, and a notice served on a Friday does not expire until the following Wednesday.
How much notice is required to evict for a lease violation in Utah?: 3 days. For a lease violation other than nonpayment the three days are calendar days — the unit flips from the nonpayment notice. The notice must offer a choice: perform the condition, or leave. Performing it saves the lease; a breach that cannot be fixed drops into the quit-only track.
How long does an eviction take in Utah?: Roughly 8 to 10 calendar days for the fastest realistic uncontested nonpayment case — about six business days of statutory waiting before a lockout can occur, plus however long service and clerk and court scheduling actually take.
How long does a tenant have to appeal an eviction judgment in Utah?: 10 days.
Can a landlord change the locks or shut off utilities instead of going to court in Utah?: No — Utah bars self-help eviction by statute; a landlord must go through the court process. Utah makes it unlawful for an owner to willfully shut a tenant out of the premises except by judicial process. The only carve-out is the statutory abandonment procedure, and no statute fixes damages — a locked-out tenant's remedy is an ordinary civil action.

Statute citations

Utah Code 78B-6-801 (10); (11); (2) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-802 (1)(c) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-802 (1)(b)(i); (1)(b)(ii) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-802 (1)(d)-(1)(g) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-802 (1)(h); (2) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-802 (3); (5) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-802.5 (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-805 (1)(a)-(1)(d) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-806 (1)(a); (2)(b) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-807 (3)(a) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-808 (4)(a); (4)(b)(iv); (4)(c) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-809 (1); (3) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-810 (1)(a); (1)(b) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-810 (2)(a); (2)(b) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-810 (3)(a)(ii); (3)(b); (3)(d); (3)(e) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-810 (4)(a); (4)(b) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-811 (3) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-811 (1)(b); (1)(c); (4); (5) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-812 (2)(b); (2)(c) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-812 (3)(b); (4)(a); (4)(c); (5)(b) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-813 (1); (2) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-814 (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-815 (1); (2) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-816 (1); (2)(b) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-817 (1)(d) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6-852 (1); (3) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78B-6a-101 (10) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 68-3-7 (1); (2) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 68-3-12.5 (1) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 57-22-2 (5) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 57-22-6 (1)(a); (4)(a); (5)(b) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 57-22-7 (1); (2)(b) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 57-20-1 (1) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 57-16-1 (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78A-5-102 (1) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah Code 78A-7-106 (1); (4) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah R. Civ. P. 6 (a)(1); (a)(6) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah R. App. P. 4 (a); (a)(1) (verified 2026) Official source
Utah R. Civ. P. 62 (a); (b); (j) (verified 2026) Official source
Laws of Utah 2026, ch. 401 (H.B. 591, enrolled) secs. 24, 25, 27, 28 (verified 2026) Official source
Laws of Utah 2025, ch. 275 (H.B. 480, enrolled) secs. 2, 4, 5 (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Utah Legislature site (le.utah.gov): the versioned section content files behind the xcode pages for Utah Code 57-17-1 through 57-17-5, 57-22-2, 57-22-3, 57-22-4, 57-22-7, 57-20-1, 78B-6-802, and 10-8-85.5, plus the chapter tables of contents for Title 57 Chapters 17 and 22 (negative checks). Every key figure re-read on law.justia.com's 2025 Utah Code mirror and matched verbatim: the 30-day deposit return clock and its vacate-plus-return-of-possession trigger, the five-business-day cure window and $100 civil penalty with the 57-17-3(3) notice prerequisite, the late-fee cap ('the greater of 10% of the rent agreed to in the rental agreement; or $75'), the 24-hour entry-notice default and its 'except as otherwise provided in the rental agreement' carve-out, the 57-22-4(9) no-cause-of-action clause, the 15-calendar-day month-to-month termination notice of 78B-6-802(1)(b)(i), and the 57-20-1 rent and fee control prohibition. Bill attributions and statuses verified against le.utah.gov's own bill-status JSON endpoint and enrolled/introduced bill texts: 2021 HB 68 (Ch. 98, late-fee cap and entry notice, eff. 5/5/2021), 2025 HB 480 (Ch. 275, electronic deposit returns, eff. 5/7/2025), 2026 HB 591 (Ch. 401, nuisance-only changes to 78B-6-802, eff. 5/6/2026). 2026 General Session (adjourned sine die March 2026, no carryover) checked: HB 478 (rent-increase/fee notice) and HB 516 both died 'House/ filed' 3/6/2026; no enacted 2026 law touches the four topics.