How does a Louisiana landlord lawfully end a tenancy, and when may a tenant leave early?

Landlord: 10 days (given before the end of a rental period). Tenant: 10 days.

Louisiana counts backwards from the end of the current period, not forward from delivery. For a month-to-month lease the notice must be given ten calendar days before the end of that month, so a notice given on the 25th of a 31-day month is too late for that month and takes effect at the end of the next one. The article says so in terms: the notice ends the lease at the end of the period named in it, and if none is named, at the end of the first period for which the notice was timely. The tenancy therefore always ends at a period boundary, never on a date the party giving notice picks out of the calendar.

The termination date must fall on a rental-period boundary or a rent-due date.

Tiers: Four steps, keyed to the length of the rental period and to nothing else. A lease whose term is longer than a month takes 30 calendar days' notice before the end of that period. A month-to-month lease takes 10 calendar days before the end of that month, and because a lease with no agreed duration for a dwelling is month-to-month by default, this is the ordinary residential figure. A lease whose period is at least a week but shorter than a month takes 5 calendar days before the end of that period. A lease whose period is shorter than a week may be ended at any time before that period expires. No tier turns on how long the tenant has lived there, on the building, on the landlord's holdings, or on where in the state the property is.

The statute says nothing about agreeing to a different period. Two provisions pull in opposite directions and no Louisiana decision reconciles them, so the honest answer is that this is unsettled. Where the lease itself reserves a right to end the tenancy before the end of the term, article 2718 makes the periods in articles 2727 to 2729 a floor, requiring whichever notice is longer, and says the right to receive that notice may not be renounced in advance. But the Code of Civil Procedure lets a tenant waive the notice-to-vacate requirement by a written waiver in the lease, and for a lease with no definite term the termination notice is the notice to vacate. Whether a lease can therefore contract out of the ten days is a real question with real money on it, and this page does not answer it either way.

A statute requires the landlord's and tenant's periods to be equal.

Source of the period: a termination-notice statute states it.

Louisiana is a civil-law state with no uniform residential act and no landlord-tenant chapter; the rules are in the Civil Code's lease title, articles 2668 to 2729, rewritten in full in 2004 and in force since January 1, 2005. A periodic tenancy here is called a lease with an indeterminate term, and it ends when either party gives notice, with one timetable serving both sides. The notice must be in writing where the property is immovable or is a movable used as a residence, so every dwelling lease needs a written notice; an oral notice is enough only for other things. The periods are 30 calendar days before the end of a period longer than a month, 10 calendar days before the end of the month for a month-to-month lease, 5 calendar days before the end of a period of at least a week but less than a month, and any time before expiry for a period shorter than a week. Where the parties did not agree a duration, the law supplies month to month for a dwelling, so ten days is the figure most Louisiana tenancies run on. A tenant has one substitute for the written notice: handing possession back to the landlord at the moment the notice would have been due is itself notice of termination by the tenant. And for a lease with no definite term, this same document does double duty, because the Code of Civil Procedure says the notice required to terminate is the notice to vacate; a landlord serving two separate documents on a month-to-month tenant is serving one more than the law asks for.

No: no statewide rule requires a reason, and no statute expressly authorizes local ordinances.

Local just-cause or eviction-control ordinances: expressly preempted by statute. Louisiana preempts expressly and broadly. A 1977 statute, R.S. 9:3258, declares that every landlord has the right to the ownership, control, use, enjoyment, protection and disposal of private property, including by lease, that those rights include all the rights the Civil Code's lease title gives landlords, and that they may not be altered, abridged or diminished except by state law, subject to the reasonable exercise of the police power. A parish or municipal ordinance requiring a reason to end a lease with an indeterminate term would abridge a right the lease title gives, and the statute permits that only by state law. The police-power savings clause is the live question such an ordinance would have to answer, and no Louisiana appellate decision has applied the statute to a just-cause ordinance. The state's posture on local rent regulation is carried on the rent-increase page.

No reason is required to end a Louisiana lease. Nothing in the Civil Code's lease title, in the lease sections of the Revised Statutes, or in the domestic-abuse title conditions a landlord's right to give the termination notice or to object to a lease continuing past its term; the words just cause and good cause do not appear in the lease title at all. There are no covered classes, no no-fault grounds to satisfy, no relocation payment, and no expiry date on any of that. What Louisiana does have is a bar running the other way: the domestic-abuse statute forbids refusing to rent to someone because of victim status, and forbids ending or refusing to renew a tenancy because an act of domestic abuse happened on the premises and the victim is a tenant or a household member, though both bars reach only buildings of six or more separate dwellings and both carry carve-outs described under the survivor rules.

The term ends on its date; no statute requires notice from either side.

After the term, a statute supplies what a holdover becomes. Louisiana calls it reconduction and the window is short. A lease with a fixed term is reconducted if, after the term expires and without a notice to vacate or terminate or other opposition from either side, the tenant stays in possession for one week where the fixed term was longer than a week, one day where the term was a week or shorter, and 30 days for an agricultural lease. Opposition is a lower bar than a formal notice, which is what makes the rule survivable for a landlord who acts. Once reconduction happens, a lease of a month or longer becomes month to month, a lease of at least a day but less than a month becomes day to day, and a shorter one runs in periods equal to the expired term. Every provision of the old lease continues into the new one, and the new one can then be ended only by the ordinary termination notice. So a landlord who lets a tenant stay eight days past a one-year lease without objecting has a month-to-month lease on all the old terms, endable only on ten calendar days' notice before the end of a month.

A lease with a fixed term ends when the term expires, with no notice needed from either side, unless it is reconducted or extended. No statute requires notice of non-renewal from either party. The one timing rule that exists runs the other way and is a ceiling rather than a floor: where the lease has a definite term, the notice to vacate that precedes an eviction may be given no more than 30 days before the term expires. Two related articles round out the picture. Where the lease gave an option and the option is exercised, the lease continues for the term and on the provisions the option stipulated. And an amendment made without an intention to replace the old lease does not create a new one, so amending a lease does not restart its term. Louisiana has no statute requiring a reminder before an automatic-renewal clause takes effect, and the word renew does not appear in the lease title; the state handles the same problem through reconduction, which fires on silence rather than on a clause.

Louisiana has no tenant at sufferance. A tenant who stays after a fixed term ends is in one of two positions, and which one depends entirely on what the landlord does. If the landlord opposes the tenant staying, by a notice to vacate or to terminate or by any other opposition, within the reconduction window, the lease is over and the landlord moves to the notice to vacate and the eviction process, which the eviction page covers. If nobody opposes for that window, the lease is reconducted and the landlord now has a month-to-month lease carrying every term of the old one.

Damages: No statutory enhancement: the landlord recovers ordinary rent or use and occupancy.

Louisiana has no holdover damages provision of any kind: no double rent, no treble rent, no percentage a lease may charge, and no enhanced measure for a bad-faith stay. Neither the Civil Code's lease title nor the lease sections of the Revised Statutes contains one. The landlord's leverage over a tenant who stays past the term is speed rather than money, because the reconduction window is one week for any fixed term longer than a week. A landlord who objects inside that week keeps the ability to evict; a landlord who does not has a new month-to-month lease and must give ten calendar days' notice before the end of a month to end it. Rent for the period the tenant stays is recovered as rent under the reconducted lease, or as damages under the ordinary law of obligations where the lease is over.

Yes: a statute imposes the duty.

When it attaches: The duty is written into the general law of obligations rather than into the lease title, so it binds a landlord as an obligee the moment a tenant fails to perform, including by leaving early. There is no abandonment step to reach first and no election the landlord has to make; the lease title has no abandonment provision at all, and the article that routes a party's non-performance to the general law of contracts is what carries the duty into a lease dispute.

Burden of proof: no authority allocates it.

The standard: Reasonable efforts to mitigate the damage caused by the other party's failure to perform. Where the landlord fails to make those efforts, the tenant may demand that the damages be reduced accordingly. A companion article adds two more limits on what a landlord can recover: no damages at all where the landlord's own bad faith caused the tenant's failure to perform, and a reduction in proportion to the landlord's negligence where that negligence contributed to it. The Code does not define what efforts are reasonable and does not say who must prove the point.

No authority addresses a clause accelerating the remaining rent.

Whether a lease may waive the duty is not settled.

Louisiana has a mitigation duty, and it is statutory, but it does not live in the lease title. Article 2002 of the Civil Code says that a person owed performance must make reasonable efforts to mitigate the damage caused by the other party's failure to perform, and that where those efforts are not made the other party may demand that the damages be reduced accordingly. Article 2719 carries that into a lease dispute by routing a party's non-performance to the general law of contracts. So a landlord suing a tenant who left early is under the duty from the start, without any abandonment step and without electing anything. What the Code does not do is allocate the burden of proof: the sentence putting the demand on the departing tenant is a rule about who raises the point, not about who must prove it, and it should not be read as an allocation. No Louisiana decision is cited on this page for the rule, because the rule is statutory and no case was needed to state it. Nothing in the lease title or the general obligations articles bars a clause accelerating the remaining rent; the Code's limit on advance limitation clauses voids ones that exclude a party's own liability for intentional or gross fault or for causing physical injury, which is a different subject.

No statute addresses a fee a landlord may charge for ending a lease early; the general damages rules govern.

Cap on damages after an early departure: The one hard cap in Louisiana law belongs to service members. A tenant who ends a lease under the military termination statute is not liable for more than one month's rent where, as of the effective date of the termination, less than six months of the lease has been completed, and not more than half of one month's rent where at least six months has been completed. The same subsection guarantees the full return of the security deposit where the member has otherwise complied with the lease, and the section may not be waived or modified by agreement under any circumstances. Two other terminations carry their own limits rather than caps: a tenant ending a lease as a survivor of domestic abuse or of sexual assault is liable only for rent through the early termination date and for obligations already outstanding on that date, and the deposit may be withheld only for the reasons the ordinary deposit statute allows.

No Louisiana statute authorizes, caps, or bars a fee for ending an ordinary residential lease early, and there is no re-letting charge or liquidated-damages regime. The general rules govern instead, which here means the landlord's damages are reduced to the extent reasonable efforts to mitigate were not made. Three targeted regimes sit outside that. The military termination statute caps liability at one month's rent, or half a month after six months of the lease, guarantees the deposit back, cannot be waived, and carries $200 in damages for a violation. The domestic-abuse and sexual-assault termination statutes each limit liability to rent through the termination date plus obligations already outstanding, and confine deposit withholding to the ordinary statutory grounds. And the domestic-abuse statute voids a lease clause that limits anyone's right to call law enforcement or emergency help, or that imposes a monetary or other penalty for doing so, in the buildings it covers. Louisiana's administrative rules were read at the title level: the Office of the State Register's index of the Administrative Code carries no landlord-tenant, residential-lease, or rental-housing title or part, so there is no administrative fee rule to find.

Early-exit rights by ground: domestic violence and related grounds, a statutory right to end the lease; military service beyond the federal act, state orders or National Guard duty are covered, a spouse or dependent may terminate in their own right, and a deployment or transfer threshold below the federal act's; death of the tenant, no statute; and other statutory grounds.

Domestic violence and related grounds: a victim may end the lease on notice.

Who qualifies: Under the domestic-abuse statute the victim must be a tenant or a member of a tenant's household, and the ground is domestic abuse battery committed on the leased premises, or stalking or cyberstalking, which since August 1, 2026 count wherever they happened. Under the sexual-assault statute the ground is any nonconsensual sexual contact, including the acts the criminal code lists, and also obscenity or voyeurism where those occurred on the leased premises. Human trafficking is not a ground under either statute. The most consequential difference between the two is not the ground but the building: the domestic-abuse right reaches only a dwelling in a building or structure of six or more separate residential dwellings, and does not reach a structure of ten or fewer units where the owner or landlord lives in one of them, while the sexual-assault right has no building-size limit at all. A survivor of sexual assault in a duplex has the right; a survivor of domestic abuse in the same duplex does not.

Separate schemes: Louisiana runs two separate termination statutes with different grounds, different windows, different paperwork and different coverage, and neither one is a general survivor provision. R.S. 9:3261.1 covers domestic abuse battery on the premises, stalking, and cyberstalking, uses a 30-day window, requires a certification of domestic abuse or a Uniform Abuse Prevention Order, reaches only buildings of six or more separate dwellings, and carries a package of anti-discrimination bars, carve-outs, a one-year limit on suing, and injunctive relief only. R.S. 9:3261.2 covers sexual assault, uses a 60-day window and requires the assault to have happened in Louisiana and after the lease was signed, requires a certification of sexual assault or a Uniform Abuse Prevention Order from a different list of qualified people, applies to every building, and cannot be waived by agreement. The termination mechanics, the rent limit, and the effect on the rest of the lease are the same in both.

Documentation: Both statutes close the list, and neither accepts a plain police report or an ordinary doctor's letter. What counts is either a completed statutory certification signed under oath by a qualified third party, or a Uniform Abuse Prevention Order. Who counts as a qualified third party differs by statute. For domestic abuse it is an executive director, program director, or other employee of a community-based shelter under contract with the state child and family services department who is a licensed clinical social worker, or a licensed professional counselor, prosecuting attorney, or investigating law enforcement officer with personal involvement in the investigation or prosecution; the route that formerly allowed a shelter employee holding a master's degree in social work was removed on August 1, 2026, and the counselor, prosecutor and officer routes were added at the same time. For sexual assault it is a sexual assault center program director, a sexual assault advocate who is a licensed clinical social worker or licensed professional counselor, a health care provider who conducted a forensic medical examination, or a prosecuting attorney or investigating officer with personal involvement. Where the stalking or cyberstalking did not happen on the premises, or the sexual assault happened elsewhere, the certification carries a written declaration of why living there may pose a threat to the victim's safety.

Window: 30 days; the incident or documentation must fall within that window before the notice. Each statute has its own window and they are not the same. Under the domestic-abuse statute the documentation must show that the person was a victim of an act of domestic abuse on the leased premises within the past 30 days; where the ground is stalking or cyberstalking that did not happen on the premises, the certification carries a written declaration of why living there may pose a threat to the victim's safety instead. Under the sexual-assault statute the assault must have happened in Louisiana within the past 60 days, and it must have happened after the lease was signed, which is a limit the domestic-abuse statute does not have. Neither window can be extended and neither statute provides for tolling.

Notice: 30 days; no more than that many days. This is not a notice period counted forward to an automatic end date. Both statutes say the landlord shall terminate the lease as a matter of law on a mutually agreed-upon date within 30 days of the written request, so 30 days is the outer limit on how far out that date may be set, not a waiting period the tenant must serve. The tenant makes a written request with the documentation, and must leave by the agreed date to avoid liability for rent afterwards. Neither statute says what happens if the parties do not agree on a date, which is a real gap in the drafting rather than an omission from this page.

Rent owed: The departing tenant is liable only for rent paid through the early termination date and for any earlier obligations to the landlord still outstanding on that date, payable on or before the day the tenant leaves. The landlord may withhold from the security deposit only for the reasons the ordinary deposit statute allows.

Cost to the tenant: Neither statute authorizes a termination fee, a penalty, or a forfeiture, and the deposit is handled under the ordinary rules. The domestic-abuse statute goes further for the buildings it covers and voids any lease clause limiting the right of the tenant or anyone else to call law enforcement or emergency help in response to an emergency or an incident of domestic abuse, or imposing a monetary or other penalty for doing so; such a clause has no force and cannot be enforced.

Other tenants on the lease: the victim's termination ends the lease for everyone on it. Louisiana goes further than any comparable state here, and in a direction that surprises people. The termination is not confined to the survivor: the entire lease terminates on the agreed date, and the landlord is entitled to an immediate eviction of all tenants on presenting the court with the documentation. Where the person who committed the abuse or the assault is a tenant or an additional tenant named in the documentation, the landlord is entitled to evict that person immediately on the same showing. The sexual-assault statute adds that landlords are immune from any lawsuit, claim, demand or cause of action brought by or on behalf of tenants over it.

Locks: Lock changes are not addressed.

Later screening: a landlord may not deny, refuse to renew, or terminate because of victim status or a past victim-status termination. Nothing in Louisiana law keeps a survivor's termination out of a tenant screening report or bars a landlord from describing it. What the domestic-abuse statute does have is a pair of bars at the front end, and only for the buildings it covers. A landlord may not refuse to enter into a lease on the basis that a person is or has been a victim of domestic abuse, except where the applicant was previously evicted by that landlord for any reason. And a landlord may not end a tenancy, refuse to renew, or serve an eviction notice or notice to vacate on the basis that an act of domestic abuse happened on the premises and the victim is a tenant or a household member. Both bars carry a documentation-timing rule: the paperwork must be produced on or before the date of the lease application, the termination, the non-renewal, or before a judgment or order of eviction is rendered, and failing to produce it in time is a complete bar to the tenant's claim. A landlord who served a notice before receiving documentation is not penalized, but where the only reason was a single act of domestic abuse, no lease breach was alleged, and the documentation arrives before judgment, the landlord must withdraw the notice. The sexual-assault statute has no such bars at all; it is a pure termination provision.

Deadline to move out: The tenant must leave by the mutually agreed date to avoid liability for rent after it. Neither statute sets a separate deadline or says what follows if the tenant stays.

The landlord's side: The landlord may require the closed list of documentation, may evict the person named as the offender immediately on presenting it to the court, and is entitled to an immediate eviction of all tenants once the lease terminates. The domestic-abuse statute adds a carve-out landlords should know: where the continued presence of the offender in or close to the dwelling results in one or more additional violent disturbances or altercations that threaten the safety or peaceable possession of the premises for the tenant or other residents, the landlord may evict the tenant, even if the offender's presence is uninvited and unwelcome; the landlord may instead offer to move the tenant to another unit, at the landlord's sole discretion. The statute preserves the landlord's ordinary eviction rights for anything unrelated to the abuse, and gives landlords immunity from suits by the offender. It also limits what a tenant can do about a breach: a one-year period to sue, injunctive relief only and no damages, sanctions for a frivolous suit, and no action at all where the tenant knowingly and voluntarily let the offender back in after asking for the accommodation. Neither statute imposes a confidentiality duty on the landlord.

Louisiana gives a survivor a right to end the lease, and the landlord has no discretion about it: the statute says the landlord shall terminate the lease as a matter of law on a date the parties agree within 30 days of a written request. But the right comes from two separate statutes covering different housing. The domestic-abuse statute reaches only a dwelling in a building of six or more separate residential dwellings, and not one in a structure of ten or fewer units where the owner or landlord occupies one; the sexual-assault statute has no size limit. The tenant makes the request in writing with a completed statutory certification signed under oath by a qualified third party or a Uniform Abuse Prevention Order, states in writing that they are a victim, and, under the domestic-abuse statute, states in writing that they will not knowingly and voluntarily let the offender back in, acknowledging that doing so may lead to eviction, and gives the offender's name and address if the landlord asks. Rent is owed only through the termination date plus anything already outstanding, no penalty may be charged, and the deposit follows the ordinary rules. The consequence that catches people out is that the whole lease ends, not just the survivor's part of it, and the landlord may then evict everyone on the lease. Neither statute gives a lock-change right, imposes confidentiality on the landlord, or keeps the termination out of a screening report. The domestic-abuse statute expressly does not displace the federal survivor housing protections.

Military service: State orders or National Guard duty are covered; a spouse or dependent may terminate in their own right; and a deployment or transfer threshold below the federal act's.

When the state rights attach: The termination may be set no more than 60 days before the departure date required to comply with the orders or any supplemental instructions for interim training or duty before the transfer, and the supporting paperwork must reach the landlord before the termination date. The section may not be waived or modified by agreement under any circumstances. The separate state active-duty route works by adopting the federal act wholesale, so its own mechanics are the federal ones.

Louisiana has one of the most generous military termination statutes in the country and a second route on top of it. Under R.S. 9:3261, any active or reserve member of the United States armed forces, including the National Guard and the Coast Guard, or that member's husband or wife in their own right, may end a residential lease on any of seven grounds: initial or permanent change of station orders to depart 35 miles or more from the dwelling; initial or temporary duty orders longer than three months to depart 35 miles or more; discharge, release, or retirement; an order to live in government-supplied quarters; notice that government quarters have become available which were not available when the lease was signed, provided the member told the landlord in writing at signing that a request or application was pending; injury incidental to service requiring hospitalization for more than 15 days; and death incidental to service. Four of those seven have no equivalent in the federal act, and the 35-mile and three-month triggers are lower than the federal act's 90-day deployment threshold. The tenant gives written notice effective on a date stated in it, not less than 30 days after the notice is served, with a copy of the orders, a signed letter from the commanding officer confirming them, or a housing officer's certification that no government quarters were available at signing. For the injury and death grounds the notice comes with clear and convincing evidence such as hospital records, a death certificate, a casualty assistance office statement, a commanding officer's statement, or an official media release. Liability is capped, the deposit comes back in full where the member otherwise complied with the lease, the section cannot be waived, and a proven violation carries $200 on top of any other damages and costs. Separately, the state's Military Service Relief Act adopts the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act into Louisiana law and defines service in the uniformed services to include state active duty by members of this state's military forces, the National Guard and the Louisiana State Guard activated on a governor's call, which carries the federal lease-termination right into state duty the federal act does not reach.

Death of the tenant: No statute gives a right to end the lease on the tenant's death. Louisiana answers this question expressly, and the answer is no. Article 2717 of the Civil Code says that a lease does not terminate by the death of the landlord or of the tenant, or by the cessation of existence of a juridical person that is a party to it. There is no option for a surviving family member and none for a succession representative: the lease continues on its own terms and the tenant's side of it passes into the succession, which remains liable for the rent. Ending it early means using one of the ordinary routes, the termination notice for a lease with no fixed term or an agreement with the landlord for one with a fixed term. The statutes that mention a tenant's death elsewhere deal with the landlord's security over movables on the premises, which is a different question.

Other grounds: The Civil Code gives a tenant several ways out that do not depend on the landlord being at fault. Where the leased thing is lost or totally destroyed without either party's fault, or is expropriated, the lease terminates automatically and neither party owes the other damages; no notice and no election are needed. Where the thing is partially destroyed, lost, or expropriated without the tenant's fault, or its use is otherwise substantially impaired, the tenant may obtain either a reduction in rent or dissolution of the lease, whichever is more appropriate in the circumstances, and may also claim damages where the landlord was at fault; where the impairment comes from circumstances outside the leased thing itself the tenant gets dissolution but not a rent reduction. Both of those are judicial remedies the tenant obtains from a court, not self-help notices, which is a real difference from states with a casualty-notice statute. Where either party fails to perform an obligation under the lease or under the lease title, the other may obtain dissolution under the general law of contracts. A lease granted by someone holding only a usufruct ends when the usufruct does, and the landlord is liable for the tenant's loss if the landlord did not disclose that status. And where the lease itself reserves a right to end it early, that right is exercised on whichever is longer, the notice the lease sets or the statutory period, and the right to receive that notice cannot be given up in advance. Ending a lease because the property is unfit, and the landlord's duty to keep the tenant in peaceful possession, are covered on the habitability page.

No statute treats absence as ending the tenancy; the common law governs.

Louisiana has no abandonment provision for a dwelling. Nothing ends a tenancy because the tenant has been away for a stated time, there is no notice of belief of abandonment to serve, and there is no window in which the tenant answers one; the word abandon does not appear anywhere in the Civil Code's lease title. The nearest thing on the tenant's side is surrender, which works the other way round and in the tenant's favor: handing possession back to the landlord at the moment a termination notice would have been due is itself notice of termination by the tenant. On the landlord's side, where the premises are abandoned or closed, or the tenant's whereabouts are unknown, the eviction title lets the notices, process, pleadings and orders it requires be attached to a door of the premises with the same effect as personal service, which is the practical answer to a tenant who has vanished. Two statutes that use the word abandoned belong elsewhere: one gives the owner of land a security right over an abandoned factory-built home and movables on a leased lot, which the manufactured-home-park page covers, and a 2026 provision treating property as abandoned 15 days after a rental agreement expires applies to self-service storage facilities and not to dwellings at all. What a landlord may do with property a tenant leaves behind is covered separately from this page.

The Civil Code has a form rule and no delivery rule. The notice must be in writing where the leased thing is immovable or is a movable used as a residence, which covers every dwelling; it may be oral in other cases. Beyond that the Code prescribes no method at all: no personal service, no certified mail, no posting, and no cascade of alternatives. Where the premises are abandoned or closed, or the tenant's whereabouts are unknown, the eviction title lets the notices it requires be attached to a door of the premises with the same effect as delivery to or personal service on the tenant, and that reaches a termination notice for a lease with no fixed term because such a notice is also the notice to vacate. Service by a constable or sheriff belongs to the eviction proceeding itself, not to the notice.

Documents in sequence: It depends on whether the lease has a fixed term. For a lease with no definite term, one document does both jobs: the Code of Civil Procedure says the notice the law requires to terminate such a lease is the notice to vacate, so a landlord who serves a termination notice on a month-to-month tenant has already served the notice to vacate and does not serve a second. For a lease with a fixed term there are two steps, because the term ends by itself and the notice to vacate is then a separate document, which may be given no more than 30 days before the term expires. The eviction page carries the notice to vacate's own minimum period and the court process that follows.

Electronic delivery: the termination statute is silent on it.

What the notice must contain: Writing is the only requirement. The notice may name the date the lease is to end, and where it does not, the statute supplies one: the lease ends at the end of the first period for which the notice was timely. There is no statutory form, no requirement to state a ground, and no advisory language. The only residential notice Louisiana scripts word for word is the one a landlord must give tenants after being served with a notice of seizure in a foreclosure, which is a separate duty.

The Civil Code's lease title cites no federal statute at all. Federal law reaches Louisiana tenancies at three points, each written into state law. The state's Military Service Relief Act adopts the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act and makes its benefits, protections and rights applicable to everyone called to service in the uniformed services as the state defines that term, which includes state active duty on a governor's call, and gives the district courts jurisdiction over proceedings under it. The domestic-abuse termination statute expressly subordinates itself to the federal survivor housing protections, saying that notwithstanding the federal regulation on state and local law it does not supersede them. And the statute requiring a landlord to tell tenants about a pending foreclosure applies in terms to dwellings subject to a federally related mortgage loan and to properties under a Section 8 housing assistance payments contract. The federal 30-day notice for covered dwellings applies here of its own force, with no state provision restating it.

The federal CARES Act 30-day notice to vacate for covered properties, as read in this state's courts: no state appellate decision construes it. No Louisiana appellate opinion construes the CARES Act's 30-day notice provision, and none mentions the CARES Act at all. Neither the Civil Code's lease title nor the lease sections of the Revised Statutes mentions it either. The federal provision is unrepealed, so a landlord of a covered dwelling in Louisiana works from the federal text with no state ruling on how far it reaches. (Appellate picture read as of September 3, 2026.)