Maine Landlord-Tenant Laws
Local rent regulation in Maine
Maine has no state law limiting local rent regulation, and municipalities including Portland and South Portland have adopted rent control under their broad home-rule ordinance power.
Cited to 30-A M.R.S. § 3001 (home-rule ordinance power) , 30-A M.R.S. ch. 167 (former Municipal Rent Control chapter — repealed by P.L. 1995, ch. 194) · Verified August 12, 2026 · Full Maine rent-increase rules →
Maine Security deposits
Maine caps security deposits at two months' rent, and the landlord must return the deposit — or an itemized statement with the balance — within the time the written lease states (never more than 30 days), or within 21 days for a tenancy at will, counted from the later of termination or surrender of the premises.
Maine Rent increase notice
Maine landlords must give at least 45 days' written notice before any rent increase takes effect — and at least 75 days' written notice if the increase is 10% or more, a tier added effective October 25, 2023 that also catches multiple smaller increases adding up to 10% within 12 months.
Maine Late fees
Maine caps residential late fees at 4% of one month's rent and builds in a 15-day statutory grace period: a rent payment is not legally 'late' until 15 days after it was due, so with rent due on the 1st no penalty can attach before the 16th.
Maine Entry notice
Maine landlords must give 'reasonable notice' before entering a rental unit, and 24 hours is presumed reasonable unless the evidence shows otherwise — so 24 hours is the safe default, but the statute stops short of a flat 24-hour minimum.
Maine Eviction process
To evict a tenant in Maine the landlord serves a written notice of termination - 7 days for nonpayment of rent or for cause, or 30 days to end a tenancy at will without cause - then files a forcible entry and detainer action in the District Court, where the tenant gets at least 14 days from service before the return day and the writ of possession issues 7 calendar days after judgment.
Maine Application fees
Maine bans residential rental application fees outright and allows only one narrow exception: a landlord may charge an applicant the actual cost of a single background check, credit check, or other screening process, and only once in any 12-month period.
Maine mobile home park laws
Maine's mobile home park law, chapter 953 of Title 10, governs the tenancy of a resident who owns the home and rents the lot beneath it in a park of two or more homes, and three rules carry most of the weight: lot rent may be raised only once per calendar year and only on ninety days' written notice, a tenancy may be ended only for one of nine listed reasons, and closing the park or changing its use takes a year's written notice.
Lot-rent, closure, park-sale and home-sale rules with statute citations →
Maine Fair Market Rents (FY 2026) — HUD's benchmark rents for every Maine metro area and county.
Changes since last full verification
The Verified date above (July 11, 2026) marks the last time every figure on this page was verified end-to-end against official state sources. The changes below were published since then, each verified against the official source it names (what these dates mean).
- Updated, August 2, 2026 — Maine 2026 chapter 767 encoded: $250 tenant remedy and 14-M.R.S. section 6025-B, effective 2026-07-29 (effective date verified against the Legislature's published statement).
How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Maine Revisor of Statutes site (legislature.maine.gov): sections 6032, 6033, 6034, 6038, 6015, 6028, and 6025 of Title 14 each read twice in independent formats (the HTML section page and the Revisor's official section PDF, read verbatim), with every decisive figure matching (2-month deposit cap; 30-day-maximum/21-day return split with the later-of trigger; forfeiture rule; double damages with 7-day pre-suit notice and landlord burden; separate-bank-account rule with $500/one-month remedy; 45-day and 75-day/10% rent-increase notices with 12-month aggregation; 4% late-fee cap, 15-day late definition, and written-notice-at-inception duty; 24-hour reasonable-notice presumption with emergency/impracticable exception). PL 2023, c. 594 (LD 1490) was additionally reconciled against the enrolled chapter law PDF, which pins 'Sec. 13. Effective date. This Act takes effect January 1, 2025.' Supporting sections read once (6031, 6035, 6036, 6037, 6039, 6000, 6016, 6022-A, 6030-I, 6030-J, 6002) plus full chapter listings of ch. 709 subch. 1, ch. 710, and ch. 710-A as the sweep basis for verified negatives (no deposit interest, no other late-fee or entry provision, no rent-increase frequency limit, no preemption statute). Preemption checked via Title 30-A: former ch. 167 'Municipal Rent Control' (30-A sections 3601-3606) confirmed repealed by PL 1995, c. 194 with nothing enacted in its place, home rule under 30-A section 3001; Portland's active rent control ordinance verified from the City of Portland's own Rent Control FAQ (version 2025.10.24, Portland City Code ch. 6, secs. 6-231 to 6-239; 2026 allowable increase 2.2%). Bill checks on official status pages: LD 1534 (municipal rent-stabilization enabling) died Ought Not to Pass 2025-05-27; LD 1765 enacted as PL 2025, c. 365 (2025-06-18, mobile home park licensing/model-ordinance only); 132nd Legislature adjourned sine die 2026-04-29. Main-session supplement (2026-07-11): the full Second Regular Session public-laws list (chapters ~500-775) was swept via the Revisor's Laws of Maine service; one on-topic enactment found and flagged as pending — PL 2025, c. 767 (LD 2176), which raises the section 6025(3) entry-violation minimum recovery from $100 to $250 and enacts section 6025-B (tenant personal-information disclosure ban), effective on the session's general nonemergency effective date, 2026-07-29 (per the Legislature's published effective-date statement), so NOT in force at this verification; folded into entry_notice 2026-08-02 once effective. Two manufactured-housing acts (PL 2025, c. 688 and c. 691) checked and confirmed out of v1 scope (lot-tenancy notice/mediation and park-sale machinery; no hard rent caps).