Missouri Landlord-Tenant Laws

Verified October 2, 2026

Missouri at a glance

Rule	Missouri	Cited to
Max security deposit	2 months' rent	RSMo 535.300 +1 more
Deposit return deadline	30 days	RSMo 535.300 +1 more
Rent-increase notice (month-to-month)	No statute — derived from termination notice	RSMo 441.060 +2 more
Statewide rent control / rent cap	No	RSMo 441.060 +2 more
Late-fee cap	No statutory cap	RSMo 535.060 +2 more
Entry notice	No fixed statutory period	RSMo 441.233 +3 more
Eviction notice (nonpayment)	No fixed period — see state page	RSMo 535.010 +24 more
Application fee cap	No statutory cap	RSMo 535.300 +21 more
Interest owed on deposits	No — the statute addresses the interest and does not give it to the tenant	Mo. Rev. Stat. § 535.300 (security deposits) — the interest allocation and the holding duty +1 more
Repair deadline after tenant notice	No statutory count	Mo. Rev. Stat. § 441.234 (tenant may deduct cost of repair of rental premises from rent, when; limitations) +11 more
Repair and deduct	Yes — authorized by statute	Mo. Rev. Stat. § 441.234 (tenant may deduct cost of repair of rental premises from rent, when; limitations) +11 more
Landlord notice to end a month-to-month tenancy	One calendar month (4 counting rules)	Mo. Rev. Stat. § 441.050 +16 more
Owner and agent identity disclosure	Required — in the lease or in a separate writing	§ 441.005 RSMo +24 more
In-force state hazard disclosures beyond the federal lead-paint rule	2	§ 441.005 RSMo +24 more
Pet deposit	Allowed, no cap	Mo. Rev. Stat. § 535.300 +16 more
Assistance animals: the state instrument	Documentation statute or rule	Mo. Rev. Stat. § 535.300 +16 more

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Missouri Landlord-Tenant Laws (verified October 2, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/missouri/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Every figure above is cited to the Missouri statute it comes from on the linked topic page.

Local rent regulation in Missouri

Missouri law prohibits counties and cities, including charter jurisdictions, from adopting any ordinance regulating the amount of rent charged for privately owned residential or commercial rental property, with narrow exceptions for government-owned, subsidized, and CDBG-assisted properties.

Cited to Mo. Rev. Stat. § 441.043 (as amended eff. 8/28/2025) · Verified October 2, 2026 · Full Missouri rent-increase rules →

Missouri landlord-tenant laws by topic

Missouri security deposits

Missouri caps security deposits at two months' rent and gives landlords thirty days after the tenancy ends to return the deposit or send a written itemized list of damages with any balance.

Missouri rent increase notice

Missouri has no statute requiring advance notice of a rent increase — the one-month figure everyone cites is derived from RSMo 441.060.4, which lets either party end a month-to-month tenancy by written notice taking effect on a periodic rent-paying date not less than one month after the notice is RECEIVED, so a landlord who raises rent is effectively offering new terms the tenant can refuse by leaving on a month's notice.

Missouri late fees

Missouri sets no cap on residential late fees and mandates no grace period — no statute in the landlord-tenant chapters (RSMo 441 and 535) mentions late fees at all, so the fee is whatever the lease says, subject to the court-made rule that a clause fixing damages in advance is enforced only if it is a reasonable forecast of the loss rather than a penalty.

Missouri entry notice

Missouri has no statute requiring landlords to give any advance notice before entering a rental — no notice period, no list of permitted reasons, and no time-of-day limits — so entry rights are governed entirely by the lease.

Missouri eviction process

Missouri has no fixed-day pay-or-quit notice for nonpayment: the landlord need only demand the rent, and once it goes unpaid may immediately file a 'rent and possession' action, unless a written lease's forfeiture clause sets a waiting period — the statute expressly says no termination notice is required first.

Missouri application & screening fees

Missouri does not regulate rental application or tenant-screening fees at all: no cap, no limit to what screening actually costs, no receipt, no refund, and nothing that must be disclosed before the money is taken.

Missouri deposit interest

Missouri expressly gives any interest a security deposit earns to the landlord: "Any interest earned on a security deposit shall be the property of the landlord."

Missouri habitability & repairs

Missouri's habitability duty comes from its courts, not its statutes: the Supreme Court of Missouri held in 1984 that a landlord impliedly warrants that leased residential property is habitable and fit for living at the start of the lease and will remain so, measured by community standards reflected in local housing and property-maintenance codes.

Missouri lease termination

Either side ends a Missouri month-to-month tenancy by written notice stating that the tenancy will end on a rent-paying date at least one calendar month after the notice is received, so the answer is not thirty days and a notice expiring mid-period does not work.

Missouri lease disclosures

A Missouri landlord must tell the tenant in writing, at or before the tenancy begins, who manages the property and who may be served with notices and legal papers, and must disclose in writing to a prospective tenant that the premises were used to produce methamphetamine, or that they are or were contaminated with radioactive or other hazardous material, whenever the landlord knows it.

Missouri pets & assistance animals

Missouri is the state that names a pet deposit in order to put it outside the law: money denominated as a deposit for a pet is not a security deposit, so it does not count toward the two-month cap, no statute limits its size, and none of the return, itemization or doubling rules reaches it.

Missouri mobile home park laws

Missouri has no manufactured-home tenancy act: a single section, RSMo section 700.600, requires a community owner to give residents who own their homes at least 120 days' written notice before making them vacate for a change in use of the land, and freezes lot rent, except for an increase based solely on higher property taxes, in the sixty days before that notice and at any time after it.

Missouri Fair Market Rents (FY 2027) — HUD's benchmark rents for every Missouri metro area and county.

Editable Missouri deposit kit · Editable Missouri disclosure packet — editable documents built on the verified Missouri rules on this page, in Word, fillable PDF and Excel.

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Missouri Revisor of Statutes site (revisor.mo.gov), read again on October 2, 2026 with each page's effective date and history line: RSMo 535.300, 441.043, 441.050, 441.060 and 700.600; 535.060, 415.400 and 415.417; 441.020 to 441.040, 441.065, 441.233 and 441.560; the rent and possession and unlawful detainer sections of chapters 535 and 534, with 535.012, 535.050, 535.200 and 535.210; the expedited procedure of 441.710 to 441.880; 701.308; and the time-computation sections 1.040 and 506.060. The section lists of chapters 441, 534, 535 and 700 were read for the negative answers: no section of chapters 441, 534 or 535 sets an entry notice, a late fee or a rent-increase notice, and the one limit on rent increases is RSMo 700.600.2, for manufactured and mobile home land lease communities. The Senate's Truly Agreed To and Finally Passed lists for 2024, 2025 and 2026 (102 bills in 2026) were read with the bills' pages and truly agreed texts: no 2026 act changed an answer on security deposits, late fees, entry, rent increases or eviction, and the 2025 amendments to 441.043 (H.B. 595 & 343, effective August 28, 2025) are in force and incorporated. Paragon Group, Inc. v. Ampleman, 878 S.W.2d 878 (Mo. Ct. App. 1994), was read in the reporter.