North Carolina Landlord-Tenant Laws

Verified October 1, 2026

Legislative changes ahead — not yet in force. This page reflects the law in force today. The following measure would change North Carolina's landlord-tenant law:

H990 (2025-2026 session) — Would rewrite G.S. 42-46 to require landlords to give tenants written notice (hand delivery, mail, or electronic per the lease) before collecting a late fee, stating the amount and date imposed, no earlier than five days after the due date. Caps unchanged. Status: Introduced April 10, 2025; referred to the House Committee on Rules, Calendar, and Operations April 14, 2025; no further action as of October 1, 2026, and not enacted. The adjournment resolution (Resolution 2026-6) lists the only matters that may be considered at the sittings that remain before the session ends on December 18, 2026 (veto overrides, appointments, conference reports and concurrence votes on bills already returned, and a few others); a bill still in committee is not among them, so this bill cannot move unless a later resolution allows it. CAUTION: at least one landlord-facing website reports this notice requirement as effective October 1, 2025; that is wrong (no notice requirement has been enacted; the 2025 amendments to G.S. 42-46(i) concern attorneys' fees and eviction costs and are retroactive to September 9, 2024). (checked October 1, 2026).

What did not become law. None of the following is law; failed bills are sometimes still described as if enacted:

House Bill 377 (2025-2026), 2026 Court Changes — Would rewrite N.C.G.S. § 42-34.1, on rent owed while a possession judgment is executed and on the bond required to stay execution pending appeal. A tenant who already filed an undertaking on appeal from the magistrate, and who keeps making the periodic rent payments that undertaking requires after the district court judgment, would satisfy the bond requirement by those continued payments and keep the stay, both during the thirty days for taking an appeal and during the appeal itself. It would apply to actions pending on and filed after the date it became law. No notice period, court deadline or writ figure on this page would change. Status: Ratified August 6, 2026; presented to the Governor August 7, 2026; vetoed August 17, 2026. The House placed the veto message on its calendar for September 2, 2026. Veto overrides were in order at the sittings the adjournment resolution set for September 28 to 30, 2026, and as of October 1, 2026 the bill's official history records no override vote in either chamber. Overrides are next in order at the sittings beginning October 26, November 16 and November 30, 2026, and the session ends December 18, 2026. It is not law. (checked October 1, 2026).

North Carolina at a glance

Rule	North Carolina	Cited to
Max security deposit	2 months' rent	G.S. 42-51 +2 more
Deposit return deadline	30 days	G.S. 42-51 +2 more
Rent-increase notice (month-to-month)	No statute — derived from termination notice	G.S. 42-14 +1 more
Statewide rent control / rent cap	No	G.S. 42-14 +1 more
Late-fee cap	$15 or 5% of the monthly rent, whichever is greater (monthly rent); $4 or 5% of the weekly rent, whichever is greater (weekly rent)	G.S. 42-46 +2 more
Entry notice	No fixed statutory period	G.S. Chapter 42 (no entry-notice statute exists; official chapter section index confirms absence)
Eviction notice (nonpayment)	10 days	G.S. 42-3 +13 more
Application fee cap	No statutory cap	N.C. Gen. Stat. § 42-46 +17 more
Interest owed on deposits	No — no statute addresses it	N.C. Gen. Stat. § 42-50 (deposits from the tenant — trust account or bond; 30-day notice) +2 more
Repair deadline after tenant notice	No statutory count	N.C. Gen. Stat. § 42-38 (application of the Residential Rental Agreements Act) +11 more
Repair and deduct	No — no statute or decision authorizes it	N.C. Gen. Stat. § 42-38 (application of the Residential Rental Agreements Act) +11 more
Landlord notice to end a month-to-month tenancy	7 days (2 counting rules)	N.C. Gen. Stat. § 42-14 +11 more
Owner and agent identity disclosure	No duty	N.C. Gen. Stat. § 22-2 +29 more
In-force state hazard disclosures beyond the federal lead-paint rule	1	N.C. Gen. Stat. § 22-2 +29 more
Pet deposit	Allowed, no cap	N.C. Gen. Stat. § 42-53 +26 more
Assistance animals: the state instrument	Housing right, no documentation rule	N.C. Gen. Stat. § 42-53 +26 more

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, North Carolina Landlord-Tenant Laws (verified October 1, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/north-carolina/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Every figure above is cited to the North Carolina statute it comes from on the linked topic page.

Local rent regulation in North Carolina

North Carolina law prohibits counties and cities from regulating the rent charged for privately owned residential or commercial rental property, with exceptions for government-owned housing, subsidized-rental agreements, CDBG-assisted properties, and properties receiving local funding or incentives.

Cited to N.C.G.S. § 42-14.1 · Verified October 1, 2026 · Full North Carolina rent-increase rules →

North Carolina landlord-tenant laws by topic

North Carolina security deposits

North Carolina caps security deposits at two months' rent for leases longer than month-to-month (one and a half months for month-to-month, two weeks for week-to-week), and the landlord must return the deposit with a written itemization within 30 days of the tenancy ending and the unit being surrendered.

North Carolina rent increase notice

North Carolina has no statute directly regulating rent increases or requiring rent-increase notice; the practical floor is G.S. 42-14's termination notice, which for a month-to-month tenancy is just seven days, so a landlord can effectively impose a new rent on seven days' notice by making it the price of continuing the tenancy.

North Carolina late fees

North Carolina caps residential late fees at the greater of $15 or 5% of the monthly rent (for weekly rentals, the greater of $4 or 5% of weekly rent), and no fee may be charged unless the payment is five calendar days or more late, counting the day after rent was due as the first day — a statutory grace period.

North Carolina entry notice

North Carolina has no statute requiring any particular advance notice before a landlord enters a rental unit — no fixed hours and no codified 'reasonable notice' standard.

North Carolina eviction process

North Carolina's eviction — 'summary ejectment' — starts, for nonpayment, with a demand for all past-due rent and a 10-day wait, but that famous 10-day rule is only a default: it is an implied forfeiture that applies when the lease has no forfeiture clause of its own, the demand does not have to be in writing, and a lease can shorten or waive it.

North Carolina application & screening fees

North Carolina puts no cap on residential rental application or tenant-screening fees and requires no receipt, no refund, and no disclosure of screening standards before an applicant pays.

North Carolina deposit interest

North Carolina does not require landlords to pay tenants interest on a security deposit, and the Tenant Security Deposit Act never uses the word in a money sense.

North Carolina habitability & repairs

North Carolina requires a landlord to keep a rented dwelling fit and habitable, comply with applicable building and housing codes, keep common areas safe, maintain and promptly repair the facilities and appliances supplied, keep smoke and carbon monoxide alarms working, and repair a list of twelve imminently dangerous conditions within a reasonable time scaled to how severe the condition is.

North Carolina lease termination

In North Carolina either the landlord or the tenant may end a month-to-month tenancy with seven days' notice, one of the two shortest periods in the country, and no reason is required.

North Carolina lease disclosures

North Carolina asks a residential landlord for almost nothing at signing: no written lease, no copy of one, no owner or manager identity, no tenant-rights document, no move-in condition report and no flood disclosure.

North Carolina pets & assistance animals

North Carolina is one of the few states whose law says plainly that a landlord may charge a pet fee: the statute allows a reasonable, nonrefundable fee for pets kept on the premises, with no dollar figure, no cap, and no court decision saying what reasonable means.

North Carolina mobile home park laws

North Carolina has no manufactured home community tenancy act, so lot tenancies run on the general landlord-tenant law in Chapter 42 of the General Statutes, which carries three rules written specifically for manufactured homes: sixty days' notice to end a tenancy that is only the rental of a space for a manufactured home, 180 days' notice before a community of five or more homes is converted to another use, and twenty-one days after an eviction in which the community owner must release the home to its owner.

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

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

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the North Carolina General Assembly's own site (ncleg.gov). October 1, 2026: every section the security deposit, rent increase, late fee, entry and eviction answers rest on was read there with its history line: G.S. 42-3, 42-14, 42-14.1, 42-14.3, 42-25.6 to 42-25.9, 42-26 to 42-36.2, 42-46, 42-50 to 42-56 and Article 7 of Chapter 42; G.S. 7A-210 to 7A-229; and Rules 1, 6 and 62 of the Rules of Civil Procedure. The site's statutes included changes through S.L. 2026-30 that day; the later 2026 session laws (through S.L. 2026-61) were checked for amendments to Chapter 42, and none changes these answers. The 2025 acts amending G.S. 42-46 (S.L. 2025-45, 2025-52 and 2025-54) were read in their enacted texts, because the page for that section prints subsection (i) incompletely. The status of each pending bill was read on its own bill page and against the adjournment resolution (Resolution 2026-6).