Ohio Landlord-Tenant Laws

Verified October 1, 2026 Correction October 8, 2026

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

H.B. 368 (136th General Assembly) — sealing of eviction records after three years — Would enact a new section of the eviction chapter requiring an eviction record to be sealed three years after the case. Ohio has no eviction-record sealing or suppression statute today, so enactment would create one and would change what a screening report can lawfully show about an applicant's eviction history. Status: Introduced in the House on June 18, 2025 and referred to committee on September 15, 2025. There has been no action since, no signature and no effective date. The 136th General Assembly runs through December 31, 2026. (checked October 1, 2026).
S.B. 204 (136th General Assembly) — suppression of eviction records in certain circumstances — Would amend the eviction chapter's answer-and-hearing section and enact the same new section number as the House bill, but to allow a court to suppress an eviction record in certain circumstances rather than to require sealing after a fixed period. The two bills cannot both take effect as drafted because they would enact the same section. Status: Introduced in the Senate on May 20, 2025 and referred to committee on May 28, 2025. There has been no action since, no signature and no effective date. The 136th General Assembly runs through December 31, 2026. (checked October 1, 2026).

Ohio at a glance

Rule	Ohio	Cited to
Max security deposit	No statutory cap	ORC 5321.16
Deposit return deadline	30 days	ORC 5321.16
Rent-increase notice (month-to-month)	No statute — derived from termination notice	ORC 5321.17 +4 more
Statewide rent control / rent cap	No	ORC 5321.17 +4 more
Late-fee cap	No statutory cap	ORC Chapter 5321 (Landlords and Tenants; no late-fee provision) +2 more
Entry notice	No fixed statutory period	ORC 5321.04 +1 more
Eviction notice (nonpayment)	3 days	ORC 1923.01 +11 more
Application fee cap	No statutory cap	Ohio Rev. Code 5321.06 +19 more
Interest owed on deposits	Conditional — owed only in certain circumstances	Ohio Rev. Code § 5321.16 (interest on the excess; six months' possession; annual payment) +4 more
Repair deadline after tenant notice	30 days	Ohio Rev. Code § 5321.04 (landlord obligations) +15 more
Repair and deduct	No — no statute or decision authorizes it	Ohio Rev. Code § 5321.04 (landlord obligations) +15 more
Landlord notice to end a month-to-month tenancy	30 days (2 counting rules)	Ohio Rev. Code § 5321.17 +12 more
Owner and agent identity disclosure	Required — in the lease or in a separate writing	R.C. Chapter 5321 (Landlords and Tenants) +17 more
In-force state hazard disclosures beyond the federal lead-paint rule	None in force	R.C. Chapter 5321 (Landlords and Tenants) +17 more
Pet deposit	No statute, no cap	Ohio Rev. Code § 5321.16 +12 more
Assistance animals: the state instrument	Fair-housing act only	Ohio Rev. Code § 5321.16 +12 more

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

Local rent regulation in Ohio

Ohio law expressly prohibits political subdivisions from imposing or requiring rent control or rent stabilization, with exceptions for local housing, building, health and safety codes, rent rules for housing a political subdivision itself owns or operates, and voluntary incentives or agreements that affect rent in order to increase or maintain the supply or improve the quality of rental housing.

Cited to Ohio Rev. Code § 5321.19 (H.B. 430, eff. 9/23/2022) · Verified October 1, 2026 · Full Ohio rent-increase rules →

Ohio landlord-tenant laws by topic

Ohio security deposits

Ohio sets no cap on security deposits, and a landlord must return the deposit — with a written, itemized list of any deductions — within 30 days after the lease ends and the tenant delivers possession.

Ohio rent increase notice

Ohio has no statute setting a notice period for a rent increase in an ordinary residential tenancy; the effective floor for a month-to-month tenancy is the termination rule in ORC 5321.17(B) — notice at least 30 days before the periodic rental date — because a tenant who rejects the new rent is on notice the tenancy can end on that same timeline (week-to-week tenancies use 7 days).

Ohio late fees

Ohio sets no statutory cap on residential late fees and mandates no grace period — Chapter 5321 has no late-fee provision — so the lease sets the fee, subject to the chapter's unconscionability rule (ORC 5321.14) and Ohio's contract-law rule against penalty clauses, under which a fee wildly out of proportion to the landlord's actual cost of late payment can be held unenforceable.

Ohio entry notice

Ohio law requires landlords to give reasonable notice before entering a rental unit, and 24 hours is presumed reasonable unless the evidence shows otherwise — entry must also happen at reasonable times, with exceptions for emergencies or when notice is impracticable.

Ohio eviction process

Ohio's eviction — a 'forcible entry and detainer' action heard in municipal or county court or the court of common pleas — starts with the famous 3-day notice to leave, which must carry exact statutory warning language and whose days are counted by excluding the day of service and rolling past a Sunday or holiday ending.

Ohio application & screening fees

Ohio does not regulate rental application or tenant screening fees at the state level: no statute caps the fee, ties it to what a report costs, or requires a receipt, a refund, or any disclosure before an applicant pays.

Ohio deposit interest

Ohio requires 5% a year in interest on a security deposit, but only on the part of the deposit above the greater of $50 or one month's rent, so for the ordinary deposit of exactly one month's rent the answer is nothing.

Ohio habitability & repairs

Ohio requires a landlord to comply with building, housing, health and safety codes that materially affect health and safety, to make all repairs needed to keep the premises fit and habitable, to keep common areas safe and sanitary, to maintain the heating, plumbing, electrical and air conditioning fixtures and appliances supplied with the unit, and to supply running water, reasonable hot water and reasonable heat at all times.

Ohio lease termination

Either side ends an Ohio month-to-month tenancy with at least 30 days' notice given before the periodic rental date, and a week-to-week tenancy with at least seven days' notice before the date the notice names.

Ohio lease disclosures

Ohio requires almost nothing of a landlord at signing: every written residential lease must carry the owner's and the agent's name and address, and that is the whole of the general disclosure law.

Ohio pets & assistance animals

Ohio has no pet-money law at all: no pet deposit rule, no pet rent rule, no cap on either, and in fact no deposit cap of any kind, so the amounts are whatever the lease says.

Ohio mobile home park laws

Ohio regulates manufactured home park lot tenancies in sections 4781.36 to 4781.52 of the Revised Code, backed by the Department of Commerce park rules: a park operator must offer every home owner a written lot agreement of one year or more, must give 30 days' written notice of any rent or fee increase and may not raise rent at all during a term, and must give residents at least 180 days to leave if it sells the park for another use.

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

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

Changes since last full verification

The Verified date above (October 1, 2026) marks the last time every figure on this page was verified end-to-end against official sources. The changes below were published since then, each verified against the official source it names (what these dates mean).

Correction, October 8, 2026 — Illinois: the Rent Concession Act's legend ("Concession Granted" across the face and text of the lease) applies to a concession the written lease does not expressly mention (765 ILCS 730/2 and /3). Oregon: ORS 90.245 bars a rental agreement from making the tenant waive chapter 90 rights; it protects the tenant and does not bar the landlord from agreeing to a longer notice. Ohio: a written lease must give an entity owner's or agent's principal place of business in the county or, failing one there, in Ohio (section 5321.18(A)). Delaware: any lease term that conflicts with the Code is unenforceable unless the Code allows it (section 5101(a)). Colorado: section 38-12-106 calls the $300 pet deposit an additional security deposit and section 38-12-102.5 caps a security deposit at two months' rent; neither says whether the pet deposit counts inside the cap, and the pages now say so. New York: the good-cause page no longer names a fixed list of opted-in localities; the state housing agency publishes the current list and the Attorney General keeps its own. Maine: the Attorney General's Total Price Disclosure Statement is listed as a document (14 M.R.S. § 6030-J).

How this record was verified: Direct read of Ohio Revised Code text on the official codes.ohio.gov site (Legislative Service Commission). October 1, 2026: every section the security deposit, rent increase, late fee, entry and eviction answers rest on was read in full there with its effective-date line: R.C. 5321.01 to 5321.06, 5321.11, 5321.13 to 5321.17, 5321.19 and 5321.20; 1923.01 to 1923.15; 1.14; and, for manufactured home parks, 4781.38, 4781.40 and 4781.50. The 2022 act that bars local rent control (H.B. 430, 134th General Assembly, effective September 23, 2022) and S.B. 237 (135th General Assembly, effective April 9, 2025) were read in their enrolled texts on the General Assembly's site. The Rules of Civil Procedure and Rules of Appellate Procedure, and the court decisions cited, were read on the Supreme Court of Ohio's site. The city ordinances named in the late-fee and eviction notes were read in the cities' published codes.