How much notice is required to raise the rent in Montana?

Verified July 11, 2026 All Montana topics →

Montana has no statute requiring advance notice of a rent increase — the 30-day figure everyone quotes is derived from Mont.

Code Ann. 70-24-441(2), which lets either party end a month-to-month tenancy with at least 30 days' written notice before the date designated in the notice (7 days for week-to-week), so a landlord proposing higher rent is effectively offering new terms the tenant can decline by leaving on 30 days' notice. There is no limit on the size or frequency of increases: Montana has no rent control, a 2023 statute (7-1-111(26), effective October 1, 2023) expressly strips every self-governing city and county of the power to control rents on private residential or commercial property, and a companion 2023 act makes the state landlord-tenant statutes an exclusive statewide regulatory standard that local governments may not deviate from or add to. For fixed-term leases rent is locked by contract, and a statutory default caps either side's damages for a no-cause early termination at one month's rent.

Montana rent increase notice at a glance

Notice — month-to-month	No rent-increase statute — notice derives from tenancy-termination rules (see summary)
Varies by increase size	Not addressed by statute
Fixed-term leases	Rent is fixed for the lease term as a matter of contract; no section of the act addresses mid-term or renewal increases. Related default: if either party terminates a fixed-term agreement early without cause, damages are capped at 1 month's rent or a lease-agreed amount not exceeding 1 month's rent (70-24-201(2)(f), added effective 2021-05-14).
Statewide rent control / stabilization	No
Rent control details	No rent control exists anywhere in Montana, and state law preempts it twice over. Mont. Code Ann. 7-1-111(26) (added by SB 105, Ch. 319, L. 2023, effective 2023-10-01) denies self-governing local government units 'any power to control the amount of rent charged for private residential or commercial property,' excepting property the local unit owns or holds through a housing authority. Independently, 7-1-111(13) (as rewritten by HB 283, Ch. 572, L. 2023, effective on approval 2023-05-18) denies any local power to license or regulate landlords beyond Title 70 chapters 24, 25, and 33, or to 'deviate from or add to the exclusive application' of those chapters, and 70-24-102(2)(c) declares the act's purpose to 'create an exclusive regulatory standard throughout the state and its political subdivisions.' General-power (Dillon's rule) local governments never had rent-control authority to begin with.
Local rent control preempted	Yes
Frequency limits	Not addressed by statute

Notes and caveats

notice_days_month_to_month null per the dataset's derivation convention (TX/NE/MS precedent): 70-24-441 addresses only termination and never mentions rent increases — the working rule is the 30-day written month-to-month termination notice (7 days week-to-week), explained here rather than encoded as a statutory rent-increase figure. The 30 days run to 'the date designated in the notice' — unlike Nebraska there is no periodic-rental-date anchor, and 70-24-441(3) makes rent apportionable day to day. Amendment check 2021-2025: NO rent-increase notice rule was added in any session; 70-24-441 was last amended in 2007 (Ch. 267). Mobile-home-lot variance (out of v1 scope but adjacent): Title 70 ch. 33 governs lot rentals; ch. 33 tenancies are month to month by default with their own termination grid in 70-33-433. HIGH-TRAFFIC DEBUNK: many secondary sources (Hemlane, NAA) attribute Montana's rent-control ban to 'HB 463 (2023), signed March 2, 2023.' The official enrolled HB 463 of 2023 is a FOOD-PROCUREMENT bill (amends 18-4-132; verified from the enrolled text) — the rent-control preemption act is SB 105 (Fitzpatrick), Ch. 319, L. 2023, signed 2023-05-01, and with no effective-date clause it took effect 2023-10-01 under the 1-2-201(1)(a) default (first day of October following passage and approval; statute read verbatim). Also for history-line readers: Ch. 537, L. 2025 (HB 809) amended 7-1-111 but only added subsection (31) on gun laws — no landlord content. Preemption applies by its terms to self-government-powers units; general-power local governments lack the authority under Dillon's rule, so the bar is comprehensive in practice, and no Montana municipality has ever had rent control.

Statute citations

Mont. Code Ann. § 70-24-441 (1)-(3) Official source
Mont. Code Ann. § 7-1-111 (13), (26) Official source
Mont. Code Ann. § 70-24-102 (2)(c) Official source
SB 105, 2023 Mont. Laws ch. 319 (chapter pinned from official Senate bill-to-chapter table) sec. 1 Official source
HB 283, 2023 Mont. Laws ch. 572 (chapter pinned from official House bill-to-chapter table) secs. 1-2 Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Montana Code Annotated site (mca.legmt.gov, MCA 2025 edition): all nine sections of Title 70 ch. 25 and sections 70-24-103, -108, -201, -202, -312, -403, -404, -410, -422, -441 plus 7-1-111 and 1-2-201, each load-bearing section fetched twice in independent reads (WebFetch pass + raw HTML pass) with all figures matching verbatim (30-day/10-day deposit return, 24-hour cleaning cure window, certified-mail 3-day service rule, 24 hours' entry notice, 30-day/7-day periodic termination notice, rent-control preemption text). Every amendment claim additionally pinned character-for-character from official enrolled bills downloaded via the Legislature's document API (docs.legmt.gov): HB 444 (2025, Ch. 656) and HB 488 (2023, Ch. 383) for 70-25-201/-202, HB 810 (2025, Ch. 768) for 70-24-103/-201, HB 541 (2021, Ch. 536) for 70-24-312/70-24-201/70-25-201, SB 105 (2023, Ch. 319) and HB 283 (2023, Ch. 572) for 7-1-111; chapter numbers pinned from the official bill-to-chapter tables (archive.legmt.gov MCA Supplements). Bill status/signing dates read from the official api.legmt.gov bill-status history for 2025 bills (HB 444 signed 2025-05-12; HB 810 signed 2025-06-09) and corroborated via Montana Free Press Capitol Tracker for 2021/2023 bills. Negative checks (no deposit cap, no interest or separate-account rule, no rent-increase notice statute, no late-fee cap or grace period) run twice against the complete section indexes of ch. 24 parts 1-4 and ch. 25 parts 1-2. 2025 session sweep: HB 444 and HB 810 enacted and effective (incorporated); HB 304, HB 277, HB 305, HB 306 died in committee; 69th Legislature adjourned, next regular session January 2027; no on-topic special-session activity.