How much can a landlord charge for a security deposit in Alabama?

1 month's rent — Additional amounts 'for pets, changes to the premises, or increased liability risks to the landlord or premises' sit outside the cap and are themselves uncapped (35-9A-201(a)).

How long does a landlord have to return a security deposit in Alabama?

60 days. The clock runs from termination of the tenancy plus delivery of possession, with no tenant demand needed to start it. Within those 60 days the landlord must deliver a written itemized notice together with the amount due, and mailing the refund and accounting first-class to the tenant's written forwarding address is sufficient compliance (§ 35-9A-201(b), (e)).

What happens if a landlord does not return the deposit on time in Alabama?

A landlord who fails to mail a timely refund or accounting within the 60-day period 'shall pay the tenant double the amount of the tenant's original deposit' (§ 35-9A-201(f)). It is a flat doubling of the ORIGINAL deposit, not of the amount wrongfully withheld, and the statute carries no bad-faith element.

Do landlords have to pay interest on security deposits in Alabama?

No — Alabama does not require interest on the security deposit to be paid to the tenant. Alabama's residential landlord-tenant chapter — Ala. Code ch. 35-9A, enacted by Act 2006-316 and amended through the 2025 code — contains no interest, escrow, trust-account, or receipt requirement anywhere in its text. Fifty-state charts importing other states' escrow or interest rules into Alabama are wrong.

What are the security deposit rules in Alabama?

Verified October 1, 2026 All Alabama topics →

Alabama caps security deposits at one month's rent, but lets landlords charge extra for pets, tenant changes to the premises, or increased liability risks — and those add-on deposits have no statutory limit.

Cited to Ala. Code § 35-9A-201 (official ALISON code viewer) (a)-(h) and 2 more cited sources · Verified October 1, 2026

After the tenancy ends and the tenant moves out, the landlord has 60 days to mail the refund with a written itemization of anything withheld; missing that deadline costs the landlord double the original deposit, with no bad-faith requirement in the statute. Tenants have duties too: provide a written forwarding address when vacating, and claim the refund — a deposit that goes unclaimed (or a refund check left outstanding) is forfeited to the landlord after 90 days. There is no requirement that the deposit earn interest or sit in a separate account. Beware stale guides quoting a 35-day return deadline or a 180-day forfeiture window: those numbers come from the original 2006 act and were changed to 60 and 90 days in 2014. The deposit rules cannot be waived in the lease.

Alabama security deposits at a glance

Maximum deposit	1 month's rent — Additional amounts 'for pets, changes to the premises, or increased liability risks to the landlord or premises' sit outside the cap and are themselves uncapped (35-9A-201(a)). The excepted categories are pet deposits, alteration deposits, and increased-risk deposits. The 2006 Alabama Comment confirms the landlord may hold only cash (not property) as security.
Return deadline	60 days
Deadline conditions	The clock runs from termination of the tenancy plus delivery of possession, with no tenant demand needed to start it. Within those 60 days the landlord must deliver a written itemized notice together with the amount due, and mailing the refund and accounting first-class to the tenant's written forwarding address is sufficient compliance (§ 35-9A-201(b), (e)). Under § 35-9A-141(3) 'day' means calendar day, but if the last day falls on a weekend or official holiday the period extends to the next business day.
Itemization required	Yes
Itemization rules	Deductions are limited to accrued rent and damages from the tenant's noncompliance with the 35-9A-301 tenant-maintenance obligations, 'all as itemized by the landlord in a written notice' (35-9A-201(b)); if less than the entire deposit is refunded, an itemized list of amounts withheld is required within the 60-day period (35-9A-201(c)).
Separate account required	No
Interest owed to tenant	No
Account & interest rules	Alabama's residential landlord-tenant chapter — Ala. Code ch. 35-9A, enacted by Act 2006-316 and amended through the 2025 code — contains no interest, escrow, trust-account, or receipt requirement anywhere in its text. Fifty-state charts importing other states' escrow or interest rules into Alabama are wrong.
Pet deposits	A pet deposit is expressly allowed, with no ceiling of its own. The pet-deposit rule, pet rent and fees, and the assistance-animal rules are on the pets and assistance animals page.
Non-refundable fees allowed	Not addressed by statute
Penalty for violation	A landlord who fails to mail a timely refund or accounting within the 60-day period 'shall pay the tenant double the amount of the tenant's original deposit' (§ 35-9A-201(f)). It is a flat doubling of the ORIGINAL deposit, not of the amount wrongfully withheld, and the statute carries no bad-faith element. Subsection (g) preserves other damages for either party; subsection (h) binds the current holder of the landlord's interest.
Tenant forwarding-address duty	Affirmative statutory duty: upon vacating, the tenant 'shall provide to the landlord a valid forwarding address, in writing' (35-9A-201(d)). If none is provided the landlord mails first-class to the last known address or, if none, to the rental unit itself — and any deposit unclaimed by the tenant, as well as any check outstanding, is forfeited to the landlord after 90 days.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Alabama Security Deposit Laws (verified October 1, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/security-deposits/alabama/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

Generate a Alabama security-deposit return letter — free, no signup, built on the same verified Alabama law as this page.

Editable Alabama deposit kit — the deposit disposition letter, the move-in receipt with the custody and interest statements, a deposits-held register with the return deadline computed, and the rules fact sheet built on the verified Alabama rules on this page, in Word, fillable PDF and Excel.

Notes and caveats

The one-month cap has three uncapped exceptions — Additional amounts 'for pets, changes to the premises, or increased liability risks to the landlord or premises' sit outside the cap (§ 35-9A-201(a)) and are statutorily uncapped — Alabama does not have a flat one-month limit.
Stale-source trap: 35 days and 180 days are pre-2014 figures — The as-enacted 2006 text (35-day return, 180-day forfeiture) still circulates in older guides — and in copies of Act 2006-316 itself. Act 2014-279 (SB291, effective July 1, 2014) set the current 60- and 90-day figures; measure any 35-day claim against the current text.
The penalty doubles the ORIGINAL deposit — The § 35-9A-201(f) penalty doubles the original deposit, not the amount wrongfully withheld — stronger than it looks in small disputes.
No tenant-demand trigger — Unlike South Carolina, the 60-day return clock runs from termination of the tenancy plus delivery of possession alone — the tenant does not have to ask.
The deposit rules cannot be waived — § 35-9A-163(a)(1) voids lease clauses waiving 'requirements of security deposits established by this chapter.'
Nonrefundable fees are an open question — Chapter 9A neither authorizes nor prohibits nonrefundable fees. An unlabeled 'nonrefundable deposit' would collide with the cap and return machinery, but no statute or located case resolves the point, so the question is left open rather than answered.
No interest and no separate account — Nothing anywhere in chapter 9A requires interest, an escrow or trust account, or a receipt. The silence runs through the whole chapter, not merely through the sections a reader would think to look at.
Cities and counties cannot change this — The landlord-tenant act is the exclusive law governing rights, obligations and remedies under a residential rental agreement for a dwelling unit in Alabama. No county or municipality may enact or enforce a resolution or ordinance relative to residential landlords, rental housing codes, or the rights and obligations governing the landlord-and-tenant relationship, and any such ordinance passed before or after January 1, 2007 is superseded. A county or municipality may still enact and enforce building codes, health codes and other general laws affecting rental property, so long as those codes affect similarly situated owner-occupied property equally.

Common questions: Alabama security deposits

Each answer is the verified value from the table above, restated as a direct answer. Free to quote with a link to this page.

How much can a landlord charge for a security deposit in Alabama?: 1 month's rent — Additional amounts 'for pets, changes to the premises, or increased liability risks to the landlord or premises' sit outside the cap and are themselves uncapped (35-9A-201(a)).
How long does a landlord have to return a security deposit in Alabama?: 60 days. The clock runs from termination of the tenancy plus delivery of possession, with no tenant demand needed to start it. Within those 60 days the landlord must deliver a written itemized notice together with the amount due, and mailing the refund and accounting first-class to the tenant's written forwarding address is sufficient compliance (§ 35-9A-201(b), (e)).
What happens if a landlord does not return the deposit on time in Alabama?: A landlord who fails to mail a timely refund or accounting within the 60-day period 'shall pay the tenant double the amount of the tenant's original deposit' (§ 35-9A-201(f)). It is a flat doubling of the ORIGINAL deposit, not of the amount wrongfully withheld, and the statute carries no bad-faith element.
Do landlords have to pay interest on security deposits in Alabama?: No — Alabama does not require interest on the security deposit to be paid to the tenant. Alabama's residential landlord-tenant chapter — Ala. Code ch. 35-9A, enacted by Act 2006-316 and amended through the 2025 code — contains no interest, escrow, trust-account, or receipt requirement anywhere in its text. Fifty-state charts importing other states' escrow or interest rules into Alabama are wrong.
Can a landlord charge a non-refundable fee in Alabama?: Not addressed by statute.

Citations

Ala. Code § 35-9A-201 (official ALISON code viewer) · (a)-(h) (verified 2026) Official source
HB 287 / Act 2006-316 (official as-enacted URLTA text with Alabama Comments; § 201 figures later amended by Act 2014-279) (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-121 (territorial application) (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Every section these answers rest on was read on October 1, 2026 on the Legislature's Code of Alabama service at alison.legislature.state.al.us, which includes the acts of the 2026 Regular Session: all of Title 35, chapter 9A; sections 35-9-6 and 35-9B-9; Title 6, chapter 6, article 8; sections 12-11-30 and 12-12-30; and section 11-80-8.1, each with its credit line. The history of the 60-day deposit deadline and the seven-business-day notices was read in the enrolled Acts 2014-279 and 2018-473 on the Secretary of State's acts roll, and in Act 2006-316 with its Alabama Comments on the state judiciary's site. The district court provisions of the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure (Rules 6, 12, 55 and 62) were read on judicial.alabama.gov and the eviction complaint form C-59 on eforms.alacourt.gov. No act from 2019 through 2026 amended a section cited here: each section's credit line, the 2026 table of code sections affected and the 2025 and 2026 act lists were searched, and the 2026 special session dealt only with redistricting. Negative answers (no late-fee cap, no grace period, no deposit interest, no separate account, no rent-increase notice) rest on the full text of chapter 9A and a search of the whole code for each subject; the manufactured-home chapters (Title 35, chapter 12A and Title 24, chapters 5 and 6) hold no tenancy terms on these subjects.