What are the security deposit rules in Connecticut?

Verified July 10, 2026 All Connecticut topics →

Check your municipality. Connecticut does not preempt local rent regulation — city or county ordinances may impose rent caps, notice rules, and fee limits that are stricter than the state-level rules on this page and are not covered here. Verify your municipality's ordinances before relying on any figure below.

What the state record says

No statewide rent cap or stabilization formula. Connecticut instead MANDATES local rent oversight: under Conn. Gen. Stat. 7-148b (as amended by Nov. Sp. Sess. P.A. 25-1, eff. 2026-01-01), every municipality with a population of 15,000 or more MUST maintain a fair rent commission (or join a joint or regional one), and any smaller municipality MAY create one. Commissions receive complaints about rents and 'rental charges' (including any fee on top of rent), and may roll a rent back to a fair and equitable level if, weighing the 13 factors in 7-148c (comparable rents, condition, services, repairs, taxes and debt service, code compliance, tenant income, amount and frequency of increases, reinvestment), it is 'so excessive ... as to be harsh and unconscionable' (7-148c, 7-148d). They can also suspend rent into escrow for health/safety violations and order landlords to stop retaliating against complainants; violations of commission orders draw fines of $25-$100 per offense, with each day beyond five a fresh offense (7-148d, 7-148f). Newly covered municipalities (15,000-24,999) have until January 1, 2028 to adopt the ordinance; commissions existing before 2026 cannot be abolished before then. The original mandate (25,000+, deadline July 1, 2023) came from P.A. 22-30. Separately, using rent-setting algorithms that compute on nonpublic competitor data is an unfair trade practice as of January 1, 2026 (47a-4f).

Pending legislation — not yet law. The rules on this page reflect current law only. The following bill would change it if enacted:

SB 218 (2026) — Public Act 26-79, Section 3 — Enacted but NOT yet effective. Amends Conn. Gen. Stat. 47a-21(j)(1) so that the Banking Commissioner, on finding a security-deposit violation within the commissioner's jurisdiction (deposit-amount cap, return/itemization duties, escrow duties, or interest duties), may order the landlord to PAY A CIVIL PENALTY under Conn. Gen. Stat. 36a-50 (up to $100,000 per violation) in addition to the existing cease-and-desist and compliance orders. Adds real administrative teeth to the deposit rules; incorporate into security_deposits penalty_for_violation on the first verification pass after the effective date.Status: Passed Senate 2026-04-15 and House 2026-05-05, signed by the governor 2026-05-27 as Public Act 26-79; Section 3 effective October 1, 2026. (checked 2026-07-10).

Connecticut caps residential security deposits at two months' rent — one month's rent if the tenant is 62 or older — and requires the deposit to be returned within 21 days after the tenancy ends or 15 days after the landlord receives the tenant's forwarding address in writing, whichever is later.

Anything paid in advance except the first month's rent counts as part of the deposit, so prepaid last month's rent and pet deposits all fit under the cap, and a tenant who turns 62 can demand the excess over one month back. Deposits must sit in a Connecticut escrow account disclosed to the tenant and earn interest at the state's annual deposit index (0.49% for 2026), paid or credited every year on the tenancy's anniversary. A landlord who withholds for damages must send an itemized written statement within the same deadline, and a landlord who blows the deadline owes twice the entire deposit — plus possible fines, and, from October 2026, Banking Commissioner civil penalties. The 21-day deadline dates from October 2023; older sources still saying 30 days are out of date.

Connecticut security deposits at a glance

Maximum deposit	2 months' rent — Two months' rent for tenants under 62; ONE month's rent for tenants 62 or older — and a tenant who turns 62 mid-tenancy may demand refund of any portion of an existing deposit exceeding one month's rent (Conn. Gen. Stat. 47a-21(b)). 'Security deposit' is defined broadly as ANY advance rental payment except the first month's rent and key/special-equipment deposits (47a-21(a)(11)), so prepaid last month's rent and refundable pet deposits all count toward the cap.
Return deadline	21 days
Deadline conditions	Not later than 21 days after termination of the tenancy OR 15 days after receiving written notification of the tenant's forwarding address, WHICHEVER IS LATER (47a-21(d)(2)). The deadline was cut from 30 to 21 days by PA 23-207 §§38-39, effective October 1, 2023 — pre-2023 sources citing 30 days are stale. Delivery must be to the tenant's forwarding address; case law denies the double-damages penalty to tenants who never provided one (80 Conn. App. 155).
Itemization required	Yes
Itemization rules	A landlord who deducts damages must deliver, within the same deadline, the balance of the deposit plus accrued interest 'together with a written statement itemizing the nature and amount of such damages' (47a-21(d)(2)). Deductions are limited to the tenant's obligations: unpaid rent or utilities due the landlord, breach of the tenant duties in 47a-11, and unpaid lock-change costs under 47a-7b (47a-21(a)(14)).
Separate account required	Yes
Interest owed to tenant	Yes
Account & interest rules	Deposits must be held in one or more escrow accounts at a financial institution located in Connecticut, with written notice to the tenant of the amount held and the institution's name and address within 30 days of receipt or transfer (47a-21(h)). Interest accrues at not less than the annual 'deposit index' defined in Conn. Gen. Stat. 36a-26 (average of FDIC-published national savings/money-market rates) — 0.49% for calendar 2026, per the Banking Commissioner (0.52% in 2025, 0.55% in 2024). Interest must be paid to the tenant or credited toward rent on each anniversary of the tenancy, and accrued interest must be paid within 21 days of termination (47a-21(i)). A tenant forfeits interest for any month in which rent was more than 10 days delinquent — UNLESS the landlord imposed a late charge for that delinquency (the landlord cannot take both). Landlords may not raise rent to offset the interest duty. Student housing owned by educational institutions is exempt from the interest duty.
Pet deposits	No separate pet-deposit statute. Any refundable pet deposit is an 'advance rental payment' within the 47a-21(a)(11) definition, so it rides the full deposit scheme — counted toward the 2-month/1-month cap, escrowed, interest-bearing, and returnable on the 21/15-day clock. (The new all-in advertising statute, 47a-7d(b)(2), lets pet fees/deposits be excluded from the advertised rent figure but does not authorize any extra deposit room.)
Non-refundable fees allowed	Not addressed by statute
Penalty for violation	Twice the amount of the security deposit PAID by the tenant (not merely twice the sum withheld) for any violation of the return/itemization subsection; if the only violation is failure to deliver accrued interest, liability is $10 or twice the accrued interest, whichever is greater (47a-21(d)(2)). Criminal exposure: up to $250 fine for knowing and wilful failure to return (good-faith-deduction affirmative defense); up to $500 and/or 30 days in jail per offense for wilful escrow violations (affirmative defense for landlords with fewer than four deposit-paying tenants); up to $100 for wilful interest violations (47a-21(k)). The Banking Commissioner investigates complaints about the cap, return, escrow and interest duties, except good-faith damage disputes and annual-interest nonpayment (47a-21(j)); from October 1, 2026, PA 26-79 adds commissioner-ordered civil penalties (flagged in pending_legislation).
Tenant forwarding-address duty	Upon termination, the tenant 'may notify the landlord in writing' of a forwarding address (47a-21(d)(2)); the 15-day prong of the return clock runs from the landlord's receipt of that written notification, and the statutory penalty presupposes a forwarding address — a tenant who never supplies one cannot collect double damages (80 Conn. App. 155). No statute lets the tenant apply the deposit to last month's rent; prepaid last month's rent is itself part of the deposit.

Notes and caveats

Encoding decisions: max_deposit.months_rent=2 with the 62+ one-month rule in conditions (both subsections double-read on cga.ct.gov current text, the 2026 Supplement, and the Justia 2024 mirror — all match). return_deadline_days=21 encodes the primary prong; the whichever-is-LATER forwarding-address prong is in return_deadline_conditions because most secondary sources omit it. separate_account_required=true is the escrow duty in (h) — note it carries CRIMINAL penalties, unusual nationally. nonrefundable_fees_allowed=null: no statute authorizes or bans nonrefundable move-in fees; the sweeping 'any advance rental payment' definition pulls most up-front money into the refundable-deposit scheme however labeled, and 47a-7d (2025) separately forces all periodic fees into the advertised rent. STALE-SOURCE TRAPS: (1) '30 days' return deadline — superseded 2023-10-01 by PA 23-207; (2) fixed interest rates (1.5% floor removed effective 2012 by PA 11-94/12-96; ancient 4%/5.25% figures) — the current rule is the annual deposit index, 0.49% for 2026 (double-read on two official DOB pages); (3) 'twice the amount withheld' — the statute says twice the deposit PAID; (4) summaries that miss the interest-forfeiture/late-charge interplay in (i). PA 26-79 §3 (commissioner civil penalties, eff. 2026-10-01) is flagged in pending_legislation, not incorporated.

Statute citations

Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47a-21 (a)(11), (b), (d), (h), (i), (j), (k) Official source
Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47a-21 (2026 Supplement text, as amended by P.A. 25-145) (b), (d)(2), (i) Official source
Conn. Gen. Stat. § 36a-26 deposit index — CT Department of Banking, 2026 rate announcement (0.49%) Official source
P.A. 23-207, §§ 38-39 (30-day deadline reduced to 21 days, eff. 2023-10-01) Secs. 38, 39 Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Connecticut General Assembly site (cga.ct.gov): chapters 830, 831, 832 and 98 downloaded in full from the current-revision pages AND from the 2026 Supplement (revised to January 1, 2026), which carries the 2025-session amendments to Conn. Gen. Stat. 47a-15a, 47a-21, 47a-23 and 7-148b — the supplement text is the operative text used here. Every load-bearing number was read at least twice in independent documents: the 2-month/1-month deposit caps, 21-day/15-day return deadline, double-deposit penalty, deposit-index interest rule, 9-day/4-day grace periods, $5-per-day/$50/5%-of-delinquent-payment late-fee cap, and the reasonable-notice entry standard were each confirmed verbatim on both the official pages and the Justia 2024-edition mirror (fetched raw); the 2025 changes (fair-rent-commission threshold 25,000 to 15,000, +5-day online-payment-outage grace extension, rent-algorithm ban) were confirmed in both the 2026 Supplement and the enrolled November Special Session Public Act 25-1 (HB 8002) PDF on cga.ct.gov; the 30-to-21-day deposit-deadline change and late-fee cap were traced to PA 23-207 sections 8, 38 and 39 (effective 2023-10-01) in the enrolled act PDF. The 2026 security-deposit interest rate (0.49% deposit index) was double-read on two official Department of Banking pages. 2026-session sweep: PA 26-79 section 3 (SB 218) read in the enrolled PDF and flagged as pending (effective 2026-10-01); bill-status pages read for HB 5092, HB 5359, SB 257 and SB 274, all of which died at the 2026-05-06 adjournment.