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

45 days. The clock does not start on move-out alone. It runs from a three-element trigger — 'the termination of his tenancy, the delivery of possession and demand by the tenant' — so the tenant must actually demand the money back (Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-21(3)).

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

Retention of a deposit in violation of the section 'and with absence of good faith' may subject the landlord or transferee to damages NOT TO EXCEED $200 in addition to any actual damages (89-8-21(4)). There is no attorney-fee provision and no multiple-of-the-amount-withheld remedy in the statute.

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

No — Mississippi does not require interest on the security deposit to be paid to the tenant. No escrow or trust-account requirement exists anywhere in chapter 89-8 either. The one holding rule is a priority rule — the tenant's claim to the deposit is prior to the claim of any creditor of the landlord (89-8-21(2)).

What are the security deposit rules in Mississippi?

Verified July 11, 2026 All Mississippi topics →

Mississippi sets no cap on security deposits and gives landlords 45 days to return the balance — with the clock defined by three events in the statute: the tenancy terminating, the tenant delivering possession, and the tenant demanding the money back.

Cited to Miss. Code Ann. § 89-8-21 (1)-(4) and 2 more Mississippi statutes · Verified July 11, 2026

Any amount withheld must be claimed in a written, itemized notice delivered to the tenant, and deductions are limited to unpaid rent, tenant-caused damage beyond ordinary wear and tear, cleaning, and other reasonable expenses caused by the tenant's default. The penalty for wrongful retention is unusually mild: only where the landlord acted without good faith, and capped at $200 on top of actual damages, with no attorney-fee award in the statute. There is no interest, escrow, or pet-deposit rule, and no statutory duty for the tenant to leave a forwarding address. One protection tenants keep: the statute makes the tenant's claim to the deposit senior to the claims of the landlord's creditors.

Mississippi security deposits at a glance

Maximum deposit	No statutory cap
Return deadline	45 days
Deadline conditions	The clock does not start on move-out alone. It runs from a three-element trigger — 'the termination of his tenancy, the delivery of possession and demand by the tenant' — so the tenant must actually demand the money back (Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-21(3)). Any remaining portion of the deposit must be returned no later than 45 days after that trigger. Secondary sources almost universally shorten this to '45 days after the tenancy ends' and omit the demand element. The section only governs money whose primary function is to secure performance of the rental agreement; payments made to secure the execution of a rental agreement, including advance rent, are expressly outside it (89-8-21(1)).
Itemization required	Yes
Itemization rules	The landlord may claim from the deposit, by written notice delivered to the tenant, only amounts reasonably necessary to remedy rent defaults, repair tenant-caused damage exclusive of ordinary wear and tear, clean the premises at termination, or cover other reasonable and necessary expenses from the tenant's default — and only if the deposit was made for any or all of those specific purposes. The written notice claiming any portion must itemize the amounts claimed (89-8-21(3)).
Separate account required	No
Interest owed to tenant	No
Account & interest rules	No escrow or trust-account requirement exists anywhere in chapter 89-8 either. The one holding rule is a priority rule — the tenant's claim to the deposit is prior to the claim of any creditor of the landlord (89-8-21(2)).
Pet deposits	No pet-deposit statute exists. A refundable pet deposit whose primary function is to secure performance falls under the single 89-8-21 scheme — same 45-day return, itemization, and penalty rules; no separate cap or treatment.
Non-refundable fees allowed	Not addressed by statute
Penalty for violation	Retention of a deposit in violation of the section 'and with absence of good faith' may subject the landlord or transferee to damages NOT TO EXCEED $200 in addition to any actual damages (89-8-21(4)). There is no attorney-fee provision and no multiple-of-the-amount-withheld remedy in the statute. It is one of the weakest deposit penalties in the country.
Tenant forwarding-address duty	Not addressed by statute

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Mississippi Security Deposit Laws (verified July 11, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/security-deposits/mississippi/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Every figure above is cited to the Mississippi statute in the citations section below.

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

Notes and caveats

No cap — statutory silence, not an oversight — Nothing in chapter 89-8 limits the size of a residential security deposit. The silence runs through the whole current chapter, the pre-2022 sections in the Attorney General's official PDF and every amending enrolled act alike.
The deposit statute has never been amended — Section 89-8-21 still carries its original history line — 'Laws, 1991, ch. 478, § 11, eff from and after July 1, 1991' — so, unlike Mississippi's eviction sections, it carries no rewrite trap.
Stale-source trap: no attorney's fees, no double damages — Guides promising the tenant 'the amount wrongfully withheld plus attorney's fees' are importing other states' remedies. Section 89-8-21(4) is a bad-faith-gated ceiling of $200 on top of actual damages, and nothing more.
The tenant has to ask for the money back — Mississippi imposes no forwarding-address duty — the statute is simply silent — but the 45-day clock does not start until the tenant demands the deposit, one of the three elements in 89-8-21(3). That functionally shifts the initiative to the tenant.
Nonrefundable fees are neither authorized nor prohibited — The chapter says nothing either way, which is why that answer reads as not addressed by statute rather than a yes or a no. And because 89-8-21(1) excludes payments 'made to secure the execution of a rental agreement,' fees charged for signing arguably sit wholly outside the deposit rules.
Two different 45-day periods live in this chapter — The deposit-return deadline in 89-8-21(3) is not the 45-day period in 89-8-15(1)(b), which is the landlord's window to reimburse a tenant's repair-and-deduct receipts. Do not blend them.
Where the deposit text is published — Section 89-8-21 is reproduced in the same terms in three places — the Attorney General's official PDF, Justia's 2025 edition, and FindLaw current through January 1, 2025 — and subsections (1)-(2) appear in those same terms on the official LexisNexis compilation.

Common questions: Mississippi 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 Mississippi?: No statutory cap.
How long does a landlord have to return a security deposit in Mississippi?: 45 days. The clock does not start on move-out alone. It runs from a three-element trigger — 'the termination of his tenancy, the delivery of possession and demand by the tenant' — so the tenant must actually demand the money back (Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-21(3)).
What happens if a landlord does not return the deposit on time in Mississippi?: Retention of a deposit in violation of the section 'and with absence of good faith' may subject the landlord or transferee to damages NOT TO EXCEED $200 in addition to any actual damages (89-8-21(4)). There is no attorney-fee provision and no multiple-of-the-amount-withheld remedy in the statute.
Do landlords have to pay interest on security deposits in Mississippi?: No — Mississippi does not require interest on the security deposit to be paid to the tenant. No escrow or trust-account requirement exists anywhere in chapter 89-8 either. The one holding rule is a priority rule — the tenant's claim to the deposit is prior to the claim of any creditor of the landlord (89-8-21(2)).
Can a landlord charge a non-refundable fee in Mississippi?: Not addressed by statute.

Statute citations

Miss. Code Ann. § 89-8-21 (1)-(4) (verified 2026) Official source
MS Attorney General, Residential Landlord and Tenant Act guide (full statutory text) § 89-8-21 (verified 2026) Official source
Miss. Code Ann. § 89-8-21 (Justia mirror, 2025 ed.) (verified 2026) Unofficial mirror

How this record was verified: Mississippi's official code compilation is LexisNexis-published without directly readable section pages (lexisnexis.com/hottopics/mscode redirects to advance.lexis.com), so verification ran on directly published official state sources reconciled with mirrors: enrolled session-law texts on the Legislature's billstatus.ls.state.ms.us (SB 2461/Laws 2022 ch. 501 eff. 2022-04-21; SB 2328/Laws 2025 ch. 460 eff. 2025-04-10; HB 1200/Laws 2025 ch. 474 eff. 2025-07-01; SB 2473/Laws 2018 ch. 446 eff. 2018-07-01) plus the MS Attorney General's consumer-guide PDF reproducing the full pre-2022 act text, each figure used here reconciled verbatim against Justia (2025 code edition) and FindLaw (current through 2025-01-01): 45-day deposit return with its three-element trigger and $200 bad-faith penalty (89-8-21, unamended since Laws 1991 ch. 478 — three matching reads), 30-day month-to-month and 7-day week-to-week termination notice (89-8-19, three reads), 3-day nonpayment termination notice and 14-day cure notice (89-8-13, official + mirror), rent-definition late-fee clause (89-8-7(1)(k), official + AG PDF), and the municipal/county rent-regulation preemption clauses (21-17-5(2)(h) and 19-3-40(3)(g), FindLaw + Justia matching verbatim). Negative checks (no deposit cap, no interest/escrow, no entry statute, no late-fee statute, no rent-increase-notice statute) were run against the complete current chapter assembled from the AG PDF (pre-2022 sections) and all amending enrolled acts. Legislature per-section bill indexes swept for every 89-8 section, 2018-2026, and the full 2026 all-measures index searched: no live bills; HB 442, HB 499 and SB 2012 (2026) all died in committee 2026-02-03. A same-day (2026-07-11) read of the official Lexis compilation's search results sight-confirmed the chapter's current compiled span (§§ 89-8-1 — 89-8-45), the verbatim opening text of 89-8-21(1)-(2), and 89-8-13's post-2022 structure including the (5)(a) nonpayment clause; complete Lexis sight-reads of 89-8-21/-13/-19 and the 21-17-5(2)(h) lettering remain pending, with the figures shown here resting on the reconciled official sources above.