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

2 months' rent — Relabeling does not escape the limit: any money or property a tenant furnishes to secure performance counts, however denominated (RSMo 535.300.8). A deposit denominated for a pet is the one carve-out and sits outside the cap entirely.

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

30 days. The clock runs from 'the date of termination of the tenancy' (RSMo 535.300.3), NOT from the end of the month in which the tenant moves out. Within that window the landlord must either return the full deposit or furnish a written itemized list of damages plus any remaining balance.

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

A landlord who wrongfully withholds all or any portion of the security deposit owes the tenant, as damages, 'twice the amount wrongfully withheld' (535.300.6). That is twice the amount wrongfully withheld, NOT twice the whole deposit.

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

No — Missouri does not require interest on the security deposit to be paid to the tenant. Any interest a deposit earns is the landlord's property (RSMo 535.300.2). The deposit itself must be held for the tenant in a bank, credit union, or depository institution insured by an agency of the federal government, but no separate or escrow account is required.

What are the security deposit rules in Missouri?

Verified July 9, 2026 All Missouri topics →

Missouri caps security deposits at two months' rent and gives landlords thirty days after the tenancy ends to return the deposit or send a written itemized list of damages with any balance.

Cited to RSMo 535.300 subsections 1-8 · Verified July 9, 2026

The deposit must be held for the tenant in a federally insured bank, credit union, or depository institution, but any interest it earns belongs to the landlord — Missouri never pays deposit interest to tenants. Before withholding anything, the landlord must give the tenant reasonable written notice of the date and time of the move-out inspection, and the tenant has the right to be present at it. Deductions are limited to unpaid rent, damage beyond ordinary wear and tear, and losses from the tenant leaving without proper notice, and a landlord who wrongfully withholds any portion owes the tenant twice the amount wrongfully withheld. One Missouri quirk: money labeled a pet deposit is excluded from the statute's definition of a security deposit, so it sits outside the cap and the return rules entirely.

Missouri security deposits at a glance

Maximum deposit	2 months' rent — Relabeling does not escape the limit: any money or property a tenant furnishes to secure performance counts, however denominated (RSMo 535.300.8). A deposit denominated for a pet is the one carve-out and sits outside the cap entirely. RSMo 535.300.1: 'A landlord may not demand or receive a security deposit in excess of two months' rent.' Subsection 8 defines 'security deposit' as any deposit of money or property, HOWEVER DENOMINATED, furnished by a tenant to secure performance of any part of the rental agreement — so a 'move-in deposit', a 'damage deposit', or a refundable 'last month' held as security all count. Money or property denominated as a deposit FOR A PET is excluded from the definition entirely (535.300.8), so a pet deposit sits outside both the two-month cap and the 30-day/2x return scheme — the opposite of states like Arizona that fold pet deposits in. No unit-count threshold; applies to residential rental agreements generally.
Return deadline	30 days
Deadline conditions	The clock runs from 'the date of termination of the tenancy' (RSMo 535.300.3), NOT from the end of the month in which the tenant moves out. Within that window the landlord must either return the full deposit or furnish a written itemized list of damages plus any remaining balance. The landlord complies by mailing the refund and/or itemized list to the tenant's LAST KNOWN address, so a tenant who never supplies a forwarding address can satisfy the landlord's duty at a stale one. The end-of-the-month version of the deadline is a wrong formulation circulating on landlord-help sites.
Itemization required	Yes
Itemization rules	If anything is withheld, the landlord must furnish a written itemized list of the damages for which the deposit or any portion is withheld, along with the balance (535.300.3(2)). Withholding grounds are limited to three (535.300.4): unpaid rent; restoring the unit to move-in condition, ordinary wear and tear excepted (with a lease-based carpet-cleaning carve-out that requires the landlord to provide a receipt for actual carpet-cleaning costs within thirty days of the end of the tenancy); and actual damages from the tenant's failure to give adequate termination notice, subject to a statutory duty to make reasonable efforts to mitigate.
Separate account required	No
Interest owed to tenant	No
Account & interest rules	Any interest a deposit earns is the landlord's property (RSMo 535.300.2). The deposit itself must be held for the tenant in a bank, credit union, or depository institution insured by an agency of the federal government, but no separate or escrow account is required. RSMo 535.300.2 (added by S.B. 581, 2018) requires all security deposits to be 'held by the landlord for the tenant' in such an institution, and states flatly: 'Any interest earned on a security deposit shall be the property of the landlord.' No interest is ever owed to the tenant. The statute requires a federally insured institution but contains NO express separate-account, escrow, or commingling prohibition — sites claiming Missouri requires an 'escrow account' or forbids the landlord's own account overstate the text. Housing authorities created under section 99.040 and other government entities acting as landlords are exempt from this subsection (the holding requirement only — not the cap, return, or penalty rules).
Pet deposits	Expressly excluded: 535.300.8 says the term security deposit 'does not include any money or property denominated as a deposit for a pet on the premises.' A genuine pet deposit therefore does not count toward the two-month cap and is not governed by the 30-day return, itemization, or 2x-penalty provisions — it is a matter of contract. One caution: the exclusion turns on denomination as a PET deposit; a general deposit that merely covers pet damage among other things remains a security deposit.
Non-refundable fees allowed	Not addressed by statute
Penalty for violation	A landlord who wrongfully withholds all or any portion of the security deposit owes the tenant, as damages, 'twice the amount wrongfully withheld' (535.300.6). That is twice the amount wrongfully withheld, NOT twice the whole deposit. Many summaries state the penalty as double the whole deposit; the statute doubles only the amount wrongfully withheld. Subsection 7 preserves the landlord's right to recover actual damages exceeding the deposit and forbids the tenant from applying the deposit in lieu of rent.
Tenant forwarding-address duty	No affirmative statutory duty to furnish a forwarding address, but the landlord's return and itemization duties are satisfied by mailing to the tenant's LAST KNOWN address (535.300.3), and the move-out inspection notice likewise goes to the last known address or is delivered in person (535.300.5) — so a tenant who fails to update their address can lose both the inspection opportunity and the refund in practice while the landlord remains compliant.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Missouri Security Deposit Laws (verified July 9, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/security-deposits/missouri/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Every figure above is cited to the Missouri statute in the citations section below.

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

Notes and caveats

The 30-day clock runs from termination, not from month-end — The deadline starts on the date of termination of the tenancy. Hemlane and similar sites state 'within 30 days from the end of the month in which the tenant moves out' — that is not the statutory text, and it can misstate the deadline by weeks.
Penalty trap: twice the amount wrongfully withheld, not twice the deposit — 535.300.6 doubles the amount wrongfully withheld. Several summaries say 'twice the security deposit amount' — wrong, and the difference can be large when only part of the deposit is in dispute.
No escrow rule — a federally insured institution is the whole requirement — The 2018 addition at 535.300.2 is real: the deposit must be held for the tenant in a bank, credit union, or depository institution insured by a federal agency, and any interest earned belongs to the landlord. But the text contains no express escrow, segregation, or commingling ban, so sites claiming 'deposits cannot be held in the landlord's personal account' or 'escrow required' go beyond the statute.
'However denominated' — the label on the money does not control — The subsection 8 definition is label-agnostic, with a single express pet-deposit exclusion. Anything held to secure performance of the rental agreement is a security deposit whatever the lease calls it. The definition never mentions prepaid rent, so genuinely prepaid rent — money applied to rent rather than held as security — sits outside the section; this is a definitional point, not a cap on prepaid rent.
Nonrefundable fees: neither authorized nor prohibited — No Missouri statute addresses them, which is why the question is left unanswered rather than answered yes or no. A 'nonrefundable deposit' that secures performance risks being recharacterized as a security deposit under the however-denominated definition, while true fees (application, amenity) are unregulated contract terms.
The move-out inspection notice must be in writing — 535.300.5 requires reasonable notice in writing of the date and time of the inspection, sent to the tenant's last known address or delivered in person, and the inspection itself must be at a reasonable time. Secondary sources frequently drop the writing requirement.

Common questions: Missouri 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 Missouri?: 2 months' rent — Relabeling does not escape the limit: any money or property a tenant furnishes to secure performance counts, however denominated (RSMo 535.300.8). A deposit denominated for a pet is the one carve-out and sits outside the cap entirely.
How long does a landlord have to return a security deposit in Missouri?: 30 days. The clock runs from 'the date of termination of the tenancy' (RSMo 535.300.3), NOT from the end of the month in which the tenant moves out. Within that window the landlord must either return the full deposit or furnish a written itemized list of damages plus any remaining balance.
What happens if a landlord does not return the deposit on time in Missouri?: A landlord who wrongfully withholds all or any portion of the security deposit owes the tenant, as damages, 'twice the amount wrongfully withheld' (535.300.6). That is twice the amount wrongfully withheld, NOT twice the whole deposit.
Do landlords have to pay interest on security deposits in Missouri?: No — Missouri does not require interest on the security deposit to be paid to the tenant. Any interest a deposit earns is the landlord's property (RSMo 535.300.2). The deposit itself must be held for the tenant in a bank, credit union, or depository institution insured by an agency of the federal government, but no separate or escrow account is required.
Can a landlord charge a non-refundable fee in Missouri?: Not addressed by statute.

Statute citations

RSMo 535.300 subsections 1-8 (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Missouri Revisor of Statutes site (revisor.mo.gov): RSMo 535.300 read in full THREE times via independent reads (every figure it supplies — two months' cap, thirty-day return, written-notice inspection right, twice-the-amount-wrongfully-withheld penalty, subsection 8 definition — matched verbatim across reads), RSMo 441.060 and RSMo 441.043 each read twice (matched verbatim), plus single trap-check reads of RSMo 535.060 (demand of rent — confirmed it says nothing about late fees), RSMo 415.400 and 415.417 (confirmed the $20/20% late-fee figure belongs to the Self-Service Storage Facilities Act, not residential rentals), RSMo 441.233 (unlawful ouster), RSMo 441.065 (abandonment entry procedure), and the full chapter 441 section index (confirmed no entry-notice, late-fee, or rent-increase-notice section exists). 2026 regular session Truly Agreed To and Finally Passed list (102 bills) checked on senate.mo.gov 2026-07-09 and DEFINITIVELY re-swept 2026-07-16 after the Governor's ~July 15 action deadline (full list re-read directly; zero landlord-tenant bills; nearest property-adjacent bills eyeballed and confirmed out of scope — SB 973 is real-estate taxes/land banks/wholesaler disclosures plus a new ch. 442 sale-leaseback disclosure act, HB 2636 is the Uniform Mortgage Modification Act, both signed, eff. 2026-08-28); the 2025 amendments to 441.043 (H.B. 595 & 343, effective 2025-08-28) are already law and are incorporated, not flagged. The 2026 TAFP gate is CLOSED as a confirmed negative.