How much can a landlord charge for a security deposit in South Dakota?

1 month's rent — Landlord and tenant may agree on a larger deposit only where special conditions pose a danger to maintenance of the premises (SDCL 43-32-6.1).

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

21 days. The clock runs from the point at which both the tenancy has terminated and the landlord has received the tenant's mailing address or delivery instructions. Within it the landlord must either return the deposit or furnish a written statement showing the specific reason for withholding any part of it (SDCL 43-32-24).

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

A lessor who fails to comply with SDCL 43-32-24 forfeits all rights to withhold any portion of the deposit, and bad faith adds punitive damages of up to $200.

Do landlords have to pay interest on security deposits in South Dakota?

No — South Dakota does not require interest on the security deposit to be paid to the tenant. No section of SDCL chapter 43-32, from 43-32-1 through 43-32-37, requires interest on residential security deposits or a separate, trust, or escrow account.

Can a landlord charge a non-refundable fee in South Dakota?

No — non-refundable fees are not allowed in South Dakota.

What are the security deposit rules in South Dakota?

Verified July 11, 2026 All South Dakota topics →

South Dakota caps residential security deposits at one month's rent, and the landlord must return the deposit — or give a written statement of the specific reason for keeping any of it — within 21 days after the tenancy ends and the landlord receives the tenant's mailing address or delivery instructions.

Cited to SDCL 43-32-6.1 and 3 more South Dakota statutes · Verified July 11, 2026

That 21-day deadline is new: 2026 Senate Bill 4 (SL 2026, ch 179), effective July 1, 2026, replaced the old two-week deadline that most guides still quote. A second clock runs alongside it: if the tenant asks, the landlord must deliver a full itemized accounting of anything withheld within 45 days after termination. Deductions are limited to unpaid rent and other sums due under the agreement plus restoring the unit to its move-in condition, ordinary wear and tear excepted. The enforcement teeth are sharp for a small statute: any failure to comply forfeits the landlord's entire right to withhold, and bad-faith retention — or a bad-faith failure to provide the written statement or accounting — adds punitive damages of up to $200. A larger deposit than one month is legal only if landlord and tenant agree to it because special conditions pose a danger to maintenance of the premises, and any money that functions as security counts against the cap no matter what the lease calls it. South Dakota requires no deposit interest and no separate bank account.

South Dakota security deposits at a glance

Maximum deposit	1 month's rent — Landlord and tenant may agree on a larger deposit only where special conditions pose a danger to maintenance of the premises (SDCL 43-32-6.1). The cap is otherwise absolute: a lessor 'may not demand or receive' more than one month's rent, and any deposit of money whose function is to secure performance of a residential rental agreement is a security deposit 'however denominated.'
Return deadline	21 days
Deadline conditions	The clock runs from the point at which both the tenancy has terminated and the landlord has received the tenant's mailing address or delivery instructions. Within it the landlord must either return the deposit or furnish a written statement showing the specific reason for withholding any part of it (SDCL 43-32-24). A second clock runs alongside: within 45 days after termination of the tenancy, upon the tenant's request, the landlord must provide an itemized accounting of any deposit withheld. The 45-day accounting track supplements, and does not extend, the 21-day return-or-explain deadline. The 21-day figure took effect 2026-07-01 (SL 2026, ch 179 / 2026 SB 4, signed 2026-02-12); before that the statute said 'two weeks.' Withholding is limited to amounts reasonably necessary to (1) remedy tenant defaults in payment of rent and other funds due under an agreement and (2) restore the premises to their condition at the commencement of the tenancy, ordinary wear and tear excepted.
Itemization required	Yes
Itemization rules	Two tiers: if anything is withheld, the landlord must give a written statement of the SPECIFIC REASON for the withholding within the 21-day window; a full ITEMIZED ACCOUNTING of any amount withheld is owed only if the tenant requests it, and is then due within 45 days after termination (SDCL 43-32-24). Failure to comply with either duty forfeits all withholding rights, and a bad-faith failure to provide the written statement or itemized accounting is itself a punitive-damages trigger.
Separate account required	No
Interest owed to tenant	No
Account & interest rules	No section of SDCL chapter 43-32, from 43-32-1 through 43-32-37, requires interest on residential security deposits or a separate, trust, or escrow account.
Pet deposits	No separate pet-deposit statute and no separate pet cap. Because 43-32-6.1 deems ANY deposit of money securing performance of the rental agreement a security deposit 'however denominated,' a pet deposit counts toward the one-month cap unless the parties agree to a larger total deposit under the special-conditions clause (conditions posing a danger to maintenance of the premises), and it is subject to the same 21/45-day return rules.
Non-refundable fees allowed	No
Penalty for violation	A lessor who fails to comply with SDCL 43-32-24 forfeits all rights to withhold any portion of the deposit, and bad faith adds punitive damages of up to $200. The punitive-damages trigger covers both the bad-faith retention of a deposit or any portion of it and a bad-faith failure to provide the required written statement or itemized accounting.
Tenant forwarding-address duty	The 21-day return clock does not start until the landlord has received the tenant's mailing address or delivery instructions (SDCL 43-32-24) — a tenant who never supplies an address or delivery instructions never starts the clock. The statute attaches no forfeiture to the tenant for delay in supplying it.

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

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

Notes and caveats

Headline trap — the deadline is 21 days, not two weeks — the return-or-explain deadline changed from 'two weeks' to 21 days on July 1, 2026 (2026 SB 4, SL 2026, ch 179, sec. 1, signed February 12, 2026). The act carried no effective-date clause, so the SDCL 2-14-16 default of July 1 after passage applies.
Any '14 day' chart is describing pre-July-2026 law — as of July 11, 2026 essentially all the secondary charts — Hemlane, iPropertyManagement, LeaseLenses' '14-Day Deposits' page, AAOA — still said two weeks or 14 days. Treat any 14-day claim as pre-July-2026.
What else SB 4 changed — the act recast the withholding grounds as an enumerated list without changing their substance, and it made a bad-faith failure to provide the written statement or the itemized accounting an independent punitive-damages trigger — previously that was phrased as an aspect of bad-faith retention.
Unchanged since 1984 — the receipt-of-mailing-address trigger, the 45-day on-request accounting, the forfeiture rule, and the $200 punitive ceiling all predate the 2026 amendment.
A reason statement is not an itemization — the automatic 21-day duty is a written statement of the specific reason for withholding, and nothing more; the full itemized accounting is owed only if the tenant asks for it, and is then due within 45 days after termination (43-32-24). South Dakota is the weakest form of this duty in the 50-state set — Iowa, Minnesota and Florida use the same 'written statement showing the specific reason' shape, and Colorado and Georgia say 'exact reasons' — so a claim that all 50 states require an 'itemized statement' is too strong.
A 'nonrefundable deposit' is still a security deposit — 43-32-6.1 deems any deposit of money whose function is to secure performance of a residential rental agreement a security deposit 'however denominated,' so a deposit labeled nonrefundable is treated as refundable and subject to the cap and the return rules. The statute does not address unrelated fee types such as application fees.
Commercial leases run on a different section — 43-32-24.1 is the parallel provision for commercial premises — 60-day return, 90-day accounting, same $200 punitive structure. Do not mix the two.
Adjacent remedy — lockouts and utility shutoffs — an unlawful lockout or a willful utility shutoff entitles the tenant to damages equal to two months' rent plus return of any advance rent and the deposit (43-32-6).
Three official texts carry these figures — the codified chapter, the individual sections, and the enrolled text of SB 4 all state these figures in identical terms. The post-SB-4 text of 43-32-24 is current as of July 26, 2026.

Common questions: South Dakota 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 South Dakota?: 1 month's rent — Landlord and tenant may agree on a larger deposit only where special conditions pose a danger to maintenance of the premises (SDCL 43-32-6.1).
How long does a landlord have to return a security deposit in South Dakota?: 21 days. The clock runs from the point at which both the tenancy has terminated and the landlord has received the tenant's mailing address or delivery instructions. Within it the landlord must either return the deposit or furnish a written statement showing the specific reason for withholding any part of it (SDCL 43-32-24).
What happens if a landlord does not return the deposit on time in South Dakota?: A lessor who fails to comply with SDCL 43-32-24 forfeits all rights to withhold any portion of the deposit, and bad faith adds punitive damages of up to $200.
Do landlords have to pay interest on security deposits in South Dakota?: No — South Dakota does not require interest on the security deposit to be paid to the tenant. No section of SDCL chapter 43-32, from 43-32-1 through 43-32-37, requires interest on residential security deposits or a separate, trust, or escrow account.
Can a landlord charge a non-refundable fee in South Dakota?: No — non-refundable fees are not allowed in South Dakota.

Statute citations

SDCL 43-32-6.1 (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 43-32-24 (verified 2026) Official source
2026 SB 4, SL 2026, ch 179 (amended 43-32-24; signed 2026-02-12, effective 2026-07-01 per SDCL 2-14-16) sec. 1 (verified 2026) Official source
SDCL 2-14-16 (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text served by the official South Dakota Legislature site (sdlegislature.gov, SDLRC codified laws): the complete text of every section of SDCL chapter 43-32 (43-32-1 through 43-32-37, including all decimal sections and the repealed 43-32-7) read via the site's chapter endpoint, with every section these answers rest on (43-32-6.1, 43-32-24, 43-32-13, 43-32-32, 43-32-12, 43-32-15) read a second, independent time via the per-section endpoint — all figures matched verbatim across reads (one month's rent cap; twenty-one days / forty-five days deposit clocks; $200 punitive ceiling; thirty-day modification notice with fifteen-day tenant termination right; twenty-four-hour written-notice entry presumption). SDCL 6-1-13 and 6-1-12 (rent-control preemption) double-read the same way. The 2026 amendment to 43-32-24 additionally pinned character-for-character from the official enrolled 2026 SB 4 (SL 2026, ch 179) and its introduced strike/underline version via the Legislature's document API; bill history from the official action log (signed by the Governor 2026-02-12; no effective-date clause, so effective 2026-07-01 under SDCL 2-14-16, read from the official site). Session sweeps run against the official bill lists: 2026 regular session (666 bills — SB 4 enacted and incorporated; HB 1231 on assistance-animal documentation tabled 2026-02-11, dead), 2025 regular session (571 bills — no landlord-tenant bills), 2025 special session (2 bills, corrections real estate only). Negative findings (no deposit interest or separate-account rule, no late-fee statute or grace period, no enumerated entry-reasons list) verified against the full chapter text in both reads. Note: sdlegislature.gov statute pages are served through an interactive viewer, but all text was read from the same official host's published data endpoints — no mirrors were needed or used.