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Pennsylvania landlord-tenant law.

Updated August 2026. No statewide or local rent control in Pennsylvania; Philadelphia and other cities have tenant-protection ordinances but not rent caps.

Deposit limit

Capped at 2 months' rent during the first year of the lease; from the second year onward, including renewals, capped at 1 month's rent (68 P.S. section 250.511a)

Deposit return

Landlord must return the deposit balance, with a written list of any damages, within 30 days of lease termination or surrender of the premises; failure to provide the itemized list forfeits the landlord's right to withhold anything, and late return makes the landlord liable for double the amount wrongfully withheld (68 P.S. section 250.512)

Notice to pay

For nonpayment of rent, the notice to quit must give the tenant 10 days from service to pay or vacate; for other terminations on a lease of one year or less or an indeterminate term, notice is 15 days, and for a lease longer than one year, 30 days (68 P.S. section 250.501)

Landlord entry

No statewide statute sets a required notice period for landlord entry; the right of entry and any advance-notice obligation is left to the lease terms and general common-law limits, a genuine gap in Pennsylvania statutory law rather than an unconfirmed number

Security deposits

Deposit limit. Capped at 2 months' rent during the first year of the lease; from the second year onward, including renewals, capped at 1 month's rent (68 P.S. section 250.511a)

Getting it back. Landlord must return the deposit balance, with a written list of any damages, within 30 days of lease termination or surrender of the premises; failure to provide the itemized list forfeits the landlord's right to withhold anything, and late return makes the landlord liable for double the amount wrongfully withheld (68 P.S. section 250.512)

Late fees and rent

No statewide statutory cap or mandatory grace period found; state law appears to be genuinely silent here, so late fees are enforceable if reasonable and set out in the written lease under general Pennsylvania contract principles rather than a specific Landlord and Tenant Act provision

Ending a tenancy

Nonpayment of rent. For nonpayment of rent, the notice to quit must give the tenant 10 days from service to pay or vacate; for other terminations on a lease of one year or less or an indeterminate term, notice is 15 days, and for a lease longer than one year, 30 days (68 P.S. section 250.501)

Month-to-month termination. A month-to-month or otherwise indeterminate-term tenancy requires a 15 day notice to quit (68 P.S. section 250.501), unless the written lease specifies a different notice period, which then controls

Landlord entry

No statewide statute sets a required notice period for landlord entry; the right of entry and any advance-notice obligation is left to the lease terms and general common-law limits, a genuine gap in Pennsylvania statutory law rather than an unconfirmed number

Required disclosures

  • Federal lead-based paint disclosure and EPA pamphlet for housing built before 1978 (42 U.S.C. 4852d)
  • For deposits held into a second year, disclosure and accounting of the escrow account and any interest owed to the tenant (68 P.S. section 250.511a to 250.512)
  • Local disclosures may apply on top of state law, for example Philadelphia's Certificate of Rental Suitability required by city ordinance, not state statute

Lease clauses that do not hold up

  • Lease clauses waiving the tenant's security deposit protections under 68 P.S. section 250.511a and 250.512 are void and cannot be waived by agreement
  • Confession-of-judgment clauses for possession in residential leases are barred by Pennsylvania Rule of Civil Procedure 2950 and related case law, though they still appear in some commercial leases
  • Self-help eviction, such as changing locks or removing a tenant's belongings without a court order, is not a lawful substitute for the judicial process under the Landlord and Tenant Act

Notes for landlords

Pennsylvania's Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951 is an uncodified statute (68 P.S., not part of the consolidated Pennsylvania Code), which makes official full text harder to find online; the deposit and notice-to-quit figures above were confirmed against FindLaw's statute pages, which mirror the official Purdon's Statutes text. Because state law is silent on entry notice and late fee caps, the lease itself becomes the controlling document for both, so landlords should spell out both terms explicitly.

Sources

This guide is general legal information for landlords, not legal advice. Statutes change and local ordinances can add stricter rules on top of state law. Confirm any requirement with the current statute or a licensed attorney in your state before acting on it.

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