New York security deposit laws (2026)

How much can you charge in New York?

Capped at 1 month's rent (NY HSTPA, 2019).

At 1 month's rent, New York sits in the strictest group in the country — 28 jurisdictions cap the deposit at all, and none goes below 1 month's rent. Charging a dollar more than the cap is the single most common way small landlords lose a deposit dispute.

One trap catches small landlords everywhere: the cap applies to everythingyou collect and hold as security, not just the line labelled “security deposit”. A last month’s rent held in reserve, a pet deposit, a key deposit and a cleaning deposit are usually counted together. Renaming a charge does not move it outside the cap.

Work out the total you intend to hold before the tenant signs anything — the deposit limit checker does the arithmetic against your rent — and put each amount on its own line on the lease and the receipt. If they are blurred into a single payment, you cannot later show what you were holding or why.

When do you have to return it?

14 days to return it after move-out — and the clock starts at the end of the tenancy, not on the day you get round to inspecting.

14 days is fast — the median across the country is 30. If you manage property in several states, New York is the one that will catch you out: the clock here runs out while you are still waiting on a contractor's invoice elsewhere.

What you owe the tenant by that date is two things: the money you are not keeping, and an itemized written statementof every dollar you are keeping. A lump sum labelled “damages” is not an itemization, and in a dispute it reads as an admission that you never counted.

The move-out sequence that keeps you inside the deadline

1. Before the tenant leaves. Offer a walk-through so they can fix what is fixable. It costs you an hour and removes most of the disputes you would otherwise have, because the tenant sees the same thing you do.
2. The day the tenancy ends. The clock starts here, not on the day you get round to inspecting. Take dated photographs of every room the same way you did at move-in, from the same angles.
3. Within the first few days. Compare against the move-in record, room by room. Anything that was already noted at move-in is not deductible, and finding that out now is far cheaper than finding it out in front of a judge.
4. Before you deduct anything. Get an invoice or a written quote for each repair. A round number with no document behind it reads as an estimate you invented, and it will be treated as one.
5. Finished within 14 days. Both the refund and the itemized written statement have to be complete and sent by the deadline — not started, not in the post that week. Send it in a way you can prove: recorded delivery, or email with the statement attached.

What the itemized statement has to look like

There is no national template, but the requirement is consistent everywhere: each deduction identified, priced, and traceable to something real. A statement that survives being read out in a small claims court looks like this — here on a $1,800.00 rent in New York, with $1,800.00 held:

Three things make that statement hold: every line names a specific item rather than a category, every repair has an invoice or receipt behind it, and nothing on it is a round number someone estimated. Attach the documents to the statement rather than offering to produce them later.

What you can actually deduct

Three categories, and no more:

• Unpaid rent — including rent for a period the tenant left early, where your lease and state law allow it.
• Unpaid utilities you are on the hook for.
• Damage beyond normal wear and tear — a cracked worktop, a hole in a door, a carpet burn.

Two limits apply even inside those categories. You can charge for the repair, not for an upgrade: replacing a damaged eight-year-old carpet with a new one leaves you claiming the remaining useful life, not the full price. And you cannot charge for cleaning to a standard beyond the one the tenant received the unit in.

Normal wear and tear, line by line

This is where most disputes actually live, so it is worth being concrete. The practical test a judge applies is whether the condition is the result of living in the unit or of abusing it.

Which is why the deduction is won or lost before the tenant moves in. A dated move-in checklist with photographs of every room, signed by both sides, converts an argument into a comparison. Without one, you are asserting that the damage is new, the tenant is asserting it was always there — and the party with the document wins.

What getting this wrong costs

Deposit disputes are the most common landlord–tenant claim in small claims courts across the country, and they are unusual in one respect: the penalty for a late or missing statement is frequently detached from whether your deductions were justified.

In many states, a landlord who misses the deadline forfeits the right to withhold anything at all — including for damage that genuinely occurred — and can additionally owe statutory damages, often a multiple of the amount wrongly withheld, plus the tenant’s legal costs. On the $1,800.00 held in the example above, a two- or three-times penalty turns a routine move-out into a four-figure loss over a deadline you missed by a week.

Read N.Y. Gen. Oblig. Law § 7-108 for the specific penalty in New York, and treat the deadline as the hard constraint it is rather than a target.

Five things to do before the tenant moves in

1. Total everything you are holding and check it against the 1 month's rent cap, counting pet, key and cleaning deposits and any last month’s rent.
2. Write the return deadline into the lease, matching N.Y. Gen. Oblig. Law § 7-108 rather than a figure copied from a template written for another state.
3. Photograph every room on the day of move-in, dated, from angles you can repeat at move-out.
4. Have the tenant sign the move-in condition report — a report only you signed is your opinion, one you both signed is evidence.
5. Give a written receipt for the deposit that names each amount separately and says where the money is held.

The free lease audit checks an existing lease against New York’s cap and deadline in a couple of minutes, which is the fastest way to find out whether the document you are already using has one of these wrong.

How New York compares

Across the 51 US jurisdictions, 28 cap the deposit and 23 leave it to the lease. Return deadlines run from 14 days at the tightest to 60 at the most generous, with a median of 30.

States with a comparable regime:

• Alabama — also caps at 1 month's rent
• California — also caps at 1 month's rent
• Delaware — also caps at 1 month's rent
• District of Columbia — also caps at 1 month's rent
• Hawaii — also caps at 1 month's rent
• Kansas — also caps at 1 month's rent

Every state at a glance

If you own property in more than one state — or you are about to — this is the whole picture in one table. New York is highlighted.

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