Where U.S. landlord-tenant law actually lives
Page last updated: September 12, 2026 · How we source & update
A finder, not a rulebook. For each state and each common renter topic, this page names the statute where the rule is written and links to the official publisher that prints it. It deliberately contains no deadlines, no caps and no dollar figures, because a location does not go stale the way a number does — and because the number you need should come from the official text, not from us.
Every row points at a government source. Nothing here is legal advice and nothing here has been reviewed by an attorney. If a court date or a notice is involved, free legal aid comes first: lawhelp.org · 211 · 911.
How do I use a statute finder?
Find your state in the topic you care about, open the official publisher link, and read the section named in the middle column. That text is the authority; everything written about it anywhere else — including on this site — is a summary of it. If the section you land on cross-references another, follow it: landlord-tenant rules are usually split across several sections, and the one that decides your situation is often not the one everybody quotes.
Two columns exist for a reason. Where it is written is the citation you can give a judge, a legal-aid intake worker, or a landlord. Official publisher is the site that prints the current text. A plain-language walkthrough of each state sits on our sister site, RenterProtection.org, which is under the same ownership and links back here.
What does this page deliberately not tell me?
It does not tell you how many days you have, how much a landlord may hold, or whether a fee is legal. Those values differ by state, by city, sometimes by building, and they change. Publishing them in a table invites someone to act on a stale row, so this page publishes the address of the law instead and sends you to the source for the value. Section numbers appear in the citations — those are addresses, not quantities.
Coverage is what our knowledge base has transcribed and cited so far, not every section that could matter. A missing row means “not yet transcribed here”, never “no such law”. Rows are drawn from the official publisher named on each one; where a row points at a commercial publisher rather than a state site, it says so.
Where does my state set the rules on security deposits?
Where does my state set the rules on eviction notices?
Where does my state set the rules on repairs and habitability?
Where does my state set the rules on landlord entry?
Where does my state address landlord retaliation?
How do I cite this page?
Reuse is welcome under CC BY 4.0 with a link back. Suggested form:
Renter Shield, “Where U.S. landlord-tenant law actually lives” (statute finder, 202 state-topic locations across 51 jurisdictions), updated September 12, 2026. https://rentershield.app/renter-rights/where-the-law-lives/
If you maintain a legal-aid, library or clinic resource page and a row here is wrong or out of date, tell us and we will fix it and say we did: how corrections work.