Does the deposit have to be in an interest-bearing account in Oregon?

No statute addresses whether the account must bear interest. ORS 90.300(2)(a) says the landlord "shall hold a security deposit or prepaid rent for the tenant who is a party to the rental agreement," and that "[a] tenant's claim to the security deposit or prepaid rent is prior to the claim of a creditor of the landlord, including a trustee in bankruptcy." Those sentences fix whose money it is and how it ranks if the landlord fails.

What happens if a landlord does not pay deposit interest in Oregon?

No statutory penalty reaches an interest violation specifically.

Do any cities or counties in Oregon have their own deposit-interest rules?

Portland has a real local rule, and its interest half is conditional. Portland City Code § 30.01.087(B)(1) requires a landlord to place security-deposit and last-month's-rent funds, within two weeks of receiving them, "into a secure financial institution account segregated from the landlord's personal and business operating accounts," and then provides that "[i]f the account is an interest-bearing account, all interest will accrue proportionately to the benefit of the tenant" and must be paid to the tenant "in full, minus an optional five percent deduction for administrative costs from such interest."

Does a landlord have to pay interest on a security deposit in Oregon?

Verified August 28, 2026 All Oregon topics →

Oregon requires no interest on a residential security deposit at the state level — but a Portland tenant may be owed it, because the city's own code says so when the deposit sits in an interest-bearing account.

Cited to ORS 90.300 (Security deposits; prepaid rent), in ORS ch. 90 (2025 edition) (2)(a), (12), (13) and 1 more cited source · Verified August 28, 2026

ORS 90.300 is a long and detailed section, eighteen subsections covering what a landlord may require, what may be claimed against the deposit, the thirty-one-day accounting and return, and double damages for a bad refund — and it never addresses interest, an escrow, a trust or a separate account. Two of its phrases are easy to misread. The landlord must "hold" the deposit "for the tenant," which is an ownership and creditor-priority rule rather than a custody duty; and subsection (12) requires "a separate accounting for security deposits and for prepaid rent," which means two itemizations, not two accounts. Across the whole of ORS ch. 90, including the manufactured-dwelling and floating-home provisions, there is no deposit-interest rule, and the 2026 session did not add one.

Oregon deposit interest at a glance

Interest owed to the tenant	No — no statute addresses it
How the rate is set	No rate exists — there is no interest duty
Current figure	No published figure exists
Rate rules	No rate rules — no duty exists
Accrual and payment	No payment duty exists
Who and what is covered	No statutory conditions stated — see the summary and notes
Statute controls where or how the deposit is held	No statute addresses how the deposit is held
Interest-bearing account required	No statute addresses whether the account must bear interest
Custody rules	ORS 90.300(2)(a) says the landlord "shall hold a security deposit or prepaid rent for the tenant who is a party to the rental agreement," and that "[a] tenant's claim to the security deposit or prepaid rent is prior to the claim of a creditor of the landlord, including a trustee in bankruptcy." Those sentences fix whose money it is and how it ranks if the landlord fails. They name no account, no escrow, no trust and no institution, and no other subsection requires the money to be kept apart from the landlord's own funds. Portland is the exception, by city ordinance rather than state law.
Penalty for violation	No statutory penalty reaches an interest violation specifically
Local rules	Portland has a real local rule, and its interest half is conditional. Portland City Code § 30.01.087(B)(1) requires a landlord to place security-deposit and last-month's-rent funds, within two weeks of receiving them, "into a secure financial institution account segregated from the landlord's personal and business operating accounts," and then provides that "[i]f the account is an interest-bearing account, all interest will accrue proportionately to the benefit of the tenant" and must be paid to the tenant "in full, minus an optional five percent deduction for administrative costs from such interest." Nothing in the city code compels the landlord to choose an interest-bearing account — the rental agreement must simply state which kind of account holds the deposit — so whether a Portland tenant is owed interest turns on the landlord's own choice.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Oregon Security Deposit Interest Laws (verified August 28, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/deposit-interest/oregon/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

Check the verified Oregon answer — and every state and city that differs — in the deposit interest calculator — free, no signup, built on the same verified Oregon law as this page.

City and county deposit-interest pages in Oregon

Portland — its own local interest rule

Notes and caveats

"Separate accounting" means two itemizations, not two accounts — ORS 90.300(12) says "[t]he landlord shall give a separate accounting for security deposits and for prepaid rent." A reader skimming for the words 'separate account' will find them here and manufacture a segregation duty Oregon does not have. The subsection is about paperwork: within thirty-one days of the tenancy ending, the landlord must give a written accounting of what was applied and why, and the deposit and the prepaid rent get separate reckonings. The same verb sense runs through subsections (10), (11) and (17).
"Shall hold ... for the tenant" is not a trust duty — ORS 90.300(2)(a) pairs the holding sentence with a creditor-priority sentence, exactly as several other states do. Together they say the money is the tenant's and outranks the landlord's creditors in bankruptcy. Neither requires an account of any kind, and the section's only other use of 'trust' is "trustee in bankruptcy."
The one bank account the statute names belongs to the tenant — ORS 90.300(13) lets a landlord return what is due "electronically to a bank account or other financial institution designated by the tenant." That is a refund destination the tenant nominates, not a place the deposit must live during the tenancy.
The one 'interest' in the section is the landlord's ownership interest — ORS 90.300(2)(b) makes "the holder of the landlord's interest in the premises at the time the tenancy terminates" responsible to the tenant for the deposit. That is the only occurrence of the word in the section, and it is about who owns the building.

Common questions: Oregon deposit interest

Each answer is the verified value from the table above, restated as a direct answer. Free to quote with a link to this page.

What is the Oregon security deposit interest rate right now?: No published figure exists.
When must a landlord pay or credit deposit interest in Oregon?: No payment duty exists.
Does the deposit have to be in an interest-bearing account in Oregon?: No statute addresses whether the account must bear interest. ORS 90.300(2)(a) says the landlord "shall hold a security deposit or prepaid rent for the tenant who is a party to the rental agreement," and that "[a] tenant's claim to the security deposit or prepaid rent is prior to the claim of a creditor of the landlord, including a trustee in bankruptcy." Those sentences fix whose money it is and how it ranks if the landlord fails.
What happens if a landlord does not pay deposit interest in Oregon?: No statutory penalty reaches an interest violation specifically.
Do any cities or counties in Oregon have their own deposit-interest rules?: Portland has a real local rule, and its interest half is conditional. Portland City Code § 30.01.087(B)(1) requires a landlord to place security-deposit and last-month's-rent funds, within two weeks of receiving them, "into a secure financial institution account segregated from the landlord's personal and business operating accounts," and then provides that "[i]f the account is an interest-bearing account, all interest will accrue proportionately to the benefit of the tenant" and must be paid to the tenant "in full, minus an optional five percent deduction for administrative costs from such interest."

Citations

ORS 90.300 (Security deposits; prepaid rent), in ORS ch. 90 (2025 edition) · (2)(a), (12), (13) (verified 2026) Official source
Portland City Code § 30.01.087 (Security Deposits; Pre-paid Rent) · B.1 (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Complete read of ORS 90.300 (security deposits; prepaid rent), all eighteen subsections, and of the whole of ORS ch. 90 in the Legislative Assembly's published 2025 edition; every occurrence of 'interest', 'account', 'escrow', 'trust', 'segregate', 'commingle', 'separate' and 'bank' in § 90.300 examined in context, and five deposit-interest phrase patterns run across the full 533,417-character chapter text, each returning nothing; the 2026 session gap closed against the Legislature's own amendments-and-repeals table for that session, which lists ORS 90.100, 90.262, 90.302 and 90.320 as the chapter's amended sections and not 90.300, and against all four 2026 Oregon Laws chapters touching ch. 90, in which the sole reference to § 90.300 is a cross-reference inside a natural-disaster termination provision. Portland City Code § 30.01.087 read in full on the city's official code site, currency line "Added by Ordinance 189581; amended by Ordinances 189715, 190064, 190905, and 191973, effective January 1, 2025."