What is the eviction process and timeline in Louisiana?
In Louisiana a landlord must hand the tenant a written notice to vacate giving at least five days to move out before filing for eviction, and those five days skip weekends and legal holidays, so in practice it runs about a week.
Cited to La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 4701 (Termination of lease; notice to vacate; waiver of notice) Para. 1 (five-day notice to vacate); Para. 2 (indeterminate-term lease; notice not more than 30 days before expiration of a definite term); Para. 3 (written waiver of notice in the lease) and 25 more cited sources · Verified October 1, 2026
The same five-day notice covers unpaid rent, a broken lease rule, and a lease that simply ended — Louisiana has no separate notice for different problems and no legal right to fix the problem and stay, though a judge can still take the circumstances into account. Watch the lease closely: state law lets a tenant sign away the notice entirely, and many Louisiana leases contain that waiver, which lets the landlord go straight to court with no notice at all. The court case is called a rule for possession, filed in a parish court, city court, justice of the peace court, or district court, and the hearing cannot be set earlier than the third day after the tenant is served, again skipping weekends and holidays. If the tenant does not show up or loses, the judge signs the eviction judgment right there, and the tenant then has 24 hours from that moment to leave before the court issues a warrant for possession. A sheriff, constable, or marshal — never the landlord — carries out the warrant, with two witnesses present, and may break a lock to get in. A tenant who wants to stop the lockout while appealing has to have filed a sworn answer raising a real defense and then apply for the appeal and post the bond within 24 hours of the judgment. Landlords who change the locks or take back an occupied unit themselves, instead of using this process, can be made to pay the tenant $500 or twice the monthly rent, whichever is greater, plus costs and attorney fees.
Louisiana eviction process at a glance
| Nonpayment notice (pay-or-quit) | 5 days |
|---|---|
| Nonpayment notice rules (day counting, cure rights, service) | Those five days skip weekends and legal holidays, so the notice runs about a week in practice. Louisiana grants no right to cure, and a written waiver clause in the lease — common in Louisiana form leases — cuts the notice to zero. La. C.C.P. art. 4701 supplies a single pre-filing demand for every ground, including nonpayment: when the lessee's right of occupancy has ceased "because of the termination of the lease by expiration of its term, action by the lessor, nonpayment of rent, or for any other reason," the lessor "shall cause written notice to vacate the premises to be delivered to the lessee," and "[t]he notice shall allow the lessee not less than five days from the date of its delivery to vacate the leased premises." Counting is judicial, not calendar. La. C.C.P. art. 5059(A) excludes the date of delivery and includes the last day unless it is a legal holiday, in which case the period runs to the end of the next non-holiday; art. 5059(C)(3) then removes legal holidays from the count altogether whenever "[t]he period is less than seven days," which the five-day notice is. La. R.S. 1:55(E)(3) provides that the enumerated state holidays, parish-declared Mardi Gras, clerk-closure days, "and all Saturdays and Sundays shall be considered as legal holidays for the purposes of Code of Civil Procedure Article 5059." The five days are therefore five clear non-holiday days, so a notice delivered on a Monday ordinarily does not expire until the following Monday — a practical floor of roughly seven calendar days, longer across a state holiday. Louisiana grants no statutory right to cure and no statutory reinstatement by late payment: the art. 4701 notice is unconditional on its face, and nothing in Title XI conditions it on the tenant's opportunity to pay. The substantive right to end the lease for nonpayment is La. C.C. art. 2704, under which the lessor "may, in accordance with the provisions of the Title 'Conventional Obligations or Contracts', dissolve the lease and may regain possession in the manner provided by law"; a tenant's answer invoking tender or the jurisprudential doctrine of judicial control is a defense at the hearing, not a statutory cure period. Delivery is to the lessee personally, but La. C.C.P. art. 4703 provides that if the premises are abandoned or closed, or the lessee's whereabouts are unknown, all notices, process, pleadings and orders under Title XI "may be attached to a door of the premises, and this shall have the same effect as delivery to, or personal service on, the lessee" (tacking). Critical exception: under art. 4701's third paragraph "[a] lessee may waive the notice requirements of this Article by written waiver contained in the lease," in which case the lessor "may immediately institute eviction proceedings" — a waiver clause common in Louisiana form leases reduces the statutory notice to zero days. Where the lease has no definite term, art. 4701 substitutes the Civil Code termination notice as the notice to vacate: La. C.C. art. 2728 requires 30 calendar days before the end of the period for a term longer than a month, 10 calendar days before the end of the month for a month-to-month lease, and 5 calendar days for a term of a week or more but less than a month — these Civil Code periods are stated in calendar days and are not subject to the art. 5059(C)(3) holiday exclusion. |
| Lease-violation notice period | 5 days |
| Lease-violation notice rules (cure vs. termination) | Louisiana has no separate lease-violation notice. The same five-day notice to vacate covers a broken lease rule, unpaid rent, and a lease that simply ended, and it never has to offer the tenant a chance to fix the problem. La. C.C.P. art. 4701 is a single notice to vacate covering termination "by expiration of its term, action by the lessor, nonpayment of rent, or for any other reason," so the same "not less than five days from the date of its delivery" applies to a lease breach as to nonpayment; the figure shown here repeats the art. 4701 figure rather than stating a distinct violation period, because the Code creates none. There is no statutory cure-or-quit split: art. 4701 does not require the notice to offer the lessee an opportunity to correct the breach, and no Title XI article escalates the period for repeat violations or shortens it for serious ones. There is likewise no statutory definition of "material noncompliance" — the substantive test is the Civil Code's. La. C.C. art. 2686 provides that if the lessee "uses the thing for a purpose other than that for which it was leased or in a manner that may cause damage to the thing, the lessor may obtain injunctive relief, dissolution of the lease, and any damages he may have sustained," and La. C.C. art. 2704 supplies the parallel right for nonpayment; whether a given breach warrants dissolution is decided by the judge at the rule hearing under the Civil Code and the jurisprudential doctrine of judicial control, not by a statutory grading of violations. The art. 5059(C)(3) / R.S. 1:55(E)(3) holiday exclusion applies identically, so the five days are five clear non-holiday days. The art. 4701 written lease waiver eliminates this notice for lease-violation evictions exactly as it does for nonpayment. Where the eviction targets an "occupant" rather than a lessee — defined by La. C.C.P. art. 4704 to include a sharecropper, day laborer, former owner, and "any person occupying immovable property by permission or accommodation of the owner" — La. C.C.P. art. 4702 requires its own written notice to vacate that "shall allow the occupant five days from its delivery to vacate the premises," and art. 4702 contains no waiver provision. |
| Unconditional-quit grounds | Every Louisiana notice to vacate is functionally unconditional: La. C.C.P. art. 4701 attaches no cure right to any ground, so the five-day notice is always a quit notice rather than a cure-or-quit notice, whether the ground is nonpayment, lease breach, expiration of the term, or "any other reason." True zero-notice eviction arises from art. 4701's waiver paragraph: "A lessee may waive the notice requirements of this Article by written waiver contained in the lease, in which case, upon termination of the lessee's right of occupancy for any reason, the lessor or his agent may immediately institute eviction proceedings in accordance with Chapter 2 of Title XI" — no notice at all, and art. 4731(A) expressly authorizes the rule to show cause where "the lessee has waived his right to notice to vacate by written waiver contained in the lease, and has lost his right of occupancy for any reason." The only statutory route to possession without a court judgment is abandonment, and it still requires the notice: La. C.C.P. art. 4731(B) provides that "[a]fter the required notice has been given, the lessor or owner, or agent thereof, may lawfully take possession of the premises without further judicial process, upon a reasonable belief that the lessee or occupant has abandoned the premises," with indicia including "a cessation of business activity or residential occupancy, returning keys to the premises, and removal of equipment, furnishings, or other movables from the premises." Art. 4731(C)(1) suspends that inference in disaster zones: "[i]n parishes subject to a federal disaster declaration, cessation of residential occupancy shall not be deemed evidence of abandonment pursuant to Paragraph B of this Article for thirty days following the initial declaration of a federally declared disaster." Substantively, immediate dissolution grounds are Civil Code: La. C.C. art. 2704 (nonpayment) and La. C.C. art. 2686 (misuse of the thing, or use "in a manner that may cause damage to the thing," supporting injunctive relief, dissolution and damages). Louisiana has no statutory illegal-activity, drug, or criminal-nuisance fast-track eviction in Title XI; such conduct is prosecuted through the ordinary art. 4701 notice and rule for possession. |
| Court and action | The action is not called unlawful detainer. Louisiana uses a summary "rule to show cause why possession should not be delivered" (La. C.C.P. art. 4731(A)), universally styled a rule for possession or rule for eviction: the lessor "may cause the lessee or occupant to be cited summarily by a court of competent jurisdiction to show cause why he should not be ordered to deliver possession of the premises," and "[t]he rule to show cause shall state the grounds upon which eviction is sought." Because it is a summary proceeding, La. C.C.P. art. 2594 applies: "Citation and service thereof are not necessary" — only the rule and the order fixing the date and hour of trial must be served on the defendant — and under art. 2595(A) it is tried by preference over ordinary proceedings and without a jury. Jurisdiction is concurrent and broad. La. C.C.P. art. 4832 identifies the trial courts of limited jurisdiction as "parish courts, city courts, and justice of the peace courts." La. C.C.P. art. 4844 gives a parish or city court jurisdiction within its territory "concurrent with the district court" over suits for possession of leased premises, eviction of tenants or occupants of leased residential premises, suits to evict an art. 4704 occupant, and eviction from commercial premises and farmlands — expressly "regardless of the amount of daily, monthly, or yearly rent or the rent for the unexpired term of the lease," so the ordinary amount-in-dispute ceiling does not cap eviction. La. C.C.P. art. 4912(A)(1) gives justice of the peace courts concurrent jurisdiction over "suits by landowners or lessors for the eviction of occupants or tenants of leased residential premises, regardless of the amount of monthly or yearly rent," with art. 4912(B) capping commercial and farmland evictions at $5,000 monthly rental; art. 4912(A)(3) extends the JP court to manufactured homes as defined by R.S. 9:1149.2 not exceeding $5,000 in value. District courts retain concurrent jurisdiction; art. 4847(A)(1) and art. 4913(B)(1) strip parish/city and JP courts of any case "involving title to immovable property," which routes genuine ownership disputes to district court. Service, notice and pleading may also proceed by tacking to a door under La. C.C.P. art. 4703 where the premises are abandoned or closed or the occupant's whereabouts are unknown. |
| Filing to hearing | La. C.C.P. art. 4732(A) sets the only statutory interval: "The court shall make the rule returnable not earlier than the third day after service thereof, at which time the court shall try the rule and hear any defense which is made." That is a floor, not a ceiling — the Code fixes no outer deadline for the return date, no statutory deadline to file the rule after the notice expires, and no separate time limit for service. Because the three-day interval is a period "less than seven days," La. C.C.P. art. 5059(C)(3) excludes legal holidays from it, and La. R.S. 1:55(E)(3) makes all Saturdays and Sundays legal holidays for art. 5059 purposes, so the third day is the third clear non-holiday day after service — service on a Thursday ordinarily produces a return date no earlier than the following Tuesday. There is no written-answer deadline: eviction is a summary proceeding, La. C.C.P. art. 2594 dispenses with citation, and the tenant may simply appear and defend on the return date. One filing does carry a hard consequence, however: under La. C.C.P. art. 4735 a tenant who wants an appeal to stop the eviction must have "answered the rule under oath, pleading an affirmative defense entitling him to retain possession of the premises" — a defense not made in an answer under oath, even a successful-sounding one, forfeits the suspensive appeal. Judgment issues at the hearing: art. 4732(B) directs that if the court finds for the lessor "or if the lessee or occupant fails to answer or to appear at the trial, the court shall render immediately a judgment of eviction," and that "[t]he judgment of eviction shall be effective for not less than ninety days." |
| Writ of possession and lockout | The possession order is a "warrant" for possession, not a writ of restitution or writ of possession. La. C.C.P. art. 4733: "If the lessee or occupant does not comply with the judgment of eviction within twenty-four hours after its rendition, the court shall issue immediately a warrant directed to and commanding its sheriff, constable, or marshal to deliver possession of the premises to the lessor or owner." Two timing points follow from the text: the tenant gets a 24-hour grace period measured from rendition of the judgment (not from service or notice of judgment), and once those 24 hours pass without compliance the court's duty to issue is immediate and non-discretionary. La. C.C.P. art. 4734 governs execution: "The sheriff, constable, or marshal shall execute a warrant rendered under Article 4733 in the presence of two witnesses, by clearing the premises of any property therein, in order to put the lessor or owner in possession of the premises," and "[i]f the sheriff, constable, or marshal finds the windows, doors, or gates of the premises locked or barred, he shall break open any of these when necessary to effect convenient entry." The Code fixes no deadline by which the officer must execute and prescribes no notice of the lockout date to the tenant, so scheduling is a matter of the executing office's caseload; the two-witness requirement and the officer's exclusive role are the only statutory constraints. La. C.C.P. art. 4732(B)'s ninety-day effectiveness period gives the lessor a statutory window in which the judgment remains executable. Title XI prescribes no storage, inventory, or redemption procedure for the tenant's property removed under art. 4734; La. C.C.P. art. 4705 preserves separately "any remedy heretofore allowed [the lessor] either for the payment of rent due to him or for the seizure of any furniture found on the leased premises" (the lessor's privilege). |
| Appeal window | 24 hours |
| Best-case uncontested timeline (derived from statutory minimums — contested cases run longer) | A floor in the neighborhood of two weeks from delivery of the notice to lockout, and roughly one week if the lease contains an art. 4701 waiver that eliminates the notice entirely. Those figures add up only the periods the Code actually fixes; real cases run longer. The floor is derived from statutory minimums, not a predicted or promised duration. Assuming a residential lease with no art. 4701 written waiver, an uncontested rule, and a parish or city court, the chain runs: (1) written notice to vacate delivered under La. C.C.P. art. 4701 must allow at least five days, and because art. 5059(C)(3) excludes legal holidays from any period under seven days while La. R.S. 1:55(E)(3) makes every Saturday and Sunday a legal holiday, those five clear days occupy about seven calendar days; (2) the Code sets no minimum or maximum between expiry of the notice and filing the rule for possession, so filing and service add whatever the court and the officer require — commonly several days and not statutorily bounded; (3) La. C.C.P. art. 4732(A) forbids a return date "earlier than the third day after service," and that three-day period is likewise holiday-free, adding roughly three to five calendar days after service; (4) art. 4732(B) requires judgment to be rendered immediately when the tenant fails to answer or appear; (5) art. 4733 gives the tenant twenty-four hours from rendition to comply, after which the court must issue the warrant for possession immediately; and (6) art. 4734 execution by the sheriff, constable or marshal has no statutory deadline. Real cases run longer: filing and service intervals, docket congestion, local court rules and the officer's execution schedule are unregulated by statute, and a tenant who answers the rule under oath pleading an affirmative defense and applies for the appeal and files the bond required by art. 4735 within twenty-four hours obtains a suspensive appeal that halts execution until the court of appeal rules. |
| Self-help eviction (lockout, utility shutoff) barred | Yes |
| Self-help scope and tenant remedies | A landlord who takes back an occupied unit instead of using the court process owes the residential tenant $500 or twice the monthly rent, whichever is greater, and can be enjoined. Only a sheriff, constable or marshal may carry out an eviction. Louisiana bars extrajudicial eviction by the structure of Title XI plus an express damages remedy, rather than by a single sentence declaring lockouts unlawful. La. C.C.P. art. 4731(A) channels the lessor into a summary judicial proceeding once the notice to vacate is unsatisfied, and arts. 4733 and 4734 vest execution exclusively in "its sheriff, constable, or marshal," acting under a court-issued warrant and in the presence of two witnesses — the lessor is never the executing party. The single statutory exception is abandonment: art. 4731(B) permits the lessor to "lawfully take possession of the premises without further judicial process" only "[a]fter the required notice has been given" and "upon a reasonable belief that the lessee or occupant has abandoned the premises," a permission whose narrowness confirms that repossession of an occupied unit without a warrant is not allowed. Enforcement is by art. 4731(C), added by Acts 2022, No. 442 (HB 160, eff. Aug. 1, 2022): "(2) Failure of the lessor to comply with this Article shall give a residential lessee the right to recover five hundred dollars or twice the amount of the monthly rent, whichever is greater, from the lessor or owner, or from the lessor's successor in interest. A residential lessee may obtain a restraining order or a preliminary injunction to enforce the provisions of this Article. (3) The court may award costs and attorney fees to the prevailing party for actions brought pursuant to this Article." The Legislature's own Resume Digest for Act 442 states the remedy without any disaster limitation: "New law provides that a residential lessee may recover the greater of $500 or twice the amount of monthly rent from the lessor or owner for failure to comply with C.C.P. Art. 4731." Art. 4731(C)(1) separately protects disaster-displaced tenants by barring any abandonment inference from cessation of occupancy for thirty days after a federal disaster declaration, art. 4731(C)(4) waives the art. 3610 injunction security for residential lessees in those parishes for the same thirty days, and art. 4731(C)(5) preserves the lessor's La. C.C. art. 2693 right to make non-postponable repairs. Wrongful eviction also remains an ordinary delictual claim, and La. C.C. art. 2700 obliges the lessor to warrant the lessee's peaceful possession. Note a widespread miscitation: La. R.S. 9:3329 ("Prohibition against self-help repossession," a fine of not more than $200, imprisonment of not more than three months, or both) is part of the Louisiana Lease of Movables Act (R.S. 9:3301 et seq.), governs lessors of MOVABLE property, and does not apply to landlords of immovable property; it is not the source of any residential anti-lockout rule. Title XI contains no statutory prohibition on utility shutoffs or on removing doors as an eviction tactic; those are addressed, if at all, through art. 4731(C) damages, injunctive relief, and general delictual liability. |
Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Louisiana Eviction Process Laws (verified October 1, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/eviction-process/louisiana/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.
Notes and caveats
- '5 days' means five clear non-holiday days — about a week in practice — Because the notice period is under seven days, C.C.P. art. 5059(C)(3) excludes legal holidays from the count, and R.S. 1:55(E)(3) makes every Saturday and Sunday a legal holiday for that purpose — so the five days are five clear non-holiday days, roughly seven calendar days, longer across a state holiday. No single Louisiana statute says 'the five-day notice excludes weekends': it is a three-provision derivation (art. 4701 + art. 5059(C)(3) + R.S. 1:55(E)(3)), textually clean and matching Louisiana practitioner guidance. Never read the 5 as five calendar days.
- One notice covers every ground — The nonpayment and lease-violation answers show the SAME statutory period, not two independent findings: C.C.P. art. 4701 creates a single notice to vacate for termination 'by expiration of its term, action by the lessor, nonpayment of rent, or for any other reason.' No distinct lease-violation period exists to report.
- A lease waiver can cut the notice to zero — Art. 4701 lets a lessee waive the notice by written waiver contained in the lease, after which the lessor may institute eviction proceedings immediately. The field carries the statutory default of 5 because that is what the law requires absent a waiver — but waiver clauses are reportedly common in Louisiana form leases, so the practical notice in any given tenancy may be zero. Whether such a waiver is enforceable against a tenant in federally subsidized housing, or where a local ordinance restricts it, has not been verified.
- The appeal window is stated in hours, not days — The 24 hours shown here is art. 4735's suspensive-appeal deadline, which the statute states in hours — 'within twenty-four hours after the rendition of the judgment of eviction' — running from rendition, not from service or notice of judgment. Art. 5059's computation rules are written for periods counted in days, and no statute says how they apply to a period stated in hours. Within those 24 hours the tenant must have answered the rule under oath pleading an affirmative defense entitling retention of possession, applied for the appeal, AND filed the appeal bond, whose amount the court sets with no statutory formula.
- An ordinary appeal does not stop the lockout — Art. 4735's first clause means a devolutive appeal does not suspend execution of the eviction judgment. Those devolutive windows are court-specific and deliberately left out of the appeal figure shown here: ten days from judgment or service of notice of judgment in city and parish courts (art. 5002(A)), fifteen days to file suit for trial de novo from a justice of the peace judgment (art. 4925(A)), and sixty days under the general rule of art. 2087(A) where the district court's ordinary appellate delays apply.
- The self-help bar is a judgment call, drawn from three provisions — No single Louisiana statute reads 'a lessor shall not evict without judicial process.' The bar is reported as statutory because three features combine: art. 4731(A) channels the lessor into a summary judicial proceeding; art. 4731(B) affirmatively permits extrajudicial repossession ONLY on a reasonable belief of abandonment — a carve-out that presupposes the general rule; and arts. 4733-4734 vest execution exclusively in the sheriff, constable, or marshal under a court-issued warrant. Art. 4731(C)(2)-(3) then supplies an express remedy: $500 or twice the monthly rent (whichever is greater), injunctive relief, and discretionary costs and attorney fees. No statute affirmatively permits self-help against an occupying tenant.
- The $500/double-rent penalty could be argued narrower than read here — Art. 4731(C)(2) sits textually inside Paragraph C, whose (C)(1) and (C)(4) are expressly limited to federally declared disasters — which could be argued to confine the penalty to the disaster context. The broader reading is adopted here because (C)(2) says 'this Article' rather than 'this Paragraph,' and the Legislature's own Resume Digest for Acts 2022, No. 442 describes the remedy without any disaster limitation. No Louisiana appellate decision resolving the ambiguity is cited here.
- Miscitation trap: R.S. 9:3329 is not a residential lockout statute — La. R.S. 9:3329 ('Prohibition against self-help repossession,' a fine of not more than $200, imprisonment of not more than three months, or both) is part of the Louisiana Lease of Movables Act (R.S. 9:3301 et seq.), governs lessors of MOVABLE property, and does not apply to landlords of immovable property. Multiple commercial landlord-tenant sites present it as Louisiana's residential anti-lockout criminal statute; it is not, and it is not cited here.
- Louisiana speaks civil law, not URLTA — This page uses Louisiana's actual vocabulary — notice to vacate, rule to show cause / rule for possession, warrant for possession, lessor and lessee, parish court, city court, justice of the peace court, suspensive and devolutive appeal. There is no 'unlawful detainer,' 'writ of restitution,' or 'forcible entry and detainer' in Louisiana law.
- Local practice varies by parish — and is not covered here — The statutory jurisdictional splits are described above, but local practice variation is not covered here: filing fees, form requirements, service methods, return-date scheduling, and constable execution practice differ by parish and by court, and Orleans Parish (First and Second City Courts) in particular operates its own eviction docket. Individual local court rules are not covered here, and neither is any supplementary municipal eviction ordinance.
- The timeline is a statutory floor, never a forecast — The uncontested timeline is a derivation from the cited statutory minimums, expressly framed as such. Two of its inputs are legally unbounded — the interval between expiry of the notice and filing/service of the rule, and the interval between issuance and execution of the warrant — so the stated floor is a lower bound on the statutory periods only, never a prediction.
- Residential tenancies only — C.C.P. arts. 4701 et seq. govern residential and commercial leases through the same articles, and the jurisdictional articles distinguish them (art. 4844(4); art. 4912(B)'s $5,000 monthly-rental cap in justice of the peace courts). Commercial leases, predial and agricultural leases, and mobile-home lot tenancies are out of scope and not covered here; manufactured homes appear only incidentally at art. 4912(A)(3) (JP jurisdiction over a manufactured home under R.S. 9:1149.2 not exceeding $5,000 in value), and Louisiana has no separate mobile-home-park eviction statute covered here. Federally subsidized and public housing carry independent federal notice and good-cause requirements that override or supplement art. 4701 and are not captured here. Deposit rules do not bear on eviction procedure and are covered separately.
- 'Judicial control' rests on the Civil Code's dissolution articles — Louisiana's doctrine of judicial control — under which a court may decline to order dissolution of a lease despite a technical default — draws on the Civil Code articles that art. 2704 applies to nonpayment: in an action for judicial dissolution the lessee may be granted, according to the circumstances, additional time to perform (art. 2013), and a contract may not be dissolved when a substantial part of the performance has been rendered and the part not rendered does not substantially impair the lessor's interest (art. 2014). No specific decision is cited here.
- No statute governs the evicted tenant's removed property — No statutory rule governs storage, inventory, or the tenant's redemption of property removed under art. 4734. That is an absence in the statutes, not a finding that no obligation exists. Art. 4705 separately preserves the lessor's traditional remedies for rent and seizure of furniture (the lessor's privilege).
- Nothing in Title XI has moved since 2022 — No article of Title XI has been amended since Acts 2022, No. 442 (art. 4731(C), effective August 1, 2022); art. 4701 still carries its 1981 amendment (Acts 1981, No. 713), art. 4732 its 2001 amendment (Acts 2001, No. 24), and arts. 4733, 4734, and 4735 carry no amendment history. Adjacent provisions moved more recently — art. 4844 (Acts 2024, No. 129), art. 4912 (Acts 2021, No. 25), art. 5059 (Acts 2025, No. 250), and R.S. 1:55 (Acts 2026, Nos. 40 and 113, both effective August 1, 2026: No. 113 removed the Presidents' Day label from the third-Monday-in-February holiday and named January 8 the Battle of New Orleans Day, and No. 40 added a clerk-closure holiday in Acadia Parish; neither touched R.S. 1:55(E)(3) or the Saturday-and-Sunday rule) — none of which changed any figure shown here. Three 2026 acts changed the law of leases, all in force since August 1, 2026: Act 63 (HB 292), adjusting the timing of the itemized security-deposit statement; Act 64 (HB 297), expanding early lease termination to include stalking and cyberstalking; and Act 240 (SB 77), restating the Civil Code articles on a lease's effect against third persons, transfer of the leased thing, and sublease and assignment (arts. 2674, 2681 to 2681.2, and 2711 to 2713.1). None touches Title XI eviction procedure. Act 127 (HB 142), also in force since August 1, 2026, rewrote C.C.P. art. 4922 so that notice of a justice of the peace court's final judgment follows art. 1913; the fifteen-day delay for a trial de novo in art. 4925 is unchanged. One further 2026 act touched the eviction forum without changing any figure here: Acts 2026, No. 950 (which became law without the Governor's signature in June 2026) added R.S. 13:2586(C)(9), giving East Baton Rouge Parish justices of the peace concurrent jurisdiction with the East Baton Rouge city court over suits by landowners or lessors for the eviction of occupants or tenants where the monthly rental is $5,000 or less — a single-parish venue rule; no statewide figure changed and the appeal windows are untouched.
- The figures come from the Legislature's own current-law text — Every figure here comes from the official text of the law on the Louisiana Legislature's site, legis.la.gov, for the provisions these answers rest on: C.C.P. arts. 4701, 4731, 4732, 4733, 4735, 4844, 4912, 5059 and R.S. 1:55. That text includes the 2026 acts that amended R.S. 1:55 (Acts 2026, Nos. 40 and 113, effective August 1, 2026).
- A rent subsidy is not a defense to eviction — Applying for or receiving entitlements or funds under any federal or state rent subsidy program or rent subsidy assistance is not treated as payment of rent and is not a defense to an action to evict.
- An active-duty tenant can have the case stayed ninety days — Where a tenant on active duty, or a member of that tenant's immediate family, entered the rental agreement on or after June 29, 2005 and active-duty service materially affects the ability to pay the agreed rent, the court must on the tenant's motion either stay the possession proceeding for ninety days, longer or shorter where justice and equity require, or adjust the obligation under the rental agreement to preserve every party's interest. The court may also act on its own motion, and where a stay is granted it may give the landlord whatever relief equity requires. The section does not reach a landlord operating fewer than four residential premises.
Common questions: Louisiana eviction process
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 notice does a landlord have to give before filing an eviction for unpaid rent in Louisiana?
- 5 days. Those five days skip weekends and legal holidays, so the notice runs about a week in practice. Louisiana grants no right to cure, and a written waiver clause in the lease — common in Louisiana form leases — cuts the notice to zero.
- How much notice is required to evict for a lease violation in Louisiana?
- 5 days. Louisiana has no separate lease-violation notice. The same five-day notice to vacate covers a broken lease rule, unpaid rent, and a lease that simply ended, and it never has to offer the tenant a chance to fix the problem.
- How long does an eviction take in Louisiana?
- A floor in the neighborhood of two weeks from delivery of the notice to lockout, and roughly one week if the lease contains an art. 4701 waiver that eliminates the notice entirely. Those figures add up only the periods the Code actually fixes; real cases run longer.
- How long does a tenant have to appeal an eviction judgment in Louisiana?
- 24 hours.
- Can a landlord change the locks or shut off utilities instead of going to court in Louisiana?
- No — Louisiana bars self-help eviction by statute; a landlord must go through the court process. A landlord who takes back an occupied unit instead of using the court process owes the residential tenant $500 or twice the monthly rent, whichever is greater, and can be enjoined. Only a sheriff, constable or marshal may carry out an eviction.
Changes since last full verification
The Verified date above (October 1, 2026) marks the last time every figure on this page was verified end-to-end against official sources. The changes below were published since then, each verified against the official source it names (what these dates mean).
- Correction, October 2, 2026 — Louisiana (correction): the deposit page had shown the return deadline as 30 days. The statute says within one month after the lease terminates (R.S. 9:3251(A)); the page and the deposit letter tool now show one month, and the tool counts a calendar month where it had added 30 days. The eviction page had shown the deadline for an appeal that suspends the judgment as 1 day; the article says within twenty-four hours of the judgment of eviction (C.C.P. art. 4735), and the page now shows 24 hours. The rent increase page had said no city or parish regulates rents: New Orleans requires units created under its inclusionary zoning program to be offered at an affordable rent (New Orleans Code sections 26-641 and 26-646), and the codes of nine other cities and parishes contain no rent regulation. Also corrected: notice to end the lease of a home must be in writing whether or not the lease itself is written (C.C. art. 2729); the 30-day notice in art. 2728 applies to a lease with no fixed term that runs by a period longer than a month, and a fixed-term lease ends without notice (art. 2720); the owner of land with three or more lots rented for factory-built homes may collect a $25 fee when lot rent is 60 days late and notice has gone to the home's secured parties (R.S. 9:3259.1(D)); taking possession without a judgment after an abandonment still requires the notice to vacate (C.C.P. art. 4731(B)); the self-help repossession statute sometimes cited against landlords belongs to the law on leases of movables (R.S. 9:3329); a court's power to refuse to dissolve a lease rests on C.C. arts. 2013 and 2014; the tenant's duty to allow urgent repairs is art. 2693. Comparisons with other states that no official source supports were removed.
Citations
- La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 4701 (Termination of lease; notice to vacate; waiver of notice) · Para. 1 (five-day notice to vacate); Para. 2 (indeterminate-term lease; notice not more than 30 days before expiration of a definite term); Para. 3 (written waiver of notice in the lease) (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 4702 (Notice to occupant other than tenant to vacate) · Para. 2 (five days from delivery for an occupant) (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 4703 (Delivery or service when premises abandoned or closed, or whereabouts unknown) · Tacking to a door has the effect of personal service (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 4704 (Definitions) · Definitions of "lease," "lessee," "lessor," "occupant," "owner," "premises" (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 4705 (Lessors' rights or real actions not affected) · Preservation of the lessor's remedies for rent and seizure of furniture (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 4731 (Rule to show cause why possession should not be delivered; abandonment; federally declared disasters) · Para. A (summary rule to show cause; waiver); Para. B (extrajudicial possession only on reasonable belief of abandonment); Para. C(1)-(5) (disaster exception; $500 or twice monthly rent; costs and attorney fees; injunction security; C.C. art. 2693 savings) (Acts 2022, No. 442) (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 4732 (Trial of rule; judgment of eviction) · Para. A (rule returnable not earlier than the third day after service); Para. B (immediate judgment on default; judgment effective not less than ninety days) (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 4733 (Warrant for possession if judgment of eviction not complied with) · Twenty-four hours after rendition; court shall issue the warrant immediately (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 4734 (Execution of warrant) · Sheriff, constable or marshal executes in the presence of two witnesses; may break locked doors (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 4735 (Appeal; bond) · Suspensive appeal only on a sworn answer pleading an affirmative defense, applied for and bond filed within twenty-four hours after rendition (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 5059 (Computation of time) · Para. A (exclude first day, include last unless a legal holiday); Para. C(3) (legal holidays excluded when the period is less than seven days) (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Rev. Stat. 1:55 (Days of public rest, legal holidays, and half-holidays) · Subsec. E(3): "all Saturdays and Sundays shall be considered as legal holidays for the purposes of Code of Civil Procedure Article 5059" (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 4832 (Trial courts of limited jurisdiction) · Parish courts, city courts, and justice of the peace courts (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 4844 (Amount in dispute; eviction proceedings) · Paras. (1)-(4): parish/city court eviction jurisdiction concurrent with the district court regardless of rent amount (Acts 2024, No. 129) (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 4912 (Possession or ownership of movable property; eviction proceedings; justice of the peace courts) · Para. A(1) (residential eviction regardless of rent); Para. B ($5,000 monthly-rental cap for commercial and farmland) (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 2594 (Service of process in summary proceedings) · Citation unnecessary; the rule and the order fixing date and hour are served (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 5002 (Delay for appeal from city and parish courts) · Para. A: ten days from the judgment or service of notice of judgment (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 4925 (Delay for appeal; justice of the peace courts) · Para. A: suit for trial de novo within fifteen days (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Civ. Code art. 2704 (Nonpayment of rent) · Dissolution of the lease and recovery of possession in the manner provided by law (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Civ. Code art. 2686 (Misuse of the thing) · Injunctive relief, dissolution of the lease, and damages for misuse (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Civ. Code art. 2728 (Notice of termination; timing — leases with indeterminate term) · Paras. (1)-(4): 30 / 10 / 5 calendar days depending on the rental period (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Civ. Code art. 2700 (Warranty of peaceful possession) · Lessor warrants the lessee's peaceful possession (verified 2026) Official source
- Acts 2022, No. 442 (HB 160), enacting La. C.C.P. art. 4731(C) — enrolled act · Section 1, art. 4731(C)(2): residential lessee recovers $500 or twice monthly rent for failure to comply with the Article (verified 2026) Official source
- Acts 2022, No. 442 (HB 160) — official Legislative Resume Digest · "New law provides that a residential lessee may recover the greater of $500 or twice the amount of monthly rent from the lessor or owner for failure to comply with C.C.P. Art. 4731." Effective August 1, 2022 (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Rev. Stat. 9:3259.2 (application for or receipt of government funds not a defense to action to evict) (verified 2026) Official source
- La. Rev. Stat. 29:315 (tenant and resident agreements; active duty) · (A), (B), (C) (verified 2026) Official source
How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Louisiana Legislature site (legis.la.gov Law.aspx section pages) for La. R.S. 9:3251-3254 and 9:3258 and Civil Code arts. 2005, 2011, 2012, 2680-2683, 2693, 2695, 2727, and 2728. Enrolled text of 2026 Act No. 63 (HB 292) read in full from the legislature's document server, plus the bill-status page confirming signature 5/11/2026 and 8/1/2026 effective date. Cross-checked against the Louisiana Attorney General's official guide 'A Guide to Louisiana Landlord & Tenant Laws' (La. DOJ Consumer Protection Section), noting that the guide's deposit-penalty figure ($200/actual damages) is stale — superseded by Acts 2018, No. 416. The other 2026 acts on leases (Act 64 on early termination, Act 240 on the Civil Code's lease title, Acts 40 and 113 on legal holidays, Act 127 on notice of a justice of the peace court's judgment and Act 950 on the East Baton Rouge justice courts) change no figure on the deposit, rent increase, late fee or entry pages. September 5, 2026 addendum: the decisive figures touched by the 2025-2026 enactments reviewed that day were re-read on the official host — Civil Code art. 2701, Acts 2026 No. 382 and No. 765, and R.S. 51:911.26 and 51:911.41 on legis.la.gov; the earlier reads stand as recorded. On October 1, 2026 every provision the deposit, rent increase, late fee, entry and eviction answers rest on was read again on legis.la.gov, whose text includes the acts of the 2026 Regular Session: R.S. 9:3201 to 9:3261.2, the Civil Code's lease title (arts. 2668 to 2729) and arts. 2000 to 2014, Code of Civil Procedure arts. 4701 to 4735, 4832 to 4925, 5001 to 5003 and 5059, R.S. 1:55 and La. Const. art. VI, § 9, with the 2025 and 2026 act lists and, for rent regulation, the codes of New Orleans, Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge Parish, Shreveport, Jefferson Parish, Lafayette, Kenner, Lake Charles, Bossier City, Monroe and Alexandria.