Does Arkansas have an implied warranty of habitability?

Statute — no independent court-created warranty operates alongside it. The duty is entirely statutory and recent: Ark. Code § 18-17-502, "Implied residential quality standards," added by Act 1052 of 2021 and applying to lease and rental agreements entered into or renewed after November 1, 2021. Arkansas courts have never recognized an implied warranty of habitability in a residential lease.

How long does a landlord have to make repairs in Arkansas?

30 days. The statute says "thirty (30) calendar days," and it is a single flat period to complete the repair for every one of the six standards — water, electricity, sewer, roof and heating alike. The tenant delivers written notice of the noncompliance by certified mail or any other method the lease provides, specifying the acts and omissions.

Can a tenant repair and deduct in Arkansas?

No — expressly barred — Arkansas forbids the remedy by name. The statute says a tenant shall not offset or withhold rent from the landlord for any alleged or actual violation of the implied quality standards, and adds that nothing in the chapter excuses a tenant from paying rent.

Can a tenant withhold rent for repair problems in Arkansas?

No — expressly barred — The same sentence that bars offsetting bars withholding, naming both mechanisms: a tenant shall not offset or withhold rent for any alleged or actual violation of the implied quality standards. Arkansas has no escrow of any kind for habitability — no court registry program, no agency escrow, no clerk deposit a tenant may use to press for repairs.

Can a landlord retaliate against a tenant who complains about repairs in Arkansas?

Only a narrow statute covers a specific class — see this page — Arkansas has no general anti-retaliation statute protecting tenants who complain about conditions, report code violations, or assert statutory rights, and no Arkansas appellate decision recognizes a retaliatory-eviction defense or doctrine. The one prohibition that exists is stated as a flat bar on the landlord's conduct in the narrow situation it covers; the section states no presumption, no time window, no burden shift, and no remedy of its own, and no Arkansas appellate decision has ever cited it, so it has no judicial gloss. — Only status as a victim of domestic abuse.

Can a lease make the tenant responsible for repairs in Arkansas?

Not waivable — any qualifier is stated on this page. Except as the chapter otherwise provides, a landlord or tenant may not agree in a lease to waive or forego any of the rights, duties or remedies available under the chapter, and the standards supersede any contrary provision of an oral or written lease. The one exception the statute writes in is narrow and specific: it does not override a lease where the tenant agrees in writing to accept responsibility to renovate, remodel, or complete the renovation, remodeling or construction of the dwelling.

What does Arkansas law require a landlord to repair?

Verified August 30, 2026 All Arkansas topics →

What did not become law. None of the following is law; failed bills are sometimes still described as if enacted:

SB 501 (2025 RS) — 'Tenant Possessions Recovery Act' — Would have required a landlord to give a tenant at least 14 days' written notice before the scheduled repossession date after a court issues a writ of possession, and created a process for tenants to recover personal possessions left behind. Adjacent to, rather than within, the deposit, rent-increase, late-fee, entry and eviction topics covered here, but it was the session's principal tenant-side bill. Status: Dead. Filed 2025-03-18, amended and re-referred to Senate Judiciary 2025-03-20, died in committee at the 2025-05-05 sine die adjournment. The 2026 fiscal session was appropriations-only; watch for a refile in the 2027 regular session (Arkansas holds regular sessions in odd years). (checked July 10, 2026).

Arkansas implies six quality standards into every residential lease entered into or renewed after November 1, 2021: hot and cold running water, electricity, potable drinking water, a conforming sewer system and plumbing, a functioning roof and building envelope, and a functioning heating and air conditioning system where one already served the premises.

Cited to Act 1052 of the 2021 Regular Session (Senate Bill 594), enacting Ark. Code § 18-17-502, "Implied residential quality standards" (approved April 29, 2021; applies to leases entered into or renewed after November 1, 2021) § 18-17-502(a)-(h) and 2 more cited sources · Verified August 30, 2026

There is no general fit-and-habitable standard behind those six, and no Arkansas court has ever recognized an implied warranty of habitability in a lease. A tenant who is current in rent gives written notice by certified mail or a method the lease provides; the landlord then has 30 calendar days — the same flat period whether the problem is a roof or the water supply. If the landlord does not fix it, the tenant's sole remedy is to end the lease without penalty and get the recoverable deposit back. Offsetting and withholding rent are both forbidden by name, there is no repair-and-deduct remedy, and the statute awards no damages or attorney fees. A landlord can also close off the whole question at move-in: supplying a defect-listing form that the tenant signs without noting a defect, or fails to return within two business days, deems the landlord compliant. Arkansas has no general retaliation statute — only a narrow clause protecting victims of documented domestic abuse.

Arkansas habitability & repairs at a glance

Where the duty comes from	Statute — no independent court-created warranty operates alongside it
Duty source details	The duty is entirely statutory and recent: Ark. Code § 18-17-502, "Implied residential quality standards," added by Act 1052 of 2021 and applying to lease and rental agreements entered into or renewed after November 1, 2021. Arkansas courts have never recognized an implied warranty of habitability in a residential lease. The Supreme Court kept the older rule in Propst v. McNeill (1996) and again in Thomas v. Stewart (2001), each time expressly reserving the question rather than deciding it, and in Propst it said such matters might be dealt with better in the legislative arena; a concurring justice in Thomas noted that the uniform act had gone unadopted for three decades. The Legislature answered in 2021 with the six implied standards, and no Arkansas appellate decision has construed them since.
Who is covered	Statewide — no coverage split
Where the repair standards live	The statute itself lists specific standards
What must be kept in repair	Six standards, and nothing else. Every covered lease implies that the dwelling unit or single-family residence has, both when possession is delivered and throughout the term: an available source of hot and cold running water; an available source of electricity; a source of potable drinking water; a sanitary sewer system and plumbing conforming to the building and housing codes in existence at the time of installation; a functioning roof and building envelope; and a functioning heating and air conditioning system, to the extent such a system served the premises when the lease was made. There is no general fit-and-habitable catch-all, no rodent, insect or mold standard, no lock or security requirement, and no landlord duty as to smoke or carbon monoxide detectors — the statute instead says the tenant may install a battery-powered or plug-in detector at the tenant's own expense and is then solely responsible for whether it works, for maintaining it, and for any damage its installation or removal causes. Building codes enter only through the plumbing and sewer standard, and only as those codes stood at installation. The standards do not apply while performance is temporarily prevented by an act of God, a public utility failure, or another force majeure event, which the statute says includes without limitation an epidemic or pandemic causing work stoppages, labor or material shortages, or required social distancing. Leases to purchase and leases with a purchase right are excluded.
Heat standard type	A duty to provide working heating equipment — capability, not a temperature guarantee
Heat standard details	The standard is that the heating and air conditioning system function — not that the landlord supply heat at any temperature. There is no degree figure, no seasonal window, and no hours-of-the-day rule anywhere in the section. The standard is also conditional on what was already there: it applies only to the extent a heating and air conditioning system served the premises at the time the landlord and tenant entered into the lease, so a unit rented without air conditioning never acquires a right to it.
Headline repair day count	30 days
Notice and repair-window rules	The statute says "thirty (30) calendar days," and it is a single flat period to complete the repair for every one of the six standards — water, electricity, sewer, roof and heating alike. The tenant delivers written notice of the noncompliance by certified mail or any other method the lease provides, specifying the acts and omissions. Three conditions gate the clock: the tenant's rent payments must be current, the noncompliance must not be excused by the disclosure-form or tenant-conduct safe harbor, and the notice must be the written one the section describes. If the landlord does not remedy the noncompliance within those 30 calendar days, the tenant's sole remedy opens. For defects arising after the tenant takes possession, the landlord is treated as compliant anyway if the condition could not be remedied because the tenant refused entry, or if it was caused by the deliberate or negligent act or omission of the tenant, a family member, another occupant or visitor, or anyone other than the landlord or the landlord's agent.
Repair and deduct	No — expressly barred — Arkansas forbids the remedy by name. The statute says a tenant shall not offset or withhold rent from the landlord for any alleged or actual violation of the implied quality standards, and adds that nothing in the chapter excuses a tenant from paying rent. No statute anywhere gives an Arkansas tenant a right to repair a condition and take the cost out of the rent, and no decision supplies one. A tenant who deducts anyway is simply behind on rent: the statute expressly preserves the landlord's remedies at law or in equity for a tenant's default, so the deduction exposes the tenant to eviction rather than protecting against it. What the tenant may do instead, after the 30-day notice period runs, is end the lease.
Rent withholding or escrow	No — expressly barred — The same sentence that bars offsetting bars withholding, naming both mechanisms: a tenant shall not offset or withhold rent for any alleged or actual violation of the implied quality standards. Arkansas has no escrow of any kind for habitability — no court registry program, no agency escrow, no clerk deposit a tenant may use to press for repairs. A tenant who withholds is in default, and the landlord's ordinary remedies are expressly preserved. Two separate payment rules belong to eviction practice rather than to this topic and should not be mistaken for escrow: a tenant who raises defenses or counterclaims in a landlord's possession action must pay the landlord the rent covered by that proceeding, and a defendant who keeps possession in an unlawful detainer case deposits rent into the registry of the court, with failure to deposit a ground for granting the writ of possession. Both run in the landlord's favor.
Termination over habitability failures	Yes — a statute states the right — Termination is the whole of the tenant's remedy. If rent is current, the noncompliance is not excused, and the landlord has not remedied it within 30 calendar days of the written notice, the tenant's sole remedy is to terminate the lease or rental agreement without penalty and receive a refund of any security deposit recoverable under the deposit statute. There is no damages award, no rent abatement, no repair order, and no attorney fee attached to it. The statute also protects the landlord's side of the deposit: where the implied standards were in fact met, the landlord may apply the deposit to any damage to the premises under the deposit statute, in addition to any other remedy applicable law provides.
Essential-service remedies	No distinct treatment beyond the general duty — Arkansas gives essential services no separate treatment. Running water, hot water, potable drinking water, electricity and the sewer system are among the six implied standards, but a failure of any of them runs on the same flat 30 calendar days and ends in the same single remedy as a leaking roof. There is no accelerated clock, no substitute-service or substitute-housing provision, no per-diem recovery, and no oral-notice allowance — written notice by certified mail or a method the lease provides is the only route.
Retaliation protection	Only a narrow statute covers a specific class — see this page — Arkansas has no general anti-retaliation statute protecting tenants who complain about conditions, report code violations, or assert statutory rights, and no Arkansas appellate decision recognizes a retaliatory-eviction defense or doctrine. The one prohibition that exists is stated as a flat bar on the landlord's conduct in the narrow situation it covers; the section states no presumption, no time window, no burden shift, and no remedy of its own, and no Arkansas appellate decision has ever cited it, so it has no judicial gloss. — Only status as a victim of domestic abuse. Where a residential tenant, an applicant, or a member of the tenant's or applicant's household is a victim of domestic abuse evidenced by a documented incident of domestic abuse — evidence contained in a court order — the landlord may not terminate or fail to renew the tenancy, refuse to enter into a tenancy, or otherwise retaliate in the leasing of a residence because of the abuse. Complaining about repairs, calling a code inspector, or using the implied-standards remedy is not protected activity in Arkansas.
Damages, penalties, and defenses	The statute provides the tenant no money beyond the deposit refund: no actual damages, no rent abatement or diminution measure, no civil penalty, no injunction, and no attorney fees anywhere in the section. It also says in terms that nothing in the chapter expands a landlord's tort liability beyond the separate statute that governs it — which bars liability to a tenant or a tenant's guest for death, personal injury or property damage caused by a defect or disrepair unless the landlord agreed for consideration, or assumed by conduct, an obligation to maintain or repair the premises and then failed to perform it reasonably. The two citations travel together, and they are the reason the 2021 standards did not create injury exposure. The landlord's defenses are unusually strong: the disclosure form, signed with no defect noted or simply not returned within two business days, deems the landlord compliant; a condition the tenant, a family member, another occupant or a visitor caused deliberately or negligently is excused, as is one the landlord could not remedy because the tenant refused entry; the remedy is lost if the tenant is not current in rent; performance temporarily prevented by an act of God, a utility failure, or another force majeure event is excused; and a lease entered before November 2, 2021 that has never been renewed is outside the section altogether.
Can the duty be waived or shifted	Not waivable — any qualifier is stated on this page
Waiver and delegation rules	Except as the chapter otherwise provides, a landlord or tenant may not agree in a lease to waive or forego any of the rights, duties or remedies available under the chapter, and the standards supersede any contrary provision of an oral or written lease. The one exception the statute writes in is narrow and specific: it does not override a lease where the tenant agrees in writing to accept responsibility to renovate, remodel, or complete the renovation, remodeling or construction of the dwelling. That is not the uniform act's delegation of ordinary repairs to a single-family tenant — Arkansas has no such carve-out at all. What functions like a waiver in practice is the disclosure form: a landlord who supplies a written form for listing defects when possession becomes available is deemed compliant if the tenant signs it without noting a defect and takes possession, or simply fails to return it within two business days.
Leading court decisions	Propst v. McNeill, 326 Ark. 623, 932 S.W.2d 766 (1996) — A commercial case — the lease was for airport hangar space for a private aircraft — in which the Court kept the century-old rule that a landlord is not liable for defects absent an express agreement or an assumption of duty by conduct, while saying it did not foreclose reviewing the rule in the future and that such matters might be dealt with better in the legislative arena. It is authority for Arkansas's adherence to the older rule and for the reservation of the question, not for any holding about rented homes. • Thomas v. Stewart, 347 Ark. 33, 60 S.W.3d 415 (2001) — A residential personal-injury case about an apartment balcony railing. Invited to reexamine the older rule, the Court declined to address the question further while again not foreclosing it, and reversed summary judgment on whether the landlord had assumed a duty to repair. A concurring justice observed that the uniform residential landlord and tenant act had been proposed for some three decades without action by the General Assembly and urged the Court to revisit landlord liability at the next appropriate opportunity.
Local rules	The statute says the section does not relieve a landlord from having to comply with any stricter applicable housing standard of a local government with jurisdiction. Local standards therefore stand as an independent floor rather than being folded into the state duty: a city standard is enforced as that city's standard, and the state remedy for a breach of the six implied standards stays what it is. The only place a code enters the state duty itself is the plumbing and sewer standard, which is measured by the codes in existence when the system was installed.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Arkansas Habitability & Repair Laws (verified August 30, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/habitability/arkansas/" — 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

Mold, vermin, locks and alarms are not in the Arkansas law — Descriptions of Arkansas landlord duties that mention mold remediation, rodent or insect control, working locks or security devices, landlord-supplied smoke or carbon monoxide alarms, or a threshold applying the law only to landlords with four or more units are describing House Bill 1563 of 2021, which cleared committee and then died in the House at sine die adjournment. None of it is law. The enacted statute has six standards, no ownership or building-size threshold, and it puts detectors on the tenant: a tenant may install a battery-powered or plug-in smoke or carbon monoxide detector at the tenant's own expense and is then solely responsible for whether it works, for maintaining it, and for any damage from installing or removing it.
A form the tenant never returns ends the question — The statute's safe harbor is unlike anything in other states. If the landlord supplies the tenant, at the time possession is available, a written form for listing any of the six defects, the landlord is deemed to be in compliance when the tenant either signs it without noting a defect and takes possession, or fails to return it within two business days. The section prescribes no content for the form beyond the list, no delivery method, and no proof of delivery. Doing nothing with the form is the option that costs the tenant the most.
Thirty calendar days, and only one clock — The statute says "calendar" in those words, so the count is not 30 business days. It is also the only clock in the section: a total loss of drinking water, of electricity, or of the sewer system runs the same 30 days as a roof problem, and nothing accelerates for an emergency. Two conditions must hold when the notice is given — the tenant's rent must be current, and the noncompliance must not already be excused by the disclosure form or by the tenant's own conduct.
Termination is the whole remedy — The statute calls termination plus a deposit refund the tenant's "sole remedy," and means it: no damages, no rent reduction, no repair order, no attorney fees, and no expansion of the landlord's liability for injury beyond the separate tort-immunity statute the section preserves. Sources that describe Arkansas tenants recovering damages for uninhabitable conditions are describing law Arkansas does not have.
Only leases from November 2021 forward — The standards are implied into lease and rental agreements entered into or renewed after November 1, 2021. A tenancy created before that date and never renewed since is outside the section entirely, which matters for long-running month-to-month arrangements where nothing has been signed in years.
No court has yet interpreted the statute — Five years after the standards took effect, no Arkansas appellate decision has cited the section — and none has cited the domestic-abuse clause either. Every open question about their scope, such as what a functioning building envelope requires or how conclusive the disclosure-form safe harbor is, has no judicial answer yet. Treat both provisions as text, not as applied doctrine.
The Arkansas warranty cases are about buying new homes — Search results claiming Arkansas courts recognize an implied warranty of habitability are almost always pointing at the builder-vendor line that runs from a 1970 decision about newly built houses — a different doctrine, different parties, no application to leases. And Propst v. McNeill, often cited for the proposition that Arkansas tenants have no habitability rights, was a lease of airport hangar space for an aircraft; it decided landlord tort liability under the older rule and expressly reserved the residential question.

Common questions: Arkansas habitability & repairs

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

Does Arkansas have an implied warranty of habitability?: Statute — no independent court-created warranty operates alongside it. The duty is entirely statutory and recent: Ark. Code § 18-17-502, "Implied residential quality standards," added by Act 1052 of 2021 and applying to lease and rental agreements entered into or renewed after November 1, 2021. Arkansas courts have never recognized an implied warranty of habitability in a residential lease.
How long does a landlord have to make repairs in Arkansas?: 30 days. The statute says "thirty (30) calendar days," and it is a single flat period to complete the repair for every one of the six standards — water, electricity, sewer, roof and heating alike. The tenant delivers written notice of the noncompliance by certified mail or any other method the lease provides, specifying the acts and omissions.
Can a tenant repair and deduct in Arkansas?: No — expressly barred — Arkansas forbids the remedy by name. The statute says a tenant shall not offset or withhold rent from the landlord for any alleged or actual violation of the implied quality standards, and adds that nothing in the chapter excuses a tenant from paying rent.
Can a tenant withhold rent for repair problems in Arkansas?: No — expressly barred — The same sentence that bars offsetting bars withholding, naming both mechanisms: a tenant shall not offset or withhold rent for any alleged or actual violation of the implied quality standards. Arkansas has no escrow of any kind for habitability — no court registry program, no agency escrow, no clerk deposit a tenant may use to press for repairs.
Can a landlord retaliate against a tenant who complains about repairs in Arkansas?: Only a narrow statute covers a specific class — see this page — Arkansas has no general anti-retaliation statute protecting tenants who complain about conditions, report code violations, or assert statutory rights, and no Arkansas appellate decision recognizes a retaliatory-eviction defense or doctrine. The one prohibition that exists is stated as a flat bar on the landlord's conduct in the narrow situation it covers; the section states no presumption, no time window, no burden shift, and no remedy of its own, and no Arkansas appellate decision has ever cited it, so it has no judicial gloss. — Only status as a victim of domestic abuse.
Can a lease make the tenant responsible for repairs in Arkansas?: Not waivable — any qualifier is stated on this page. Except as the chapter otherwise provides, a landlord or tenant may not agree in a lease to waive or forego any of the rights, duties or remedies available under the chapter, and the standards supersede any contrary provision of an oral or written lease. The one exception the statute writes in is narrow and specific: it does not override a lease where the tenant agrees in writing to accept responsibility to renovate, remodel, or complete the renovation, remodeling or construction of the dwelling.

Citations

Act 1052 of the 2021 Regular Session (Senate Bill 594), enacting Ark. Code § 18-17-502, "Implied residential quality standards" (approved April 29, 2021; applies to leases entered into or renewed after November 1, 2021) · § 18-17-502(a)-(h) (verified 2026) Official source
Arkansas General Assembly, code sections amended in title 18, 2025 Regular Session (the Assembly's own register of what each session changed; no section of chapter 17 has been amended since Act 1052 of 2021) (verified 2026) Official source
House Bill 1563 of the 2021 Regular Session (the minimum-habitability-standards bill that died in the House at sine die adjournment, October 15, 2021) (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct reading of the enrolled text of Act 1052 of the 2021 Regular Session (Senate Bill 594), read in full from the Arkansas General Assembly's own act, which creates Ark. Code § 18-17-502 and amends the unlawful-detainer section; the enrolled text of Act 1004 of 2007, the single act that enacted the Arkansas Residential Landlord-Tenant Act, read in full; the General Assembly's own per-session register of code sections amended, run for title 18 in every session from 2013 through the 2026 Fiscal Session, and its bill page for House Bill 1563 of 2021; the Arkansas Judiciary's own opinion service, whose full-text index was exercised on known citations before any absence was recorded, for 18 enumerated queries on retaliation and for the citation history of §§ 18-17-502 and 18-16-112; and the official opinion texts of Propst v. McNeill, Thomas v. Stewart and Bostic v. Stanley, each read in full.