How does an Oregon landlord lawfully end a tenancy, and when may a tenant leave early?

Chapter 90 covers residential dwelling units in Oregon. The arrangements section 90.110 excludes from the act fall instead to the older tenancy law in chapter 91, where a month-to-month tenancy ends on 30 days' notice from either side, a fixed term expires without notice, and a lease may waive the notice entirely. Inside chapter 90, a space rented for a manufactured dwelling or floating home outside a facility carries a 180-day no-cause period rather than the ordinary ones, and facility tenancies are governed by their own sections and covered on the manufactured-home-park page.

Two switches decide which answers apply. The first is the exclusion list in section 90.110: an arrangement on that list sits outside the act, and the chapter 91 rules govern it, including the power to waive notice by lease that chapter 90 forbids. The second is a lease date: the tenant's right to end a fixed term after the landlord serves a qualifying-reason notice reaches only fixed-term agreements entered on or after January 1, 2026, so a reader checks when the agreement was signed.

The switch changes: ending a month-to-month tenancy; is a reason required; when a fixed-term lease ends; and when a tenant may end the lease early.

Landlord: 30 days. Tenant: 30 days.

Every chapter 90 period runs forward from service to a date the party giving notice designates in the notice, and the tenancy ends on that date without regard to when the rental period would otherwise have expired; rent is apportioned day to day unless the parties agree otherwise. Days are counted as consecutive calendar days, skipping the day of service and including the last day until 11:59 p.m. The fixed-term track adds a third anchor: a notice takes effect on the specified ending date of the term or on a date 30 days after the notice, whichever is later, so a late notice pushes the termination date out rather than failing outright. A mailed notice adds three days to whichever period applies, and the notice must state the longer period on its face.

The termination date may fall on any day.

Tiers: The landlord's period depends on how long the tenants have lived there, on the kind of tenancy, and on the reason. A week-to-week tenancy takes 10 days from either side. During the first year of occupancy the landlord may end a month-to-month tenancy without a reason on 30 days' notice. After the first year of occupancy there is no general no-cause route at all: the landlord needs a tenant cause or a qualifying landlord reason, which takes 90 days' notice, or 60 days on the accepted-purchase-offer route with the extra payment. The one continuing no-cause route is a unit in the same building or on the same property as the landlord's primary residence where that building or property holds no more than two dwelling units, at 60 days, or 30 days where the landlord has accepted an offer to purchase from a buyer who will live there and encloses written evidence of the offer. A purchaser at a foreclosure sale who takes over a bona fide tenancy uses its own periods: 60 days on a fixed term, and 30 days on a month-to-month or week-to-week tenancy or where the purchaser will live there. The tenant's periods do not tier by tenure at all: 10 days week to week, 30 days month to month, at any time during the tenancy.

A lease may not change the period. A rental agreement may not provide that the tenant agrees to waive or forgo rights or remedies under chapter 90, and a provision that does is unenforceable; a landlord who deliberately uses a prohibited provision and tries to enforce it owes the tenant up to three months' periodic rent on top of actual damages (section 90.245). The bar is chapter-wide and runs both ways, so a lease cannot shorten either side's period. The answer flips for a tenancy the act does not cover: under the older tenancy law a lease may waive the notice (section 91.100).

Source of the period: a termination-notice statute states it.

Either side may end a week-to-week tenancy on at least 10 days' written notice given before the termination date named in the notice. A tenant may end a month-to-month tenancy at any time on at least 30 days' written notice. A landlord may end a month-to-month tenancy without giving a reason only during the first year of occupancy, on at least 30 days' written notice; the first year of occupancy covers every period in which any of the tenants has lived in the unit for one year or less, so adding a person to the agreement restarts the clock for everyone named on it. After the first year the landlord may act only for a tenant cause, with the notice the for-cause sections require, or for a qualifying landlord reason on 90 days' notice, or on 60 days where the landlord has accepted a good-faith owner-occupier's purchase offer and makes the extra payment. The exception is a unit in the same building or on the same property as the landlord's primary residence where that building or property holds no more than two dwelling units: there a no-cause route survives the first year, at 60 days, or 30 days on an accepted owner-occupier purchase offer with written evidence enclosed. A purchaser at a foreclosure sale who takes over a bona fide tenancy gives 60 days on a fixed term and 30 days on a month-to-month or week-to-week tenancy, or 30 days on a fixed term the purchaser will occupy as a primary residence. Ending a tenancy in violation of the qualifying-reason rules makes the landlord liable for three months' rent plus the tenant's actual damages and gives the tenant a defense to a possession action, provided the tenant sues within one year of learning of the violation. A tenant who simply leaves without notice is not exposed to open-ended rent: liability ends 30 days after possession passes back to the landlord on a month-to-month tenancy, and 10 days on a week-to-week tenancy.

Yes: a statute bars no-cause termination or non-renewal for covered tenancies across the state once its coverage conditions are met.

How a tenancy comes inside the rule: coverage turns on how long the tenant has been there.

Who is covered: The bar on ending a tenancy without a reason attaches once the first year of occupancy has passed. The act defines the first year of occupancy as every period in which any of the tenants has lived in the dwelling unit for one year or less, and the Court of Appeals held in March 2026 that a landlord may therefore end the whole tenancy, as to every person named on the agreement, with a 30-day no-cause notice whenever any one of them is inside that first year, even a tenant of nearly two years. Two groups stay outside the bar: a unit in the same building or on the same property as the landlord's primary residence where that building or property holds no more than two dwelling units, and the space and facility tenancies chapter 90 handles separately.

No-fault grounds: Four qualifying landlord reasons, each on at least 90 days' notice: the landlord intends to demolish the unit or convert it to a use other than residential within a reasonable time; the landlord intends repairs or renovations within a reasonable time and the premises is, or will be during the work, unsafe or unfit for occupancy; the landlord or a member of the landlord's immediate family will occupy the unit as a primary residence and the landlord owns no comparable unit in the same building available at the time of the notice; or the landlord has accepted an offer to purchase from a person who in good faith intends to live there and encloses written evidence of the offer. The accepted-offer ground has a shorter 60-day version that carries an extra month's rent. A separate route lets a landlord stop a fixed term from rolling over on 90 days' notice after three or more rental-agreement violations in the preceding 12 months, each met at the time with a written warning that named the violation, said the landlord might end the tenancy at the end of the term, and said that correcting the third violation is no defense. The Court of Appeals has held that the owner-occupancy ground turns on whether the landlord will occupy a single integrated living space that includes the tenant's unit, and does not reach units separated by a publicly accessible hallway or another structural division.

Relocation payment: A landlord ending a tenancy for a qualifying reason pays the tenant one month's periodic rent when the notice is delivered. A landlord with an ownership interest in four or fewer residential dwelling units subject to the act is exempt from that payment. The 60-day accepted-purchase-offer route adds a second month's rent, payable in addition to the one-month payment, so a landlord holding five or more units pays two months on that route and one month on the 90-day route, while a landlord holding four or fewer pays one month on the 60-day route and nothing on the 90-day route. No payment attaches to the three-violations route.

Local ordinances: no statute or decision addresses them. No Oregon statute preempts or authorizes a local just-cause or termination-notice ordinance; neither chapter 90 nor chapter 91 addresses the question. The one express preemption in this area is limited to rent: section 91.225 declares rent control a matter of statewide concern, bars a city or county from controlling the rent that may be charged for a dwelling unit, and reaches only local regulation inconsistent with that section. The rent side of the question, including Oregon's own statewide cap on annual increases, is covered on the rent-increase page.

Oregon requires a reason to end a residential tenancy once the first year of occupancy has passed. Before that point a landlord may end a month-to-month tenancy on 30 days' notice without stating any reason, and may end a fixed term whose ending date falls inside the first year on the same 30-day footing. After the first year the landlord may act only for a tenant cause, with the notice the for-cause sections require, or for one of the four qualifying landlord reasons on 90 days' notice, or on 60 days on the accepted-purchase-offer route, or under the three-violations route at the end of a fixed term. A unit on the landlord's own property of no more than two dwelling units keeps a no-cause route after the first year. A no-cause notice need not state a reason; a qualifying-reason notice must state the reason and the supporting facts. Ending a tenancy in violation of those rules exposes the landlord to three months' rent plus the tenant's actual damages and gives the tenant a defense to the possession action.

A statute converts the tenancy to a periodic one after the term by operation of statute.

A tenant who does not want the term to roll over gives written notice at least 30 days before the specified ending date, or 30 days before a date named in the notice, whichever is later. Where the ending date falls inside the first year of occupancy the landlord may end the tenancy without a reason on the same 30-day footing. After the first year the landlord can stop the roll-over only with a qualifying reason on 90 days' notice, on the 60-day accepted-purchase-offer route, or under the three-violations route on 90 days' notice.

Where the specified ending date falls after the first year of occupancy, the fixed term becomes a month-to-month tenancy on the same terms by force of the statute, unless the parties agree to a new fixed term, the tenant gives the 30-day notice, or the landlord has a qualifying reason and gives the notice that goes with it. The conversion does not depend on the landlord accepting rent or electing anything, and a month-to-month tenancy in Oregon is by definition one that renews automatically for successive monthly periods until one or both parties end it.

A fixed term whose ending date falls inside the first year of occupancy may be ended by the landlord without a reason on at least 30 days' notice before that date, or 30 days before a later date named in the notice, whichever is later. A fixed term ending after the first year becomes a month-to-month tenancy automatically unless the parties agree to a new term, the tenant gives 30 days' notice, or the landlord has a qualifying reason. During the term itself the landlord may end the tenancy only for cause. Oregon has no statute requiring a landlord to remind a tenant before an automatic-renewal clause takes effect; the renewal and extension machinery in section 90.545 belongs to the manufactured-dwelling and floating-home facility sections and is covered on the manufactured-home-park page.

A tenant who stays after the tenancy ends without the landlord's consent holds over, and the landlord may bring an action for possession. If the landlord consents to the continued occupancy the tenancy is a month-to-month tenancy by default, because an agreement that creates neither a week-to-week tenancy nor a fixed term is month to month.

Damages: Oregon has no double-rent and no treble-damages holdover statute. Where the tenant stays without consent the landlord may recover possession and any actual damages resulting from the holding over, including the value of rent accruing from the expiration or termination of the agreement until the landlord knows or should know that the tenant has given up possession. A claim for possession and rent and a separate claim for actual damages for breach of the agreement may both be brought. The rent-liability limits that protect a tenant who leaves without notice do not shelter a tenant who holds over without consent.

What a consented holdover becomes: With the landlord's consent the occupancy runs on as a month-to-month tenancy. There is no year-to-year conversion in Oregon.

Yes: a statute imposes the duty.

When it attaches: The duty attaches when the tenant abandons the dwelling unit, not on any early departure or breach. The moment matters twice over, because a landlord who does not make reasonable efforts, or who accepts the abandonment as a surrender, is treated as having ended the agreement on the date the landlord knew or should have known of the abandonment, which cuts off the rent claim from that date.

Burden of proof: no authority allocates it.

The standard: Reasonable efforts to rent the unit for a fair rental. The act says what does not count against the landlord: receiving the keys back, and efforts to re-rent including preparing the unit for rental, are not acts inconsistent with the tenancy and do not by themselves show acceptance of a surrender. If the landlord re-rents for a term beginning before the original agreement would have ended, the original agreement ends on the day the new tenancy begins. On a month-to-month or week-to-week tenancy the remaining term is treated as one month or one week.

A statutory early-termination fee or liquidated-damages election displaces the duty for a landlord who takes the fee.

A lease clause accelerating all remaining rent on default is void.

The lease may not waive the duty.

If the tenant abandons the dwelling unit, the landlord must make reasonable efforts to rent it for a fair rental (section 90.410, subsection 3). A landlord who fails to try, or who accepts the abandonment as a surrender, is treated as having ended the agreement on the date the landlord knew or should have known of the abandonment. Section 90.148 supplies the standard's edges: taking the keys back and trying to re-rent, including preparing the unit for rental, are not acceptance of a surrender. Neither section says who must prove that reasonable efforts were or were not made, and no Oregon appellate decision construes the standard or allocates that burden, so the point is left where the statutes leave it. The duty can be switched off: a landlord who charges the early-termination fee for an abandonment during a fixed term gives up the re-letting duty along with the claim to later rent and to re-renting costs. A lease cannot waive the duty, because a tenant may not agree to forgo a right under the act. Oregon's statutes never use the word acceleration, but a lease clause charging all the remaining rent cannot stand: outside the capped early-termination fee a landlord may not charge any form of liquidated damages however designated, a lease provision requiring them is unenforceable, and a tenant who leaves without notice owes rent only until the earliest of the listed events, including 30 days after possession passes back on a month-to-month tenancy.

A statute caps what an early-termination fee may be.

The cap: A landlord may charge a fee for the abandonment or relinquishment of a dwelling unit during a fixed term without cause, and the fee may not exceed one and one-half times the monthly rent. It must be described in a written rental agreement, and no fee may be required at all except as the fee section allows. Charging it is an election rather than an add-on: a landlord who assesses it may not recover unpaid rent for any part of the fixed term after the date the landlord knew or should have known of the abandonment, may not recover damages for the cost of renting the unit to a new tenant, and loses the re-letting duty that would otherwise apply. The fee may not be charged where the tenant leaves under the domestic-violence release, under either military termination section, or under the tenant's counter-termination right after a qualifying-reason notice. Not paying a fee is not grounds for a nonpayment termination, though it can support a for-cause one.

Cap on damages after an early departure: A departing tenant's rent liability ends at the earliest of seven events, one of which is 30 days after possession passes back to the landlord where no termination notice was given, or 10 days on a week-to-week tenancy. Outside the capped early-termination fee a landlord may not charge any form of liquidated damages however designated, and a lease provision requiring them is unenforceable, with up to three months' periodic rent payable to the tenant where the landlord deliberately uses and tries to enforce such a clause.

Oregon regulates fees tightly. A landlord may not require the payment of any fee except as the fee section allows, and every fee must be described in the written rental agreement. The one early-termination fee the act permits is capped at one and one-half times the monthly rent and reaches only an abandonment or relinquishment during a fixed term without cause. It is barred outright for a tenant leaving under the domestic-violence release, either military section, or the counter-termination right, and charging it forfeits the landlord's claim to rent after the date the landlord learned of the departure and to re-renting costs. All other liquidated damages are barred. This answer rests on the statutes rather than on the state's administrative rules; the fee section is itself a closed gate and gives no agency rulemaking power over rental fees, so a rule could not create a fee the statute does not allow.

Early-exit rights by ground: domestic violence and related grounds, a statutory right to end the lease; military service beyond the federal act, state orders or National Guard duty are covered and termination takes effect sooner than under the federal act; death of the tenant, no statute; and other statutory grounds.

Domestic violence and related grounds: a victim may end the lease on notice.

Who qualifies: A victim of domestic violence, sexual assault, a bias crime, or stalking. Human trafficking is not one of the listed grounds. The release runs to the tenant and to any immediate family members the tenant names in the notice, and immediate family is defined to exclude anyone who is a perpetrator: an adult related by blood, adoption, marriage or domestic partnership; a cohabitant in an intimate relationship; an unmarried parent of a joint child; and a child, grandchild, foster child, ward or guardian of the victim or of any of those people. A parent or guardian of a minor household member against whom an incident was committed counts as a victim unless that parent or guardian is the perpetrator, and the statutory form opens with the tenant or a minor member of the household as the victim.

Separate schemes: There is one scheme with two verification routes, and they differ only on timing. A tenant protected by a valid order of protection may use the release with no requirement that the incident be recent. A tenant relying on the incident itself must show that it happened within the 90 days before the notice. Everything else is the same on both routes: 14 days' written notice, the release date the tenant names, the family members named, and freedom from rent and fees after that date.

Documentation: Written notice accompanied by verification, which may be a copy of a valid order of protection restraining a person from contact with the tenant, a copy of a federal, state, local or tribal police report, a copy of a conviction of any person for a covered act against the tenant, or a statement from a qualified third party substantially in the form the statute sets out. A qualified third party is a person who has had individual contact with the tenant and is a law enforcement officer, an attorney, a licensed health professional, an employee of the Department of Justice division providing victim and survivor services, or a victim's advocate at a victim services provider. The list is closed. The notice and the documentation go to the landlord together.

Window: 90 days; the incident or documentation must fall within that window before the notice. On the incident route the domestic violence, sexual assault, bias crime or stalking must have occurred within the 90 days before the notice, and any time the perpetrator spent in custody or living more than 100 miles from the victim's home does not count toward those 90 days. A tenant who holds a valid order of protection has no recency requirement at all.

Notice: 14 days; at least that many days must pass between the notice and leaving. At least 14 days' written notice. The notice must ask for the release, must state the release date, and must name any immediate family members to be released alongside the tenant. The tenant picks the release date, so long as it is at least 14 days out.

Rent owed: The released tenant and each released family member owe no rent and no damages to the dwelling unit incurred after the release date.

Cost to the tenant: No fee may be imposed solely because of the termination, and the capped early-termination fee may not be charged where the departure is under this section. A lock change is at the tenant's expense. The deposit is returned under the ordinary deposit rules.

Other tenants on the lease: the lease continues for the other tenants and the perpetrator's tenancy can be ended while the lease continues for the other tenants. Other tenants stay on the agreement, and where any tenant remains the tenancy continues for them; the landlord may not demand more rent, a further deposit, or a fee from them because a perpetrator was excluded. The release itself is wider than the victim alone, because it reaches the immediate family members the tenant names in the notice. A perpetrator's own tenancy ends by operation of law once a court order requiring the perpetrator to move out becomes final, and a perpetrator excluded that way stays jointly liable for rent and damage incurred before the exclusion.

Locks: The victim may require the landlord to change the locks. A tenant who gives the landlord actual notice of victim status may ask for the locks to be changed and need not supply any verification to start the process. The landlord must promptly change them at the tenant's expense or give the tenant permission to do it, and if the landlord does not act promptly the tenant may change them without permission and must then give the landlord a key. Where the perpetrator is a tenant in the same unit, the tenant must first give the landlord a copy of a court order requiring the perpetrator to move out; the landlord then has no duty to allow the perpetrator access, during the order's term or after it expires, and may not charge the remaining tenant more rent, a further deposit, or a fee for the exclusion.

Later screening: a landlord may not deny, refuse to renew, or terminate because of victim status or a past victim-status termination. A separate section bars a landlord from ending or refusing to renew a tenancy, serving a termination notice, bringing or threatening an action for possession, raising rent, cutting services, or refusing to enter into a rental agreement because a tenant or an applicant is or has been a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault, a bias crime or stalking; because of a rental-agreement or statutory violation that consists of an incident committed against that tenant or applicant; or because of criminal activity, or any police or emergency response, related to such an incident in which the tenant or applicant is the victim. The same section bars different rules, conditions or standards, and selective enforcement, on that basis. A tenant or applicant may recover up to two months' periodic rent or twice actual damages, whichever is greater, has a defense to a possession action, and an applicant may seek an order for possession. Oregon has no separate clause stopping a former landlord from characterizing the termination in a screening report; the protection comes from this applicant-side bar together with the confidentiality duty.

The landlord must keep the victim's documentation or status confidential.

The landlord's side: The landlord may require the verification the statute lists before releasing the tenant. Despite the bars on adverse action, a landlord may end a victim's tenancy where the landlord has already given the tenant a written warning about the perpetrator's conduct and the tenant then permits or consents to the perpetrator's presence and the perpetrator is an actual and imminent threat to the safety of people on the premises other than the victim, or the perpetrator is an unauthorized occupant living in the unit without the landlord's permission. A landlord may also end a perpetrating tenant's agreement on at least 24 hours' written notice after a criminal act of physical violence related to domestic violence, sexual assault, a bias crime or stalking against a household member who is a tenant, without ending the agreement for the others, and may ask a court to remove the perpetrator, proving the case by a preponderance of the evidence. A landlord who neither knew nor had reasonable cause to know of the connection and promptly dismissed the tenants who were not perpetrators does not pay the tenant's fees.

A tenant who is a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault, a bias crime or stalking may require the landlord to release the tenant, and any immediate family members the tenant names, from the rental agreement on at least 14 days' written notice stating the release date. The notice must be accompanied by a valid order of protection, a police report, a conviction record, or a qualified third party's statement in the statutory form; on the police-report, conviction and third-party routes the incident must fall within the 90 days before the notice, not counting time the perpetrator spent in custody or more than 100 miles away. After the release date the released people owe no rent and no damages to the unit, and no fee may be charged for the termination. Other tenants stay on the agreement. A tenant may also require a lock change without giving any verification, and the landlord must keep the tenant's information confidential except with the tenant's written consent, for use in an eviction case, to a qualified third party, or where the law requires disclosure.

Military service: State orders or National Guard duty are covered and termination takes effect sooner than under the federal act.

When the state rights attach: The state active-duty right attaches only to orders of 90 or more consecutive days. The federal-service right attaches on the orders themselves, including orders to enlist and the ending of active service, and for out-of-area orders only where the period will exceed 90 days. The relief-and-stay remedy in the military title reaches only an obligation incurred before the period of active service began.

Oregon adds two termination rights of its own on top of the federal servicemember act, and both are broader than it. A member of the organized militia called into active service of the state by the Governor for 90 or more consecutive days may end the agreement on written notice with proof of official orders, and the termination takes effect on the earlier of 30 days after the next rent payment is due or the last day of the month after the month the notice is given, which is sooner than the federal date. Separately, a tenant may end the agreement on written notice with proof of orders showing that the tenant is enlisting for active service in the armed forces; is a National Guard, reserve or active component member ordered to active service outside the area for a period that will exceed 90 days; is ending active service; is a Public Health Service member detailed to the Army or Navy and either ordered outside the area for more than 90 days or ending that duty and moving out of the area while entitled to shipment of household goods; or is a member of the commissioned corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ordered outside the area for more than 90 days. The armed forces named include the Space Force, added with effect from January 1, 2026. That termination takes effect on the earlier of any date applicable federal law sets or the later of 30 days after delivery of the notice, 30 days before the earliest reporting date on the orders, a date named in the notice, or 90 days before the orders take effect where the tenant is ending duty or service. Under either section the tenant is not subject to a penalty, fee, charge or loss of deposit and owes no rent beyond the effective date. The military title itself carries no lease-termination right, though it lets a state service member ask a court for relief from an obligation incurred before the service began or for a stay of proceedings, and caps interest on such obligations at six percent.

Death of the tenant: No statute gives a right to end the lease on the tenant's death.

Other grounds: Five further statutory grounds let a tenant leave early. A tenant served with a qualifying-reason termination notice during a fixed term may give the tenant's own written notice ending the agreement on a date at least 30 days after delivery, may do so inside the fixed term, and the landlord may then collect neither the early-termination fee nor unpaid rent for the period after that date once possession is returned; this right reaches only fixed-term agreements entered on or after January 1, 2026. A fixed-term tenant who receives actual notice that the property is in foreclosure may end the tenancy on at least 60 days' written notice unless within 30 days the landlord produces written evidence from a lender or trustee that the property is no longer in foreclosure or that a court has appointed a receiver. A tenant whose bedroom lacks the required alternate exit may end the tenancy on 72 hours' actual notice describing the problem, and if the landlord does not cure within that window the tenant recovers twice actual damages or twice the periodic rent, whichever is greater, with all deposits and prepaid rent returned within four days. A tenant who is unlawfully removed or excluded, or whose heat, running water, hot water, electricity or other essential service is wilfully cut off, may end the agreement and recover up to two months' periodic rent or twice actual damages, whichever is greater. And since June 5, 2026 a tenancy affected by a natural disaster ends immediately where the dwelling unit is destroyed, with the deposit and prepaid rent returned including rent prorated from the date of the disaster, no cleanup duty on the tenant, and a right to return after the emergency to look for valuables; no rent is owed while the unit is inaccessible because a government agency has posted it as unsafe or unlawful to occupy. Ending a tenancy because the landlord will not keep the unit habitable, and protection against retaliation, are covered on the habitability page.

Abandonment starts the landlord's re-letting duty rather than a presumption.

Oregon has no absence-and-unpaid-rent presumption and no notice-of-belief procedure for ending a tenancy. Abandonment matters because it starts the landlord's duty to make reasonable efforts to rent the unit for a fair rental and because it fixes the date the agreement ends: if the landlord re-rents for a term starting before the original agreement would have ended, the agreement ends on the day the new tenancy begins, and if the landlord fails to try or accepts the abandonment as a surrender, the agreement is treated as ended by the landlord on the date the landlord knew or should have known of the abandonment. A lease may require the tenant to give actual notice of an anticipated absence longer than seven days, and a wilful failure to do so lets the landlord recover actual damages, but neither the absence nor the failure ends the tenancy. Possession is treated as delivered back when the tenant gives actual notice of giving up the right to occupy, which returning the keys can show; when the landlord reasonably believes after a notice expires or a term ends that the tenant no longer claims the right to occupy; or when the landlord reasonably knows of the abandonment. A landlord may not retake possession except on abandonment or relinquishment or through the court process. What happens to property the tenant leaves behind is covered separately.

A written notice under chapter 90 is delivered by personal delivery to the landlord or tenant, by first class mail, or, only where the written rental agreement provides for it, by both first class mail and attachment to a designated location. A lease may provide mail-and-attach service of the landlord's notices only if it provides the same for the tenant's notices, so a landlord cannot take the cheaper method without giving it to the tenant. The landlord's copy goes to the premises and is attached securely to the main entrance of the part of the premises the tenant possesses; the tenant's goes to the address named in the agreement and is attached at the landlord's designated location, which the agreement must describe with particularity and which must be reasonably located in relation to the tenant and available at all hours. Any other method may be used only in addition to one of these. Electronic mail is available only under a written addendum that names each party's address, is signed by both after the tenancy has begun and the tenant has moved in, lets either party end electronic service or change the address on at least three days' written notice, and carries the statutory warning that signing is voluntary; and a notice ending the tenancy may go by electronic mail only if it is sent by both first class mail and electronic mail. A handful of sections call for actual notice instead, which may be verbal, left on an answering device, delivered personally, left at the landlord's rental office, sent by facsimile, attached to the main entrance, or given by any other method the written agreement describes as reasonably calculated to reach the recipient; a mailed actual notice counts as served three days after mailing.

Electronic delivery: only with written consent, a read receipt, or a lease clause.

Mailing: 3 days are added to the period when the notice is mailed. Where a notice is served by first class mail the minimum period for compliance or termination is extended by three days, and the notice itself must include the extension in the period it states. A mailed 30-day termination notice must therefore state 33 days, and one that states 30 is defective on its face. There is no equivalent addition for mail-and-attach or electronic service; for a notice measured in hours the clock instead starts at 11:59 p.m. on the day the notice is both mailed and attached to the premises, or both mailed and sent electronically.

What the notice must contain: Every termination notice under any provision of chapter 90 must carry the veterans information the veterans title requires: a statement that a recipient who is a veteran of the armed forces may be able to get help from a county veterans service officer or a community action agency, plus contact details for an officer for the county where the recipient lives and for a community action agency serving that area, or a statement that those contacts can be had by calling a 2-1-1 information service. Documents sent or served by the judicial department are excepted. A no-cause notice need not state a reason; if it offers an explanation anyway it must say that the notice is given without stated cause, that the recipient has no right to cure, and that the giver need not prove the reason. A qualifying-reason notice must state the reason and the supporting facts, and an accepted-purchase-offer notice must enclose written evidence of the offer. A three-violations non-renewal notice must state that the agreement ends on the specified ending date or on a designated date at least 90 days after delivery, whichever is later, state the reason and supporting facts, and be delivered with or after the third warning notice.

Oregon's own statutes defer to federal law rather than restate it. A military termination takes effect on the earlier of the state date and any date applicable federal law sets, so the federal servicemember act is the floor and the state sections only improve on it. Separately, payments under the United States Housing Act of 1937 and under any other local, state or federal housing assistance program do not count as rent for the rule that accepting rent waives a termination, so a landlord's acceptance of a subsidy payment cannot waive a notice.

The federal CARES Act 30-day notice to vacate for covered properties, as read in this state's courts: no state appellate decision construes it. No Oregon appellate decision construes the CARES Act's 30-day notice for covered dwellings, and Oregon has not written the requirement into its own statutes. The federal provision applies of its own force at a covered property, and because Oregon's own nonpayment notice periods run 72 hours on a week-to-week tenancy and 10 or 13 days otherwise, the federal 30-day notice is the longer one a landlord at such a property must give. (Appellate picture read as of September 2, 2026.)

Fircrest Properties, LLC v. Simmons, 347 Or. App. 637 (Oregon Court of Appeals, 2026; residential lease; bears on whether a reason is required): Reading the definition of the first year of occupancy together with the 30-day no-cause provision, the court held that if any one of the tenants has lived in the dwelling unit for one year or less, the landlord may end the tenancy in its entirety, and as to every person listed on the rental agreement, by giving 30 days' written notice. A co-tenant added part-way through the tenancy put it back inside the first year, and a tenant of nearly two years could not defend on the length of his own residency.

Schultz v. Scott, 333 Or. App. 76, 551 P.3d 949 (Oregon Court of Appeals, 2024; residential lease; bears on whether a reason is required): Construing the ground that lets a landlord end a tenancy so the landlord or an immediate family member can occupy the unit as a primary residence, the court held that the question is how the landlord intends to occupy the space, and that the ground is met where the landlord will occupy a single integrated living space that includes the tenant's unit. A footnote limits it: a landlord who would occupy the tenant's unit together with other units separated by a publicly accessible hallway or another structural division could not rely on the ground.