Pennsylvania Landlord-Tenant Laws
Local rent regulation in Pennsylvania
No Pennsylvania statute expressly addresses local rent control; whether a municipality could regulate rents turns on the general limits of municipal power under state law rather than any express rent-regulation ban.
Verified October 1, 2026 · Full Pennsylvania rent-increase rules →
Pennsylvania landlord-tenant laws by topic
Pennsylvania security deposits
Pennsylvania caps security deposits at two months' rent in the first year of a lease and one month's rent from the second year on, and after five years of tenancy a rent increase can't bring a deposit increase with it — with a 30-day deadline after lease end or surrender to deliver an itemized damage list and refund the balance.
Pennsylvania rent increase notice
Pennsylvania has no statute requiring any specific notice before a rent increase on an ordinary residential tenancy; the practical floor for a month-to-month tenancy is the notice-to-quit rule — 15 days for tenancies of one year or less or of indeterminate duration, 30 days for tenancies over one year (68 P.S. 250.501(b)) — because a tenant who declines the new rent is on notice the tenancy can end on that same timeline.
Pennsylvania late fees
Pennsylvania sets no statutory cap on residential late fees and mandates no grace period — the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951 simply doesn't address them — so a late fee rests on the lease and, if challenged, on general contract law.
Pennsylvania entry notice
Pennsylvania has no statute requiring advance notice before a landlord enters an occupied rental unit — the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951 is silent on entry — so the lease governs, and the Attorney General's consumer guide recognizes the tenant's implied covenant of quiet enjoyment.
Pennsylvania eviction process
Pennsylvania's eviction path runs from a notice to quit — 10 days for nonpayment, 15 days for a lease breach on a lease of a year or less (30 days if longer) — through a landlord-tenant complaint before a Magisterial District Judge, with the hearing set 7 to 15 days after filing and judgment at the hearing or within three days.
Pennsylvania application & screening fees
Pennsylvania does not regulate rental application fees at all: no statute caps the fee, ties it to what a screening actually costs, requires a receipt or a refund, requires anything to be disclosed before the money is taken, or sets a state denial-notice duty, and there is no reusable screening report law and no rule on money taken to hold a home.
Pennsylvania deposit interest
Pennsylvania requires a landlord to pay interest on a security deposit over $100, but only once the money has been held for more than two years.
Pennsylvania habitability & repairs
Pennsylvania has no habitability statute, and a landlord's duty to keep a rented home fit to live in rests on the state Supreme Court's 1979 decision in Pugh v. Holmes, which abolished caveat emptor for residential leases and adopted an implied warranty of habitability.
Pennsylvania lease termination
Pennsylvania requires a landlord to give 15 days' written notice to quit before recovering possession where the lease is for a year or less or for an indeterminate time, and 30 days where it is for more than a year, but the lease may shorten that notice or delete it entirely and many Pennsylvania leases do.
Pennsylvania lease disclosures
Pennsylvania requires no written lease, no copy of the signed lease, no owner or agent identity disclosure, no move-in condition report and no hazard or flood disclosure to a tenant.
Pennsylvania pets & assistance animals
Pennsylvania has no pet-deposit and no pet-fee statute, so a refundable pet deposit is ordinary escrow money that counts inside the general cap — two months' rent in the first year of a lease, one month after that — while pet rent and a true non-refundable pet fee are unregulated lease terms.
Pennsylvania mobile home park laws
Pennsylvania's Manufactured Home Community Rights Act governs the lease of a space in any community of three or more manufactured homes, requiring a written lease, allowing a community owner to end or refuse to renew that lease only for four listed reasons, and requiring written notice within 60 days of a decision to close the community with at least 180 days before residents must leave and a relocation payment from the owner.
Pennsylvania Fair Market Rents (FY 2027) — HUD's benchmark rents for every Pennsylvania metro area and county.
Editable Pennsylvania deposit kit · Editable Pennsylvania disclosure packet — editable documents built on the verified Pennsylvania rules on this page, in Word, fillable PDF and Excel.
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, November 2, 2026 — Pennsylvania: three corrections to the act's own words. Act No. 64 of 2026 lets a lower court order a landlord who breaks the parking-disclosure section to pay the parking costs the tenant incurs for the duration of the lease, in the amount the court determines (the page had said the rest of the lease). Under the county contact-information filing in force since September 18, 2026 (68 Pa.C.S. chapter 25), when an owner is cited for a municipal code violation the municipality collects and relays the owner's contact information (the page had put that filing on the owner); a business names one owner or employee and a limited liability company one member or manager with an ownership interest; an address-confidentiality participant may not be required to give an actual address, but is not excused from the filing. The eviction-process page states the magisterial district judge rules as restyled since November 1, 2026 (Supreme Court order of April 21, 2026), no amount changed. Bill statuses re-read: House Bill 2696 (assistance animals) re-referred in committee October 6; the 2026 acts list runs to Act No. 117.
- Updated, November 2, 2026 — Pennsylvania: Act No. 74 of 2026 (House Bill 1704), approved October 22, 2026 and effective December 21, 2026, amends the seller-disclosure chapter of Title 68: the property disclosure statement must call for flood risk indicators (past flood damage with the number of times and dates, a FEMA special or moderate flood hazard area, a flood-insurance requirement, government flood assistance received, flood-damage insurance claims filed), the State Real Estate Commission has 18 months to revise the form, and once the Insurance Department posts flood-risk information the seller must give the buyer a prescribed flood-insurance notice. The duties reach a lease only where the Residential Real Estate Transfers Law does, a lease with an option to purchase. Recorded as a dated future change beside Acts 64 and 67, which also take effect December 21, 2026.
- Updated, November 2, 2026 — Philadelphia: Bills 250330-AA and 250329-AA took effect November 1, 2026. Good cause is now required before any action to terminate a tenancy at the expiration of any lease, however long (Code Section 9-804(12)); an eviction filing or a notice of diversion rights counts as an action to terminate; two grounds are added (a cause under Section 501(a)(2) or (3) of the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951, and a bona fide sale to a buyer who will live in the unit, with 60 days' notice and the sale documents); the requirement does not apply where a court finds the landlord occupies the unit as a primary residence; the retaliation ban is wider; Section 9-816 adds a right to organize, a habitability presumption with rent abatement, and remedies of $1,000 per violation or actual damages, treble damages for willful violations and licence suspension. Owners must give tenants a copy of a new or renewed rental licence within 7 days, a Certificate of Rental Suitability issued within the previous 30 days at an eviction filing and on request once in 90 days, and the Department is to inspect all licensed rentals on a cycle by July 2030. The page's statements are rewritten in the present tense from the certified copies.
- Updated, October 23, 2026 — Pennsylvania enacted Act No. 64 of 2026 (House Bill 344), approved October 22, 2026 and effective December 21, 2026, adding section 207 to the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951: a residential lease must state whether parking is provided and, if it is, whether the tenant pays a fee and its amount; a lease silent on parking is read as providing none; the landlord may not change or add a parking fee during the lease except when parking availability changes or a third-party provider's pass-through fee changes; a tenant may complain to a magisterial district judge or other lower court, which can order the landlord to pay the tenant's parking costs for the rest of the lease. The page lists the act as a signed change that takes effect December 21, 2026; the lease-content answers change on that date.
- Updated, October 23, 2026 — Pennsylvania enacted Act No. 67 of 2026 (House Bill 558), approved October 22, 2026 and effective December 21, 2026, adding section 207 to the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951: a landlord or the landlord's agent may charge only a rental application fee reasonably related to the actual administrative expenses incurred and may not use application fees as a general revenue source; the section neither requires nor prohibits a fee for residential or nonresidential property. The $20 cap and the background-check clause in the bill as introduced were struck in committee and are not part of the act; the page's earlier description of the bill as a $20 cap is corrected. Until December 21, 2026 no statute limits the fee, and the page's answers change on that date.
- Correction, October 2, 2026 — Philadelphia (correction): a notice is stayed while a good-cause challenge is pending before the Fair Housing Commission, not during any challenge. The Certificate of Rental Suitability packet now names the handbook as amended in 2025 (Partners in Good Housing) and includes the required link to the City Commissioners' voter registration page. The note on the ordinance taking effect November 1, 2026 now states that its new eviction ground is limited to Section 501(a)(2) or (3) of the state Landlord and Tenant Act, that the ordinance prints two filing deadlines (the contract limitation period in Section 9-804 and two years in Section 9-816), and that the full rent abatement ends once the Department of Licenses and Inspections finds repairs actively progressing.
How this record was verified: Direct read of the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951 (P.L. 69, No. 20) text on the official PA General Assembly site (legis.state.pa.us HTM full text and section 512 page): Sections 511.1 (68 P.S. 250.511a), 511.2 (250.511b), 511.3 (250.511c), 512 (250.512), 501 (250.501). Absence of rent-increase, late-fee, and entry statutes verified against the full Act text and multiple concurring secondary sources. October 1, 2026: every section the security deposit, rent increase, late fee, entry and eviction answers rest on was read again on the General Assembly's website: the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951 in full (last amended by Act 88 of 2024), the Manufactured Home Community Rights Act, 1 Pa.C.S. 1908, 18 Pa.C.S. 4105 and 42 Pa.C.S. 1123. All 111 general acts of 2025 and 2026 were checked, and none amends them. The rules for magisterial district judges (Pa.R.Civ.P.M.D.J. 203, 501 to 521 and 1001 to 1008) were read on the official Pennsylvania Code site, and the Attorney General's consumer guide on its own site. The absence of rent-increase, late-fee and entry statutes now rests on those official texts.