What are the security deposit rules in Mississippi?
Mississippi sets no cap on security deposits and gives landlords 45 days to return the balance — with the clock defined by three events in the statute: the tenancy terminating, the tenant delivering possession, and the tenant demanding the money back.
Any amount withheld must be claimed in a written, itemized notice delivered to the tenant, and deductions are limited to unpaid rent, tenant-caused damage beyond ordinary wear and tear, cleaning, and other reasonable expenses caused by the tenant's default. The penalty for wrongful retention is unusually mild: only where the landlord acted without good faith, and capped at $200 on top of actual damages, with no attorney-fee award in the statute. There is no interest, escrow, or pet-deposit rule, and no statutory duty for the tenant to leave a forwarding address. One protection tenants keep: the statute makes the tenant's claim to the deposit senior to the claims of the landlord's creditors.
Mississippi security deposits at a glance
| Maximum deposit | No statutory cap |
|---|---|
| Return deadline | 45 days |
| Deadline conditions | Any remaining portion of the deposit must be returned no later than 45 days after 'the termination of his tenancy, the delivery of possession and demand by the tenant' (Miss. Code Ann. 89-8-21(3)) — a three-element trigger that includes a demand by the tenant, not just move-out. Secondary sources almost universally shorten this to '45 days after the tenancy ends' and omit the demand element. The section only governs money whose primary function is to secure performance of the rental agreement; payments made to secure the execution of a rental agreement, including advance rent, are expressly outside it (89-8-21(1)). |
| Itemization required | Yes |
| Itemization rules | The landlord may claim from the deposit, by written notice delivered to the tenant, only amounts reasonably necessary to remedy rent defaults, repair tenant-caused damage exclusive of ordinary wear and tear, clean the premises at termination, or cover other reasonable and necessary expenses from the tenant's default — and only if the deposit was made for any or all of those specific purposes. The written notice claiming any portion must itemize the amounts claimed (89-8-21(3)). |
| Separate account required | No |
| Interest owed to tenant | No |
| Account & interest rules | No escrow, trust-account, or interest requirement exists anywhere in the chapter (negative check run against the full current chapter text). The only holding rule is priority: the tenant's claim to the deposit is prior to the claim of any creditor of the landlord (89-8-21(2)). |
| Pet deposits | No pet-deposit statute exists. A refundable pet deposit whose primary function is to secure performance falls under the single 89-8-21 scheme — same 45-day return, itemization, and penalty rules; no separate cap or treatment. |
| Non-refundable fees allowed | Not addressed by statute |
| Penalty for violation | Retention of a deposit in violation of the section 'and with absence of good faith' may subject the landlord or transferee to damages NOT TO EXCEED $200 in addition to any actual damages (89-8-21(4)). There is no attorney-fee provision and no multiple-of-the-amount-withheld remedy in the statute — one of the weakest deposit penalties in the country. |
| Tenant forwarding-address duty | Not addressed by statute |
Notes and caveats
Statute citations
- Miss. Code Ann. § 89-8-21 (1)-(4) Official source
- MS Attorney General, Residential Landlord and Tenant Act guide (full statutory text) § 89-8-21 Official source
- Miss. Code Ann. § 89-8-21 (Justia mirror, 2025 ed.) Unofficial mirror
How this record was verified: Mississippi's official code compilation is LexisNexis-published and JS-rendered (lexisnexis.com/hottopics/mscode redirects to advance.lexis.com), so verification ran on official fetchable state sources reconciled with mirrors: enrolled session-law texts on the Legislature's billstatus.ls.state.ms.us (SB 2461/Laws 2022 ch. 501 eff. 2022-04-21; SB 2328/Laws 2025 ch. 460 eff. 2025-04-10; HB 1200/Laws 2025 ch. 474 eff. 2025-07-01; SB 2473/Laws 2018 ch. 446 eff. 2018-07-01) plus the MS Attorney General's consumer-guide PDF reproducing the full pre-2022 act text, each load-bearing figure reconciled verbatim against Justia (2025 code edition) and FindLaw (current through 2025-01-01): 45-day deposit return with its three-element trigger and $200 bad-faith penalty (89-8-21, unamended since Laws 1991 ch. 478 — three matching reads), 30-day month-to-month and 7-day week-to-week termination notice (89-8-19, three reads), 3-day nonpayment termination notice and 14-day cure notice (89-8-13, official + mirror), rent-definition late-fee clause (89-8-7(1)(k), official + AG PDF), and the municipal/county rent-regulation preemption clauses (21-17-5(2)(h) and 19-3-40(3)(g), FindLaw + Justia matching verbatim). Negative checks (no deposit cap, no interest/escrow, no entry statute, no late-fee statute, no rent-increase-notice statute) were run against the complete current chapter assembled from the AG PDF (pre-2022 sections) and all amending enrolled acts. Legislature per-section bill indexes swept for every 89-8 section, 2018-2026, and the full 2026 all-measures index searched: no live bills; HB 442, HB 499 and SB 2012 (2026) all died in committee 2026-02-03. A same-day (2026-07-11) in-app browser session reached the official Lexis compilation's search results, sight-confirming the chapter's current compiled span (§§ 89-8-1 — 89-8-45), the verbatim opening text of 89-8-21(1)-(2), and 89-8-13's post-2022 structure including the (5)(a) nonpayment clause; the full-text section pages are CAPTCHA-gated, so complete Lexis sight-reads of 89-8-21/-13/-19 and the 21-17-5(2)(h) lettering remain open carry-forwards, with the encoding resting on the reconciled official sources above.