Vermont Landlord-Tenant Laws
Local rent regulation in Vermont
No Vermont statute expressly addresses local rent control; state law neither bars nor authorizes municipal rent regulation, and a municipality could act only through a charter change approved by the General Assembly.
Verified August 12, 2026 · Full Vermont rent-increase rules →
Vermont landlord-tenant laws by topic
Vermont security deposits
Vermont sets no limit on how large a residential security deposit can be, but the landlord must return it — with a written statement itemizing any deductions — within 14 days after discovering the tenant has moved out or abandoned the unit.
Vermont rent increase notice
Vermont landlords must give at least 60 days' actual notice of a rent increase, and the increase takes effect only on the first day of the rental period that follows those 60 days (9 V.S.A. 4455(b)) — one of the longer express rent-increase notice periods in the country.
Vermont late fees
Vermont has no statute capping residential late fees and no statutory grace period — but it is not a free-for-all, because the Vermont Supreme Court polices late charges as liquidated damages.
Vermont entry notice
Vermont landlords must give at least 48 hours' notice before entering a rental unit and may enter only between 9:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. — one of the few states with both a fixed notice period and a statutory time-of-day window.
Vermont eviction process
To evict a tenant in Vermont a landlord must first serve a written termination notice - 14 days for nonpayment of rent, 30 days for breach of a material lease term, 14 days for criminal activity, illegal drug activity or violence threatening other residents, and 21 to 90 days for no cause depending on the length of the tenancy and whether the lease is written - then, only after the notice's termination date has passed and within 60 days of it, file an ejectment action in the Civil Division of the Superior Court in the county where the property is located.
Vermont application & screening fees
Vermont bans residential rental application fees outright: a landlord or a landlord's agent may not charge anyone a fee to apply for a residential dwelling unit, and the state sets no cap, no receipt duty, no refund timetable, and no advance disclosure duty because there is no lawful fee to regulate.
Vermont deposit interest
Vermont law does not require a landlord to pay interest on a security deposit — but it expressly lets a town require it, and Burlington does.
Vermont habitability & repairs
Vermont deems every residential rental agreement to include the landlord's covenant to deliver over and maintain, throughout the tenancy, premises that are safe, clean and fit for human habitation and that comply with applicable building, housing and health regulations.
Vermont lease termination
Vermont has no single notice period, because the answer turns on whether the rental agreement is written.
Vermont mobile home park laws
Vermont's Mobile Home Parks chapter covers land laid out for more than two mobile homes and sets three headline rules: lot rent may rise only on 60 days' written notice given on the State's own form to the residents and to the Commissioner of Housing and Community Development, a park may close only on 18 months' notice, and a lot tenancy may be ended only for nonpayment, a substantial lease violation, a change of use, or termination of the park.
Vermont Fair Market Rents (FY 2027) — HUD's benchmark rents for every Vermont metro area and county.
How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Vermont General Assembly site (legislature.vermont.gov): the complete text of every section of 9 V.S.A. chapter 137 (4451 through 4475, all four subchapters) read twice via two independent official endpoints — the per-section pages and the full-chapter view — with every key figure (60 days' actual notice for rent increases in 4455(b); the 14-day deposit return clock, its discovery/noticed-vacate-date triggers, the 60-day seasonal clock, and the forfeiture-plus-willful-double penalty in 4461(c)-(e); the 48-hour / 9 AM-9 PM entry rule in 4460(b); the three-day mail-receipt presumption in 4451(1)) matching verbatim across both reads. 10 V.S.A. 6251 and a full sweep of 10 V.S.A. chapter 153 (mobile home parks) read for the note-only lot-rent regime. Session sweep run against the official 2025-2026 biennium data: all 178 regular acts, all 12 municipal (charter) acts, and all 13 vetoed bills enumerated, plus the official Acts-Affecting-VSA-Sections table (2,693 rows) filtered to Title 9 chapter 137 — exactly three hits, each verified in the enacted act text (Act 69 of 2025 sec. 10 amending 4456a; Act 103 of 2026 amending 4452(b) and cancelling its scheduled repeal, effective 2026-07-01; Act 176 of 2026 sec. 30 adding new 9 V.S.A. 4468b, effective 2026-07-01). Act 103 and Act 176 read from their official As Enacted PDFs; both postdate the statutes site's current text (the site still shows 4452(b) as repealed effective 2026-07-01 and lacks 4468b — flagged in notes). Verified negatives (no deposit cap, no state deposit-interest or separate-account rule, no late-fee or grace-period statute, no rent-control or preemption provision, no increase-frequency limit) established by the full-chapter double read plus a targeted Title 24 municipal-powers check (24 V.S.A. 2291; chapter 123). Late-fee case law (Highgate Associates, Ltd. v. Merryfield, 157 Vt. 313 (1991)) corroborated via the statewide CVOEO tenant-landlord guidance and multiple independent secondary descriptions; advance.lexis.com not used. Dead 2025-2026 bills (S.91, H.399, H.440) verified dead on their official bill-status pages; the biennium has adjourned sine die.