Rental deposits and landlord power: how many months, and how easily they can end it
How the world celebratesTaiwan's Housing Rental Market Development and Management Act caps the deposit at two months' rent (Article 7) and lists five grounds on which a landlord may end the lease early (Article 10) — four require thirty days' written notice, reclaiming the unit for reconstruction requires three months'.
Quick answers
| Place | When is it? | How the date is set |
|---|---|---|
| United States | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
| Brazil | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
| China | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
| Indonesia | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
| India | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
| Japan | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
| Taiwan | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
Say what is wrong and what is correct — a source link helps.
Near you
Nothing here yet.
Events
Nothing here yet.
Now
People are talking about this
Live discussion isn't available right now
Read the topic and check back later.
How the world celebrates
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
What does Brazil require?
Brazil's Tenancy Law (Lei 8.245/1991) lists exactly four kinds of guarantee a landlord may require — a cash or property deposit (caução), a personal guarantor (fiador), rental-guarantee insurance (seguro-fiança), or a fiduciary assignment of investment-fund shares — and Article 37's sole paragraph forbids stacking more than one on the same contract. Where cash caução is used, Article 38 caps it at three months' rent and requires the sum to be held in a savings account, earning interest for the tenant and returned, adjusted for inflation, when the tenancy ends. The law's sharpest edge is in how it treats fixed-term contracts once they expire. Article 46: if the written contract runs thirty months or longer, the landlord may reclaim the property with no reason at all once the term is up (denúncia vazia, "empty notice"), simply by giving notice. Article 47: shorter contracts that are left running past their term convert into indefinite tenancies that the landlord can normally end only for specific listed causes — non-payment, need for personal use, planned demolition, and similar — unless the tenant has continuously occupied the property for five years or more, at which point the landlord regains the same no-cause right. Rent itself is typically adjusted annually by an index named in the contract, commonly the IGP-M or IPCA, rather than left to the landlord's discretion.
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
What does China require?
China's first nationwide regulation dedicated to housing rental, the Housing Rental Regulation (State Council Order No. 812), took effect on 15 September 2025. Article 10 requires the deposit amount, refund timing and any grounds for deduction to be written into the contract, and forbids the landlord from deducting "without proper reason" — but it sets no ceiling on the deposit amount at all, unlike Taiwan's two-month cap. Article 8 requires the contract to be signed under both parties' real names and filed with the local housing authority through a rental service platform, free of charge; a tenant can file it alone if the landlord does not. A notable feature of the new regulation is its fund-supervision requirement for rental platforms and agencies collecting rent or deposits on a landlord's behalf — a direct response to the collapse of several long-term rental apartment operators in the late 2010s and early 2020s, where deposits and prepaid rent collected from tenants were funnelled into the operator's own cash flow instead of being held for landlords, leaving both sides unpaid when the platform folded. The regulation now bars online platforms from directly collecting or holding rental funds and deposits on behalf of the parties.
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
What does Indonesia require?
Indonesian tenancy law still runs on the Dutch-era Civil Code (KUHPerdata, promulgated 1847), whose Book III, Chapter VII, Articles 1548 through 1600, governs "sewa-menyewa" (lease). The deposit itself is not regulated at all — whether one is charged, and how much, is left entirely to what landlord and tenant agree in the contract, unlike Taiwan's statutory two-month cap. What most distinguishes the Indonesian market is timing rather than the deposit: rented houses (as opposed to apartments) are conventionally paid in a lump sum covering a full year, and multi-year lump-sum payment (two or three years at once) is common for family houses, rather than the monthly payment assumed elsewhere. The Civil Code also enshrines the principle that a sale does not break a lease (Article 1576): if the landlord sells the house mid-tenancy, the new owner inherits the existing lease and cannot evict the tenant to take possession early, unless the original contract said otherwise. And a landlord cannot repossess a home by simply changing the locks: if a tenant refuses to move out when the term ends, the landlord must bring a civil case and obtain an enforceable court judgment before the tenant can be forced out — self-help eviction is not a lawful shortcut.
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
What does India require?
Housing sits on the State List of India's Constitution, so there is no single national tenancy law — the Model Tenancy Act, 2021, approved by the Union Cabinet, is only a template that states may adopt, amend or ignore. It proposes a security deposit capped at two months' rent for residential premises and six for commercial, a written agreement filed with a new Rent Authority within two months of signing, and a three-tier dispute system — Rent Authority, then Rent Court, then Rent Tribunal — meant to resolve disputes faster than ordinary civil courts. So far, only a handful of states, including Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Tamil Nadu, have passed legislation broadly following the model. Most of the country still runs on older, state-specific Rent Control Acts, some dating to the 1940s-60s, which in several states froze rents for long-standing tenancies at levels far below market rent — a policy credited with protecting sitting tenants but also blamed for landlords abandoning the rental market or leaving units vacant rather than renting under controlled rates. This history is why the newer model law leans toward deregulating rent-setting between landlord and tenant while adding a faster dispute forum, rather than reintroducing rent caps.
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
What does Japan require?
Japan layers several money customs on top of law. The Civil Code's Article 622-2 obliges a landlord to refund the shikikin (security deposit) once the lease ends and the unit is returned, minus what the tenant owes — but reikin ("key money," usually one to two months' rent, paid as a one-off gift to the landlord) is a custom with no statutory basis at all, and it is not refunded; some regions and property types skip it, others don't. A renewal fee (koushinryo), also custom rather than law, is common in the Kanto region. Because personal guarantors are harder to arrange than they used to be, most leases now require a paid rent-guarantee company (hoshou gaisha) instead of a co-signer. The Land and House Lease Act's Article 28 requires "just cause" (seitou jiyuu) before a landlord can refuse to renew or terminate a lease — weighed against both parties' need for the space, the lease's history, and any compensation offered — so a tenant with an ordinary fixed lease is not simply asked to leave when it expires. Disputes over the deposit mostly concern genjou kaifuku (restoring the unit to its original condition): the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism publishes guidelines distinguishing ordinary wear-and-tear, which the landlord must absorb, from tenant-caused damage, which can be deducted from the deposit.
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
What does Taiwan require?
Taiwan's deposit rule sits in Article 7 of the Housing Rental Market Development and Management Act: a deposit may not exceed two months' total rent, any clause demanding more is void, and a landlord who overcharges risks a fine of NT$30,000 to NT$300,000. To end a lease early, Article 10 lists five grounds — damage the tenant won't repair, rent unpaid for more than two months after a demand, subletting without consent, the landlord reclaiming the unit for reconstruction, among others — and most require thirty days' written notice; reclaiming for reconstruction requires three months'. A tenant can likewise end the lease early on thirty days' notice under Article 11. The government offers rent subsidies and tax breaks to landlords who register through approved rental agencies, but registration is optional and does not affect the lease's validity — it only affects eligibility for subsidies. Deposit terms and refund timing are supposed to be written into the contract; in practice, most disputes are about the condition of the unit at move-out, not the deposit amount itself.
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
What does United States require?
There is no federal security-deposit law in the United States. HUD's authority over private rentals is limited to enforcing the Fair Housing Act's ban on discrimination; deposit caps, refund deadlines and penalties for bad-faith withholding are entirely state matters, and they vary widely. California's Civil Code §1950.5, amended by Assembly Bill 12 (effective July 2024), cut the maximum from two months' rent (unfurnished) or three (furnished) down to one month's rent for all landlords, with a limited exception for small landlords who own no more than two rental properties; the landlord must itemize deductions and return the balance within 21 days of move-out. Other states set their own numbers or set none at all — some cap deposits at one or two months, some leave the amount to the contract entirely, and return deadlines range from 14 to 60 days. This is the point worth sitting with: asking "what does the US require" about a rental deposit is, itself, the wrong question — the answer depends on which of the fifty states the unit is in. The one federal deposit rule that does exist applies narrowly to HUD-administered public housing and Section 8 vouchers, which HUD caps at one month's rent regardless of state.
Sources and dates
Dates follow local time zones, calendars, and official notices. Check the source when a date is estimated or locally variable.