Topic: Rental deposits and landlord power: how many months, and how easily they can end it
What does Brazil require?
Everyday topic
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.
What is this topic?
Taiwan'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'.
Mainland China's Housing Rental Regulation (State Council Order No. 812, in force since 15 September 2025) only requires the deposit amount, refund timing and deduction grounds to be written into the contract — it sets no cap at all.
Japan's Civil Code Article 622-2 requires a landlord to refund the *shikikin* (security deposit), minus what the tenant owes, once the lease ends and the unit is returned; Japan additionally has *reikin* — "key money" paid to the landlord, usually non-refundable, that no statute requires or limits — and the Land and House Lease Act's Article 28 requires "just cause" before a landlord may refuse renewal or terminate, so a tenant cannot simply be told to leave.
The United States has no federal rule at all: HUD's role is limited to anti-discrimination under the Fair Housing Act, and deposit caps are set state by state — California's Civil Code §1950.5, as amended by AB 12 (effective July 2024), cut the limit from two or three months to one.
India's Model Tenancy Act, 2021 is only a template for states to adopt — it proposes a two-month cap for residential premises, six for commercial — but most states still run on their own older Rent Control Acts.
Indonesia's rental law still traces to the Dutch-era Civil Code (Articles 1548 onward); the deposit amount is left entirely to contract, and a landlord cannot evict a tenant who refuses to leave without going through court.
Brazil's Tenancy Law caps the deposit at three months' rent, held in a savings account (Article 38), while Article 46 lets a landlord reclaim the unit without cause once a contract of thirty months or longer expires.
Sources and dates
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