Data · Eviction laws
Eviction laws by state and territory
What a landlord must do before and during an eviction in each state: the notice for unpaid rent, whether a tenant can cure, whether a stated cause is needed, and how many days each step takes. The Legal Services Corporation and Temple University coded the laws in effect on January 1, 2021, and cite the statute for the notice rule.
What is in this dataset?
How the law of each U.S. state, the District of Columbia and five territories regulates residential evictions as of January 1, 2021, coded from the statutes by the Legal Services Corporation and Temple University's Center for Public Health Law Research: the notice a landlord must give before filing for nonpayment, whether a tenant may cure, whether a landlord needs a stated cause, caps on late fees, the filing fee the law sets, the days to answer, to appeal and between writ and removal, mediation, and the statute cited for the notice rule. One record per jurisdiction plus a national summary.
Use it to compare how fast and how strictly each state lets a landlord move to evict, as context for landlord-tenant work and tenant-side or landlord-side marketing in a state. Agents can look up one state, compare several, or search by a rule ("just cause", "late fee"). The laws are those in effect on January 1, 2021; check current law before relying on a rule.
- Records
- 57
- Look up by
- 57
- state
- Primary-source records
- 0
- Secondary-source records
- 57
The letters are explained in what P, S, D and U mean.
Where does the data come from?
The LSC and Temple coding is read from the published Excel file (Summary Data sheet: one row per jurisdiction, coded answers as text with the statute cited). The Statistical Data sheet of the same file holds each answer again as 0/1 flags; a gate checks the two sheets agree, and re-downloads the file to re-derive 50 random values. Answers the file leaves blank for a law that does not address them are left out of the record.
- Period covered
- January 1, 2021 to January 1, 2021
- Places
- The whole US and states
- How often we refresh it
- Whenever the source publishes a change
- Records read
- October 29, 2026
Official sources
- Legal Services Corporation (coding by Temple University's Center for Public Health Law Research), by bulk download. LSC Terms of Use: 'Unless otherwise noted, data on the Site is available with a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication CC0 1.0 Universal license' (https://www.lsc.gov/terms-use). Cite: Legal Services Corporation. 2021. Eviction Laws Database: State/Territory Dataset. Prepared by the Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University's Beasley School of Law.
The sources the records cite most
What does a record look like?
-
Texas, law in effect January 1, 2021: 3 days' notice before filing for nonpayment of rent; a tenant may cure nonpayment; no just-cause requirement; late fees capped (10% of monthly rent amount); eviction filing fee $25 set by the law; 10 days to appeal.
Status S · checked October 29, 2026 · source: LSC Eviction Laws Database, State/Territory Dataset (Temple CPHLR for LSC)
-
California, law in effect January 1, 2021: 3 days' notice before filing for nonpayment of rent; a tenant may cure nonpayment; landlords need a stated cause to evict; eviction filing fee $220 set by the law; 30 days to appeal.
Status S · checked October 29, 2026 · source: LSC Eviction Laws Database, State/Territory Dataset (Temple CPHLR for LSC)
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United States, laws in effect January 1, 2021: the 50 states, DC and five territories (56 in all) have a coded residential eviction law; 5 require just cause, 42 give a tenant a right to cure nonpayment, 16 regulate late fees, 4 require no notice before filing for nonpayment, 17 set a 3-day notice and 9 a notice of 14 days or more, 5 have a mediation rule and 0 give tenants a statutory right to free counsel.
Status S · checked October 29, 2026 · source: LSC Eviction Laws Database, State/Territory Dataset (Temple CPHLR for LSC)
The full records add the dates, the quoted source text and every field in the CSV and JSON files below.
What each of the 23 main columns means
jurisdiction- Two-letter state or territory code, or US for the national summary
level- state, or us for the national summary
status- S: a compilation of the law made by LSC and Temple University, not the statute text
value- Days of notice before an eviction filing for nonpayment (the shortest period where the law gives more than one); on the national record, the number of jurisdictions
noticeNonpayment- The notice rule for nonpayment of rent, in words
noticeNonpaymentDays- Shortest notice period in days
noticeOtherCauses- True when the law also requires notice for reasons other than nonpayment
cureNonpayment- True when a tenant may cure a nonpayment default
cureCauses- The defaults a tenant may cure
justCause- True when the law requires a landlord to have a stated cause to evict
lateFeeRegulated- True when the law regulates late fees
lateFeeCap- The cap, in the law's own terms
filingFeeUsd- Eviction filing fee in dollars where the state law sets one
summonsDays- Shortest time in days the law gives a tenant between summons and hearing
appealDays- Days after judgment to appeal (shortest where more than one)
writWaitDays- Days between issuing the writ and carrying it out (0 = at once)
mediation- Whether the law has a mediation rule
rightToCounsel- True when the law gives tenants a right to free counsel
courts- Courts that first hear eviction cases
service- How the summons is served
citation- The statute the notice rule comes from
effectiveDate- Date the coded law took effect
validThrough- Last date the coded law is known to be in force (January 1, 2021)
How do I use it in my own tools?
evictionlaws_lookup- For one two-letter code (or US): the coded eviction rules (notice, cure, just cause, late fees, fees, timing) and the statute cited.
evictionlaws_compare- The eviction rules of up to 10 states or territories side by side, with the statute cited for each.
evictionlaws_search- Records whose text matches the words given, such as "just cause", "late fee", "mediation" or a state name.
How to cite this dataset
You can reuse, adapt and republish this data, including commercially, under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (CC BY 4.0). The only condition is that you credit Probative and link to the source.
- Version
- 1.0.0, released October 30, 2026
- Every version
- 10.5281/zenodo.23792753 (always points to the newest)
- License
- CC BY 4.0
Download the data
- CSV: eviction-laws.csv 55 KB · one row per record (columns in README.txt)
- JSON: eviction-laws.json 106 KB · every record with its sources
Free, no email or login. The files are hosted on this site and Zenodo, a public research archive.
Suggested citation
Probative. (2026). Eviction laws by state and territory: notice, cure, just cause, fees and timing (LSC) (Version 1.0.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23792754
Credit line for a chart, table or article
Source: Probative, Eviction laws by state and territory: notice, cure, just cause, fees and timing (LSC), version 1.0.0, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23792754, licensed CC BY 4.0.
Add to a reference manager (Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote)
Not legal advice. This is a research coding of the laws in effect on January 1, 2021, made by the Legal Services Corporation and Temple University from statutes, regulations and court rules. Laws change and local rules can differ; confirm the current rule in the official code before relying on it. Prepared for research and marketing planning.
What changed recently?
- 2026-10-29 · LSC and Temple University's coding of residential eviction laws in the 50 states, DC and five territories as of January 1, 2021: notice before filing, cure, just cause, late fees, filing fee, appeal and writ timing, with the statute cited. (source)
The full log is in changes.json.
What are the limits?
- These are the laws in effect on January 1, 2021. Statutes, emergency orders and court rules have changed since; confirm the current rule in the official code before relying on it.
- Each answer is a coding of the law by LSC and Temple University's Center for Public Health Law Research, not the statute text. Where a state sets more than one period (for example by type of lease), the record shows the periods and the shortest as the number.
- The records cover the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands. They are state and territory laws only: city and county rules are in LSC's separate local dataset, which we do not include.
- A rule a state's law does not address is left out of its record. A blank is not a zero: for example a state with no filing fee in its statute may still charge one by court rule.
- Federal eviction moratoria and local rights to counsel are not part of this coding.
- Records older than 400 days since their last check are marked
stalein the files until we re-check them. Every confirmed error we fix is listed in the data corrections log.
Found a wrong value? Report an error with the record id and the source that shows the right value.
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