Nevada Landlord-Tenant Law for Reno Owners

Nearly every rule that governs a residential rental in Reno or Sparks lives in one place: Chapter 118A of the Nevada Revised Statutes. It is short by legal standards, and it is free to read. Most of the bad advice circulating about Nevada rentals comes from companies with no presence in this state. A fair amount of the rest is simply out of date. This page is the statute, section by section, with the number attached to every line so you can check me. It is written for owners, but a tenant reading it gets the same answers, because the statute does.

Every deadline and ceiling, in one table

Start here. Each row is the answer and the section it comes from. The rest of the article explains the rows that have a trap in them:

Rule	Nevada answer	Statute
Security deposit ceiling	3 months' periodic rent, all forms combined	NRS 118A.242(1)
Deposit return and itemization	30 days after the tenancy ends	NRS 118A.242
Late fee ceiling	5% of the periodic rent	NRS 118A.210
Late fee grace period	3 calendar days, tenancies longer than week to week	NRS 118A.210
Rent increase notice, monthly tenancy	60 days before the first increased payment	NRS 118A.300
Rent increase notice, period under a month	30 days before the first increased payment	NRS 118A.300
Repairs after written notice	14 days for habitability, 48 hours for essential services	NRS 118A.355, 118A.380
Repair and deduct ceiling	One month's rent, or $100 if greater, per 12 months	NRS 118A.360
Notice before entering	24 hours, business hours, except in an emergency	NRS 118A.330
Lockouts and utility shutoffs	Prohibited. Re-entry plus damages	NRS 118A.390
Retaliation for a complaint	Prohibited. Damages plus up to $2,500	NRS 118A.510
Rent control	None, anywhere in Nevada	—

One caveat before any of it is useful. I am not an attorney, and this is general information rather than legal advice. A statute is only the starting point. Your lease and your own facts decide the outcome, and fifteen minutes with a Nevada landlord-tenant attorney is the cheapest part of owning a rental. Where a number below is contested between official sources, I say so rather than quietly picking the convenient one.

Security deposits: three months, and the clock that follows

Nevada caps a residential security deposit at three months’ periodic rent. NRS 118A.242(1) puts it this way: a landlord may not demand or receive a security deposit or a surety bond, or a combination of them, “including the last month’s rent,” whose total value exceeds three months’ periodic rent. Read that inclusion clause twice. A deposit of one month, plus a prepaid last month, plus a pet deposit, plus a key deposit all land on the same scale. Owners who think of the ceiling as applying only to the thing labelled “security deposit” are the ones who breach it.

That ceiling is high by national standards. It is not an invitation. A three-month demand narrows your applicant pool to almost nobody in a market where Reno rents already move quickly, and it does nothing you could not do better with tighter screening. What the deposit may be applied to is fixed by statute, and the list is short:

Unpaid rent

Any default by the tenant in the payment of rent. This is the clean one, and it is the one owners most often forget to itemize because the arithmetic feels self-evident. Itemize it anyway.

Damage beyond normal wear

Damage the tenant caused, other than normal wear. Carpet at the end of its service life is normal wear. A hole in the drywall is not. The dividing line is where deposit disputes actually happen, which is why move-in condition photos are worth more than any lease clause.

Reasonable cleaning

The reasonable cost of cleaning the unit. A reasonable cleaning charge is also the only piece of a Nevada deposit that may be nonrefundable, and it has to be identified as such rather than assumed.

The 30-day clock is the one that costs money

When a tenancy ends for any reason, eviction included, the landlord has 30 days to return the remaining deposit and to hand over an itemized written accounting of how the rest was applied. The itemization is not an alternative to the refund. Both are due inside the same window.

Miss it and the exposure roughly doubles. The statute says so directly: the landlord becomes liable for the entire deposit again, plus a further sum fixed by the court of up to the whole deposit a second time. It also tells the court what to weigh, which is the landlord’s good faith, the course of conduct between the parties, and the harm done. The Nevada courts’ Civil Law Self-Help Center states the same arithmetic in plainer words. One warning about that page: it describes the landlord as owing a refund or an accounting. The statute requires both. Send the accounting even when the deposit was entirely and properly consumed. A zero-dollar refund with a written breakdown is compliance. Silence is not.

Late fees are capped, and the grace period is automatic

A Nevada late fee has two limits and both sit in NRS 118A.210. The fee must be provided for in the rental agreement, it may not exceed 5 percent of the periodic rent, and in any tenancy longer than week to week it may not be charged or imposed until at least three calendar days after rent is due. Calendar days. A weekend does not pause the count, and rent due on the first cannot carry a fee before the fourth.

Five percent of the periodic rent is a smaller number than most owners assume, and lease templates bought online routinely exceed it. A flat daily fee that compounds past the ceiling is the usual offender. If your lease came from a national form site rather than a Nevada source, this is the clause to check first.

Raising the rent: 60 days, not 45

This is the number that is wrong almost everywhere online. NRS 118A.300 says a landlord may not increase rent without written notice served 60 days in advance of the first payment to be increased, or 30 days in advance where the periodic tenancy runs less than one month. Nevada used 45 days until 2021, and a large amount of published advice never caught up. If a page tells you 45 days, close the page and treat everything else on it as similarly aged.

Two things the statute does not do. It does not cap the size of the increase, and it does not touch a fixed-term lease, where the rent cannot change mid-term unless the lease says it can. Nevada has no rent control either. Not in Reno, not in Sparks, not in unincorporated Washoe County, not at the state level, and no Nevada city or county has adopted it. Whether one legally could is untested, and I would not build a plan around either answer. Here is the part I will say plainly. Owners who treat the absence of a cap as licence to move rents in big annual steps get more turnover than the increase earns back. Sixty days of notice is also sixty days for a good tenant to go look at other listings.

Repairs: two clocks, not one

Nevada splits habitability into ordinary problems and essential services, and each has its own deadline. NRS 118A.290 sets the underlying duty: effective weatherproofing, plumbing in good working order, hot and cold running water, adequate heat, sound wiring, garbage receptacles, and floors, walls and stairways kept in repair. Door locks sit in a different section, which matters in a moment. The tenant’s clock starts on written notice, not a phone call. Both repair sections say so in terms, and both add that the tenant may not proceed at all without it. A voicemail about a leak starts nothing.

14 days — habitability

NRS 118A.355

Roof leaks, plumbing defects, pests, anything affecting livability that is not an essential service. After written notice the landlord has 14 days, weekends included, to remedy it or make a good-faith attempt. Miss it and the tenant may terminate immediately, recover actual damages, ask the court for relief, or withhold rent until the failure is fixed. Rent withheld this way carries no late fee.

48 hours — essential services

NRS 118A.380

Heat, air conditioning, running water, hot water, electricity, gas, a functioning door lock. The window is 48 hours, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays. The tenant may then buy the service and deduct its cost, recover actual damages, withhold rent, or move into comparable housing while the original rent abates entirely.

Repair and deduct is a separate route with its own ceiling. NRS 118A.360 limits the landlord’s liability under that route to one month’s periodic rent, or $100 if that is greater, in any twelve-month period, and the tenant owes an itemized statement. Retaliation is prohibited on its own track. NRS 118A.510 bars raising rent, cutting services, refusing to renew or evicting because a tenant reported a violation, and it borrows the lockout remedies: actual damages, plus up to $2,500 set by the court. So the moment a habitability complaint arrives in writing, any rent increase you had planned for that unit either waits, or carries a documented reason that has nothing to do with the complaint.

Both clocks reward the same habit: answer in writing the day the notice arrives, even if the answer is that the plumber comes Thursday. A written good-faith attempt inside the window is what the statute measures, and it is what a judge later looks for.

Entry: 24 hours, business hours, emergencies excepted

Twenty-four hours of notice, and only at reasonable times during normal business hours. That is the floor. NRS 118A.330 sets it by giving the tenant 24 hours’ notice of intent to enter, and it moves only where the tenant expressly consents to shorter notice or to an out-of-hours visit. The emergency exception is real and narrow: a landlord may enter without consent in an emergency. A burst pipe is an emergency. A prospective buyer walkthrough is not, and neither is a smoke alarm you meant to change last month.

Owners self-managing from out of the area breach this one by accident more than any other, usually by sending a vendor who lets themselves in. Your contractor’s entry is your entry. Notice goes out before the appointment is booked, not after.

You may never lock a tenant out or cut the power

Self-help eviction is illegal in Nevada, and the statute names the specific acts. NRS 118A.390 covers unlawfully removing a tenant, excluding one by blocking entry, and willfully interrupting essential items or services. A tenant on the receiving end can get expedited relief: the court may order immediate re-entry, and the tenant may terminate the agreement and recover actual damages plus an amount fixed by the court, which the statute currently caps at $2,500. Nevada’s justice courts run a specific verified-complaint form for it, and the tenant must file within five judicial days of the unlawful act or the complaint is dismissed.

None of that is a close call, and it is worth saying plainly because it is the single most expensive mistake an angry landlord makes. Changing the locks on a tenant who is four weeks behind converts a rent problem you would probably have won into a damages claim against you. Removal in Nevada goes through the court, every time, and our walkthrough of the Nevada eviction sequence lays out the notices and the day counts.

One warning about those day counts, since this page is meant to be a reference. The cure period on a lease-violation notice is genuinely contested between two official Nevada sources. The Reno Justice Court runs the breach-of-contract eviction on a five judicial day notice to perform or quit. The Civil Law Self-Help Center describes three judicial days to cure. Both count in judicial days, so weekends and holidays drop out either way, but the two sources differ by two days. Serve the longer one. You cannot be wrong at five, and a defective notice sends you back to the start of a process you have already paid for.

Two Nevada rules that are not in Chapter 118A

Owners research the tenancy statute and stop there. These two sit outside it. Both cost real money, and neither shows up in the out-of-state guides that dominate these searches.

The state business licence, and the LLC trap

Nevada requires a state business licence to conduct business here. NRS 76.020 carves an exclusion out of the definition of business for “a natural person whose sole business is the rental of four or fewer dwelling units to others,” and that is the sentence every Reno owner has heard second-hand.

Here is the part that gets missed. Read the exclusion against the definition it sits in. The same section defines a business as any person other than a natural person who trades for profit, and then excludes a natural person renting four or fewer units. Both halves turn on the same two words. Hold the same duplex in an LLC and, on the face of the statute, the exclusion does not reach it, however few doors you own. Plenty of Nevada owners form an LLC for liability reasons and appear to walk out of their own exemption on the day they do it. That last step is my reading of the text rather than a quotation from the Secretary of State, so treat it as a reason to ask the question, not as your answer. Exempt owners also have to file for the exemption, and NRS 76.105 requires that filing annually, the same as the licence itself.

The Secretary of State’s site blocked automated access while this was written, so confirm the current fee and the exact exemption code on the state business licence pages rather than taking a figure from any article, this one included.

The Washoe County tax cap resets when a home sells

Nevada limits how fast a property tax bill can grow, and the limit is not the same for every property. The Washoe County Assessor describes a 3 percent cap on the tax bill of an owner’s primary residence, with all other property receiving the general abatement, which the county’s assessor FAQ states cannot exceed 8 percent. Some rental dwellings qualify for the 3 percent cap too, where every unit rents at or below the applicable HUD median market rent, and that is a claim you have to file rather than one the county applies for you.

Now the part that reshapes a buyer’s math. A transfer of ownership triggers a fresh affidavit mailed to the new owner, and the Assessor is blunt about the gap: until that affidavit comes back, the parcel sits at the higher general abatement. The low cap does not travel with the house. It lapses at the closing table, and you claim it again. So a buyer underwriting a Reno rental off the seller’s current tax bill is underwriting somebody else’s cap, and year one can land above the pro forma for no reason other than paperwork. New affidavits go out in April and August, rental affidavits are due back by June 15, and none of it happens unless you return the form. This is not tax advice, and your CPA decides your case rather than any article.

Where these rules stop applying

Chapter 118A governs residential tenancies. A genuine short-term stay is a different animal with different rules, which is why a Reno owner renting nightly is reading the Washoe County permit rules instead of this page. The interesting ground is between them. A furnished monthly stay, the kind travel nurses and relocating families take in Reno, sits outside the short-term rental programs and lands squarely inside landlord-tenant law. Owners who move into mid-term rentals because the permit rules look simpler sometimes miss what they just took on. Every duty on this page, from the deposit ceiling to the 24-hour entry notice.

The other line worth knowing is the boundary of the state. Nothing here applies to a home on the California shore of Lake Tahoe, where a different code and materially stricter tenant protections take over. If you own on both sides, do not reuse one lease.

What I would actually do with this

Four things, in order. Read your own lease against the table at the top of this page and fix the late-fee clause, because that is where a national template almost always breaks Nevada law. Put a 30-day reminder on every move-out the day it is scheduled. Set your rent-increase letters to go out 60 days ahead as a standing habit, so you never have to work out whether this particular one qualifies. And write down, once, that nobody at your company touches a lock or a utility without a court order.

We manage long-term rentals across Reno and Sparks, and compliance is most of what an owner is buying when they hire anyone for this work. The rest is filling the unit. This page is the part you can do yourself in an evening, and I would rather you had it.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much can a landlord charge for a security deposit in Nevada?

Three months' periodic rent, and that ceiling counts everything. NRS 118A.242(1) says a landlord may not demand or receive a security deposit or a surety bond, or a combination of the two, including the last month's rent, whose total value exceeds three months' periodic rent. So a deposit of one month plus a prepaid last month plus a pet deposit are added together and measured against the same line. The only part of it that may be nonrefundable is a reasonable charge for cleaning. Everything else is refundable and is held against unpaid rent, damage beyond normal wear, and reasonable cleaning costs.

How long does a Nevada landlord have to return a security deposit?

Thirty days from the end of the tenancy, and an itemized written accounting is part of the deadline rather than an alternative to it. NRS 118A.242 requires the landlord to return the remaining deposit and provide the itemization no later than 30 days after the tenancy terminates, whatever ended it, eviction included. Missing that window is expensive. The same section makes the landlord liable for the entire deposit again, plus a further sum set by the court of up to the whole deposit a second time, with the court weighing the landlord's good faith, the course of conduct between the parties and the degree of harm. Send the accounting even when the whole deposit was properly consumed.

How much notice is required to raise the rent in Nevada?

Sixty days for a month-to-month tenancy, or 30 days for a periodic tenancy shorter than a month, counted back from the first payment at the higher rent. That is NRS 118A.300 as it reads today. Owners still quoting 45 days are working from a source that predates the 2021 change, and it is the single most common stale figure in Nevada rental advice. Nevada has no rent control, in Reno or anywhere else in the state, so the notice period is the only statewide limit on the size of an increase. A fixed-term lease is different again: the rent cannot move mid-term at all unless the lease itself says so.

Can a Nevada landlord charge a late fee, and how much?

Yes, if the rental agreement provides for it, capped at 5 percent of the periodic rent. NRS 118A.210 also builds in a grace period: in any tenancy longer than week to week, no late fee may be charged or imposed until at least three calendar days after rent is due. Three calendar days, not business days, so a first-of-the-month rent cannot carry a fee before the fourth. The 5 percent is measured against the periodic rent, meaning the monthly rent in a monthly tenancy, and a fee written into a lease above that ceiling is unenforceable to the extent it exceeds it.

Does a Reno landlord need a Nevada state business license?

Probably, and the exemption most owners rely on is narrower than they think. NRS 76.020 defines a business as any person other than a natural person who trades for profit, then excludes from that definition a natural person whose sole business is the rental of four or fewer dwelling units. Both halves turn on the phrase natural person, so on the face of the statute a rental held in an LLC or a corporation is not covered, however few doors it has. That is my reading of the text rather than a quotation from the Secretary of State, whose site blocked automated access while this was written. Exempt owners still have to file for the exemption, and NRS 76.105 requires that filing every year rather than once. Confirm your own situation with the Secretary of State.

Nevada Landlord-Tenant Law: A Reference for Reno Owners