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Security deposits in Missouri: what the law says
My landlord kept my security deposit
What the statute says
- Deadline to return or itemise
- 30 days
30 days, counted from 'the date of termination of the tenancy'. The statute says plain 'thirty days' with no business-day qualifier, so treat them as calendar days.
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Two features matter for a demand letter: (a) the clock is NOT triggered by the tenant supplying a forwarding address - nothing in § 535.300 conditions the landlord's duty on receiving one; and (b) the landlord discharges the duty by MAILING, not by the tenant receiving: 'The landlord shall have complied with this subsection by mailing such statement and any payment to the last known address of the tenant' (§ 535.300.3). A tenant who left no forwarding address can therefore be lawfully mailed at the vacated unit. 'Termination of the tenancy' is not defined in the section - see open_questions.
- Statutory damages multiplier
- 2×
- Itemised statement required
- Yes
- Small claims limit
- $5,000
- Code section
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 535.300
- Deposit cap
- 2 months' rent. 'A landlord may not demand or receive a security deposit in excess of two months' rent' (§ 535.300.1). No separate statutory remedy is attached to an overcharge; a tenant would argue the excess is itself 'wrongfully withheld' under § 535.300.6 - untested here, see open_questions.
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§ 535.300.8 excludes money 'denominated as a deposit for a pet on the premises' from the definition of security deposit, so a pet deposit appears to sit outside both the cap and the 30-day/double-damages machinery.
- Local stacking
- No Missouri city or county ordinance was found that changes the deposit cap, the 30-day deadline, or the double-damages remedy; § 535.300 appears to govern statewide. Kansas City: the 2019 'Tenants Bill of Rights' is Committee Substitute for RESOLUTION No. 190934, adopted as substituted 12/12/2019 - a resolution, i.e.
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a statement of policy, not an enforceable ordinance, and the deposit language in press coverage simply restates state law. KC's enforceable rental regulation sits in Code ch. 34 art. XIX (Healthy Rental Homes), which does not address deposits. Kansas City also runs an Office of the Tenant Advocate (reported 816-513-8434, [email protected] - NOT verified, kcmo.gov returns 403 to the fetcher). St. Louis City: the Neighborhood Stabilization Office's official 'Security Deposit' handout reprints Chapter 535 rather than any city rule, so no separate city deposit ordinance was found - but that handout reprints the PRE-2016 text ('not more than twice', 30-day rule at subsection 2, penalty at subsection 5) and is stale. Jackson County adopted its own Tenant Bill of Rights ordinance effective around 2020-2022; only a law-firm mirror of the text was locatable, so nothing about it is asserted here - see open_questions.
- Penalty detail
- Twice the amount wrongfully withheld, measured as a total — the tenant ends up with the withheld money back plus an equal amount again, not three times it. Mo. Rev. Stat.
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§ 535.300.6 provides that where the landlord wrongfully withholds all or any portion of the security deposit, 'the tenant shall recover as damages twice the amount wrongfully withheld'. A $600 wrongful withholding therefore supports $1,200 in total, not $1,800. The doubling is mandatory rather than a ceiling: the words 'not more than' were in the statute until 2016 and were deleted that year, so a court no longer has discretion to award less than the double once wrongful withholding is established. Cite the current subsection number. The damages sentence lives at § 535.300.6 today; § 535.300.5 is now the inspection-notice provision, and older sources still pin the damages rule to subsection 5. The doubling is not automatic on lateness alone — it requires wrongful withholding, and the statute ties that to the landlord's failure to return the deposit with an itemized list within 30 days of termination of the tenancy. Missouri's courts have read the double the same way. In Lastra v. Intercontinental Investments Co., 745 S.W.2d 703 (Mo. App. W.D. 1987), a $300 deposit produced a $600 judgment, the court holding the tenants were entitled to twice the amount of the deposit and no more. Lastra construed the older version of the statute, which capped the award rather than requiring it; the cap is gone, but the way the court measured the double is the measure that still applies.
- Penalty statute
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 535.300.6
- Deadline statute
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 535.300.3 (both the return and the written itemized list run on the same 30-day clock; the list is § 535.300.3(2))
- Interest or escrow
- No interest to the tenant, and no true escrow. § 535.300.2 requires only that deposits 'be held by the landlord for the tenant ...
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in a bank, credit union, or depository institution which is insured by an agency of the federal government', and expressly provides that 'Any interest earned on a security deposit shall be the property of the landlord.' A housing authority created under section 99.040, or any other government entity acting as a landlord, is exempt from subsection 2. Note the history: 2016 H.B. 1862 briefly imposed a trust / no-commingling requirement, and 2018 S.B. 581 repealed it in favor of the current federally-insured-institution language. Sources describing a Missouri 'trust account' or 'no commingling' rule are describing 2016-2018 law.
- Limitations detail
- Unresolved on the face of the statutes: § 535.300 contains no limitations clause of its own, so the general periods apply, and two compete. Mo. Rev. Stat. § 516.120(2) gives five years for 'An action upon a liability created by a statute other than a penalty or forfeiture'; Mo. Rev. Stat.
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§ 516.130(2) gives three years for 'An action upon a statute for a penalty or forfeiture, where the action is given to the party aggrieved'. Because § 535.300.6 awards double damages, a court could classify the doubling as a statutory penalty (3 years) while treating the plain return of the deposit as contract/statutory liability (5 years). Until this is settled, the safe assumption for a demand letter is THREE years. Do not print a five-year deadline.
- Small claims statute
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 482.305 (small claims court, a sitting of the associate circuit division): original jurisdiction of all civil cases, tort or contract, where the amount in controversy does not exceed $5,000, exclusive of interest or costs.
- Itemized list statute
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 535.300.3(2)
Read this before relying on the numbers above
Missouri puts the whole residential security deposit rule in one statute, Mo. Rev. Stat. § 535.300. A landlord may not take more than two months' rent as a deposit (§ 535.300.1), must hold it in a federally insured bank, credit union or depository institution (§ 535.300.2), and within thirty days after the date the tenancy terminates must either return the full deposit or furnish a written itemized list of the damages being charged against it, along with whatever balance is left (§ 535.300.3). Deductions are limited to unpaid rent, restoring the unit to its move-in condition with ordinary wear and tear excepted, and actual damages from the tenant's failure to give proper notice of termination (§ 535.300.4). If the lease pre-agreed to carpet-cleaning charges, the landlord must give the tenant a receipt for the actual cleaning cost within thirty days of the end of the tenancy. The tenant also has the right to advance written notice of the move-out inspection and to be present at it (§ 535.300.5).
Two details decide most Missouri deposit disputes. First, the thirty days are measured from termination of the tenancy, and the landlord satisfies the statute by mailing the itemized statement and any payment to the tenant's last known address - not by the tenant receiving it. Nothing in the section makes a forwarding address a precondition, which cuts both ways: the landlord cannot use a missing address as an excuse for missing the deadline, but a landlord who mails to the old unit has technically complied. Give the landlord a written forwarding address anyway, and keep proof of when you sent it. Second, the remedy is now mandatory doubling: 'the tenant shall recover as damages twice the amount wrongfully withheld' (§ 535.300.6). Note the section number. Until the 2016 amendment this provision was § 535.300.5 and it read 'not more than twice' - a ceiling a judge could decline to reach. The 2016 rewrite inserted a new subsection 2 about where deposits are held, pushing the penalty down to subsection 6, and dropped the 'not more than'. A great deal of published Missouri guidance has not caught up, including the Attorney General's own consumer booklet and the City of St. Louis landlord packet, both of which still describe the old ceiling. Quote the statute, not the summaries. Also note what § 535.300 does NOT give a tenant: no attorney's fees, no interest on the deposit (the statute assigns any interest earned to the landlord), and no separate penalty for charging more than two months' rent.
Enforcement is entirely through the courts. No Missouri agency decides deposit disputes; the Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division publishes the state's landlord-tenant booklet and will mediate a complaint (hotline 1-800-392-8222), but it does not order money returned. Claims of $5,000 or less go to the small claims division of the associate circuit court, where the parties represent themselves (Mo. Rev. Stat. § 482.305); larger claims go to the ordinary civil docket. Because a doubled deposit can exceed $5,000 quickly, check the arithmetic against the small claims cap before filing. One caution on timing: § 535.300 has no limitations period of its own, and Missouri's general statutes offer two candidates - five years for a liability created by statute (§ 516.120(2)) and three years for an action on a statute for a penalty (§ 516.130(2)). Since the doubling looks like a penalty, treat three years as the deadline. Local law adds nothing here: no Missouri city or county ordinance was found that changes the cap, the deadline or the penalty, and Kansas City's much-cited 2019 Tenants Bill of Rights was adopted as a resolution rather than an ordinance.
Read it yourself
Official sources. If a number below matters to your case, open the statute and read it — laws get amended, and cities often stack stricter local rules on top.
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 535.300.3 — 30-day clock: return the full deposit OR furnish a written itemized list, counted from the date of termination of the tenancy
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 535.300.3(2) — Itemized list requirement: written itemized list of damages plus the balance of the deposit
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 535.300.3 (closing sentence) — Mailbox rule: landlord complies by MAILING the statement and payment to the tenant's last known address
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 535.300.6 — PENALTY (current numbering - subsection 6, not 5): tenant shall recover as damages twice the amount wrongfully withheld; no attorney's fees provided
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 535.300.1 — Deposit cap: two months' rent
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 535.300.2 — Holding requirement (federally insured bank/credit union/depository); interest belongs to the landlord; housing authorities exempt
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 535.300.4(2) — Permitted withholding for restoring the unit, ordinary wear and tear excepted; carpet-cleaning charges require a receipt within 30 days
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 535.300.5 — Move-out inspection: landlord must give reasonable written notice of date and time; tenant has the right to be present
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 535.300.7 — Landlord may still sue for actual damages beyond the deposit; tenant may not apply the deposit to rent
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 535.300.8 — Definition of 'security deposit'; pet deposits are excluded from the section entirely
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 535.300 (source line and effective date) — Amendment history confirming the 2016 and 2018 rewrites; current version effective 28 Aug 2018
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 535.300.5 (SUPERSEDED 1983 version, revisor's archived text) — Proof of the numbering/wording trap: in the pre-2016 text the penalty was subsection 5 and read 'not more than twice'; source line reads only (L. 1983 H.B. 175 § 1)
- Mo. Senate, Perfected S.B. 581 (2018), 99th Gen. Assembly, § 535.300 at lines 51-53 (page 2) — Independent official confirmation of the CURRENT numbering and wording: the double-damages provision appears as subsection 6, reading 'twice' with no bracketed 'not more than' - i.e. the ceiling language was already gone before 2018. PDF is watermarked 'Unofficial Bill Copy' but is served from senate.mo.gov; read directly page by page, not via summarizer
- Mo. House, Perfected House Committee Substitute for H.B. 1862 (2016), 98th Gen. Assembly, § 535.300 at lines 28-30 (page 4) — Mid-2016 snapshot showing the OLD seven-subsection structure with the penalty at subsection 5 and the 'not more than' ceiling still in place; useful for dating stale secondary sources. Read directly page by page
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 482.305 — Small claims jurisdictional limit: $5,000 exclusive of interest or costs
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 516.120(2) — Five-year limitation for a liability created by statute OTHER THAN a penalty or forfeiture
- Mo. Rev. Stat. § 516.130(2) — Three-year limitation for an action upon a statute for a penalty or forfeiture given to the party aggrieved - the competing period for the § 535.300.6 doubling
- Missouri Attorney General, 'Missouri's Landlord-Tenant Law' booklet, p. 11 (Security Deposit) — Official state agency plain-language summary: two months' rent cap, 30 days from end of lease, itemized list, move-out inspection, advice to give a written forwarding address. NOTE the damages sentence still uses the repealed 'up to twice' ceiling - cite the statute, not this line. PDF read page by page (the summarizer could not read it)
- Missouri Attorney General, 'Missouri's Landlord-Tenant Law' booklet, p. 11 — STALE AGENCY LANGUAGE - flagged deliberately: the AG booklet still describes the pre-2016 discretionary ceiling ('up to twice'), while § 535.300.6 now reads 'shall recover as damages twice'
- Missouri Attorney General, Consumer Protection Division - file a consumer complaint — Complaint channel: hotline and online/mail complaint form; the AG mediates but does not represent individuals
- City of St. Louis, Neighborhood Stabilization Office, InfoRent landlord packet - 'Security Deposit' — Evidence that St. Louis City has no separate deposit ordinance - the official city handout simply reprints Chapter 535. WARNING: it reprints the PRE-2016 text (30-day rule at subsection 2, penalty at subsection 5, 'not more than twice', source line '(L. 1983 H.B. 175 § 1)'). Read page by page
- Kansas City, Mo., City Clerk, File No. 190934 (Committee Substitute), adopted as substituted 12/12/2019 — Kansas City's 'Tenants Bill of Rights' is a RESOLUTION, not an ordinance - a policy statement rather than an enforceable local deposit rule
Last checked: 2026-09-04
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