Alabama Security Deposit Law: Limits, Deadlines & the 60-Day Rule (2026)

Alabama Security Deposit Law: Limits, Deadlines and the 60-Day Rule

Almost everything students believe about security deposits in Alabama comes from a roommate who heard it from someone else. The actual rules sit in one section — Alabama Code § 35-9A-201 — and they are more specific, and in one respect more favorable to tenants, than most people expect.

This page is the legal footing: the cap, what the money may lawfully cover, the deadline, and what the landlord owes you if they miss it. If what you want is the practical playbook — photos, walkthroughs, forwarding addresses, how to write the demand letter — read our companion guide on how to get your security deposit back in Tuscaloosa. The two go together.

The Cap: One Month’s Rent, With Three Exceptions

Subsection (a) is the whole ballgame on how much they can hold:

“A landlord may not demand or receive money as security, in an amount in excess of one month’s periodic rent, except for pets, changes to the premises, or increased liability risks to the landlord or premises, for tenant’s obligations under a rental agreement.”

Two things follow. First, the baseline ceiling is one month’s periodic rent — and the statute says “demand or receive,” so a landlord cannot get around it by collecting the excess under a different label. Second, the exceptions are narrow and specific: pets, changes to the premises, and increased liability risks.

The pet exception is why a pet deposit at a pet-friendly Tuscaloosa complex can sit on top of the one-month cap without violating § 35-9A-201(a). “Changes to the premises” covers things you asked to alter. “Increased liability risks” is the vaguest of the three and the one most likely to be stretched; the statute does not define it, and we are not going to pretend it has a settled meaning.

Note what the statute does not do. It says nothing about non-refundable administration, application or amenity fees, which are not “money as security” and are not capped here. When you are budgeting what it costs to live off campus, count those separately — you are not getting them back.

The lease cannot shrink these protections

Worth knowing, because leases try. Alabama Code § 35-9A-163(a)(1) says a rental agreement may not provide that the tenant “agrees to waive or forego rights or remedies established under Section 35-9A-204, 35-9A-401, or 35-9A-404, or requirements of security deposits established by this chapter.” A clause calling your deposit non-refundable, or waiving the itemisation duty below, is aimed at requirements the lease is not permitted to touch.

What the Deposit May Lawfully Cover

Subsection (b) sets the boundary:

“Upon termination of the tenancy, money held by the landlord as security may be applied to the payment of accrued rent and the amount of damages that the landlord has suffered by reason of the tenant’s noncompliance with Section 35-9A-301 all as itemized by the landlord in a written notice delivered to the tenant together with the amount due 60 days after termination of the tenancy and delivery of possession.”

So there are exactly two lawful buckets: accrued rent, and damages from your noncompliance with § 35-9A-301. That second cross-reference is the one to understand, because it defines what a “damage” charge has to be tied back to. Section 35-9A-301 lists the tenant’s duties, including to keep the occupied part of the premises “as clean and safe as the condition of the premises permit,” to dispose of garbage and waste, to keep plumbing fixtures “as clear as their condition permits,” to use appliances and systems reasonably, and — the one deductions usually rest on — to “not deliberately or negligently destroy, deface, damage, impair, or remove any part of the premises.”

Here is a point where we will not repeat what you may have read elsewhere. Neither § 35-9A-301 nor § 35-9A-201 contains the phrase “ordinary wear and tear.” The common claim that Alabama law expressly excludes normal wear from deposit deductions is not something we can point to in the text. What the text does is limit deductions to damages from your noncompliance with duties framed around deliberate or negligent damage and reasonable use — a narrower argument than a wear-and-tear rule, and one you win with move-in and move-out evidence rather than by citing a phrase. That is why a dated move-in checklist with photographs is worth more than any statute here.

The 60-Day Deadline and the Itemisation Duty

The clock runs from termination of the tenancy and delivery of possession — not from your last rent payment, and not from when the office gets around to inspecting.

Subsection (c): “If the landlord does not refund the entire deposit, the landlord, within the 60-day period, shall provide the tenant an itemized list of amounts withheld.”

Subsection (e) tells you what counts as doing it: “The landlord’s mailing by first class mail to the address provided in writing by the tenant, within 60 days of the refund or itemized accounting, or both, is sufficient compliance with this chapter.” First-class mail to the address you gave them is enough — which is why the address matters so much.

Your one obligation: a written forwarding address

Subsection (d) puts a real duty on you, and students miss it constantly:

“Upon vacating the premises, the tenant shall provide to the landlord a valid forwarding address, in writing, to which the deposit or itemized accounting, or both, may be mailed. If the tenant fails to provide a valid forwarding address, the landlord shall mail, by first class mail, the deposit or itemized accounting, or both, to the last known address of the tenant or, if none, to the tenant at the address of the property. Any deposit unclaimed by the tenant as well as any check outstanding shall be forfeited by the tenant after a period of 90 days.”

Read the last sentence again. An unclaimed deposit — or an uncashed check — is forfeited after 90 days. If you graduate in May, move home, and never give the complex a written forwarding address, the refund can be mailed to the apartment you no longer live in and time out. Put the forwarding address in writing, keep a copy, and do it on the way out, not a month later.

If the Landlord Misses the Deadline: Double the Deposit

This is the sharpest provision in the section, and the one most Tuscaloosa students have never heard of.

Subsection (f): “If the landlord fails to mail a timely refund or accounting within the 60-day period, the landlord shall pay the tenant double the amount of the tenant’s original deposit.”

Note the structure carefully. The penalty attaches to the failure to mail a timely refund or accounting — not to whether the deductions were fair. A landlord who itemises aggressively but on time has not triggered subsection (f); a landlord who sends nothing at all for 70 days may have, regardless of how justified their charges would have been. Those are two different disputes and you may have both at once.

Two more subsections round it out. Subsection (g): “This section does not preclude the landlord or tenant from recovering other damages to which the landlord or tenant may be entitled.” The deposit fight is not the ceiling on either side’s claims. And subsection (h): “The holder of the landlord’s interest in the premises at the time of the termination of the tenancy is bound by this section.” If the complex was sold while you lived there, the owner at termination is the one on the hook — “the old management had your deposit” is not an answer.

The Section at a Glance

Situations Where This Gets Complicated

• 01Roommates on one lease. The statute speaks of “the tenant.” If four of you signed one lease and one deposit, the law does not divide the refund four ways — that is between you. Settle it in writing at the start, alongside how you split rent and utilities.
• 02Subleases. If you sublease for the summer, the deposit usually stays tied to the original tenant, so your subtenant’s damage comes out of your money. Handle that separately, in writing.
• 03Leaving early. The clock runs from termination of the tenancy and delivery of possession. If you break a lease, when the tenancy actually terminated can itself be contested — a lawyer question, not a calendar question.
• 04Deposit alternatives. Some complexes offer a monthly non-refundable fee instead of a deposit. That is not “money as security,” so § 35-9A-201 may not govern it at all — and there is nothing to get back at the end.

Before You Sign, and Before You Leave

The statute rewards documentation and punishes vagueness. Photograph every room, closet, appliance and existing mark on move-in day with the date visible, and do it again on move-out. Read the deposit paragraph against the cap above — our Tuscaloosa student lease guide covers the rest of the document. And when you compare properties on our guide to apartments near UA or the broader Tuscaloosa student housing guide, read the one-star reviews specifically for move-out charges. Complexes have reputations on this, and they are consistent.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Rest of the Alabama Tenant-Law Series

This guide is one part of our plain-language series on the Alabama Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (Alabama Code Title 35, Chapter 9A) for University of Alabama students. The rest of the series:

• 01Lease clauses that can’t be enforced — The rights § 35-9A-163 says a lease may not sign away, however the paperwork is worded.
• 02What your landlord must repair — The duty to maintain the premises under § 35-9A-204, and what to do when a ticket goes unanswered.
• 03When your landlord may enter — The two-day notice rule in § 35-9A-303, and the situations that do not require notice at all.
• 04Retaliation for complaining — Which complaints § 35-9A-501 protects, and the four exceptions that end most claims.
• 05Late rent and the seven-day notice — How Alabama’s seven-day notice to pay or quit works, and where the eviction timeline actually starts.
• 06Lockouts and seized belongings — Why self-help eviction is unlawful in Alabama, and what § 35-9A-407 lets a tenant recover.
• 07Leaving the apartment empty for a semester or summer — The 14-day absence notice in § 35-9A-423, and the seven-day electric rule that makes a unit “abandoned.”