Security Deposit Interest: Who Owes It and How Much
Most states require none. Four set a rate in statute, three owe whatever the account earned, and Ohio owes less than almost every guide tells you.
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Most states require no interest on a security deposit at all. Your landlord holds your money, often for years, and owes you nothing for it unless your state or your city says otherwise. Eight states have a rule worth knowing about, and they do not all work the same way.
The distinction that matters, and that most guides flatten: some states set a rate in the statute, and some say only that the money must sit in an interest-bearing account and that whatever it earns is yours. For the first kind there is a number. For the second there is not — and a calculator that prints one anyway is guessing.
Where a rate is written into the law
| State | Rate | Conditions |
|---|---|---|
| Ohio | 5% a year | Only on the part of the deposit above the greater of $50 or one month’s rent, and only if you stayed six months or more. Ohio Rev. Code § 5321.16(A) |
| Maryland | 3.47% for 2026 | 1.5% or the one-year Treasury yield, whichever is greater, reset each January. Deposits of $50 or more held six months or more. Md. Code Real Prop. § 8-203(e) |
| Minnesota | 1% a year | Simple, not compounded. Amounts under $1 are not payable. Minn. Stat. § 504B.178 |
| Connecticut | 0.49% for 2026 | Published by the state each year; it was 0.52% in 2025. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47a-21(i) |
Two of those four are not fixed numbers but annual ones. A page quoting Maryland or Connecticut from a previous year is quoting the wrong figure, which is worth remembering about every guide you read on this, including whichever one ranks above this page.
The Ohio trap
Ohio is the state most often reported wrongly, and the error favours the reader in a way that will disappoint them. The statute says interest runs on any deposit in excess of fifty dollars or one month’s periodic rent, whichever is greater — on the excess, not on the deposit.
So if your rent is $1,200 and your deposit was $1,200, the part earning interest is nothing, and five per cent of nothing is nothing. If your deposit was $1,800, the 5% runs on $600. Guides that tell you to multiply the whole deposit are describing a rule that does not exist.
Where the law says “whatever it earned”
Three states require the money to be held in an interest-bearing account and give you the proceeds, without naming a rate:
- New Jersey — paid or credited against rent each year. If the landlord pays nothing, you may demand the deposit plus 7% be applied to your rent.
N.J.S.A. § 46:8-19 - Pennsylvania — only after the second anniversary, only on deposits over $100, and the landlord keeps 1% a year as an administration fee.
68 P.S. § 250.511b - Massachusetts — a separate Massachusetts account in your name; you get 5% or the rate the account actually earned.
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 186 § 15B
In all three the right question is not “how much?” but “which institution, and what did it pay?” The landlord has to be able to answer that. Illinois sits slightly apart again: interest is owed only in buildings of 25 units or more, on deposits held six months or more.
Your city may require it where your state does not
Local ordinances override the silence. Chicago requires interest on deposits held more than six months and San Francisco on deposits held more than a year, in states that impose nothing at all. If you rent in a city with rent regulation, check the city before concluding you are owed nothing.
If you are owed it and have not been paid
Unpaid interest is part of what the landlord is holding, so it travels with the deposit rather than being a separate fight. Ask for it in writing with the rest, name the statute, and if nothing comes back it goes in the same demand letter as the deposit itself. Check your state’s return deadline at the same time, because a landlord who is late on the deposit has usually not thought about the interest either.
This page explains general rules and is not legal advice. Rates change, two of the four above change annually, and local ordinances vary.
Does your lease say anything about it?
Upload it and get the deposit clause back quoted from your own document — what was taken, what it covers and anything the landlord promised about holding it.
Read my documentWork out what you are owed
Four states set the rate in statute, so the figure can be calculated. Three others give you whatever the account actually earned, which is not a number anyone can work out for you — the tool says so rather than inventing one.
Rates checked 2026-11-09 for 2026. Connecticut and Maryland reset theirs every January. This is an estimate of the statutory minimum, not advice, and local ordinances can require interest where the state does not.