Deposit protection: 30 calendar days or 30 working days? The last safe date worked out, and what a miss costs

Property118 carries a thread titled "30 calendar days or 30 working days?" and it comes up wherever agents compare notes. The wording is short, so we counted it from a real date.

What the law says

Section 213 of the Housing Act 2004 gives the period as "the period of 30 days beginning with the date on which it is received", for both protecting the deposit and giving the prescribed information. GOV.UK says the same thing in plain words: you or your letting agent "must put your tenants' deposit in the scheme within 30 days of getting it." Neither page says anything about excluding weekends or bank holidays. We found no working-days wording in either, so we count calendar days. We did not read case law on the point, so treat our count as a prudent reading, not a judgment.

"Beginning with" matters. The day the money arrives is day 1, not day 0.

The count, worked out

Take a deposit received on Friday 2 October 2026.

• Day 1 is Friday 2 October.
• Day 30 is 2 October + 29 days, which is Saturday 31 October 2026.
• Counted as 30 working days (weekends skipped, no bank holidays fall in that stretch) it would end on Thursday 12 November 2026, which is 12 days later than the calendar count.

So if you protect on 12 November because "30 working days" felt right, you are 12 days late. Because day 30 lands on a Saturday, the safe working date is Friday 30 October, as you may not be able to rely on a scheme being open for you on the weekend. That last point is our advice, not something either page states.

What a miss costs

Section 214 says the court must order the deposit repaid or paid into a custodial scheme account, and must order the landlord to pay the tenant "a sum of money not less than the amount of the deposit and not more than three times the amount." At rent of £1,150 a month, annual rent is £13,800 and one week is £265.38 (13,800 / 52). A 5-week deposit is £1,326.92 (5 x 265.38). The range is therefore £1,326.92 to £3,980.76 (3 x 1,326.92), in addition to the deposit itself going back. The section page we read shows amendments from the Renters' Rights Act 2025 from 1 May 2026 that extend it to ended tenancies; we did not confirm how that changes a claim against an agent.

Two cases that trip the count

A deposit paid in two parts, say half at signing and half on key day, has two receipt dates. We found nothing in the pages we read that says otherwise, so we would run a separate day 30 for each part and protect the first part on time rather than waiting to protect both together. A deposit that arrives before the tenancy starts is still counted from receipt, which is why the start date is the wrong anchor. We could not confirm either case against a court decision.

Routine that avoids it

1. Log the receipt date from the bank, not the tenancy start date. The holding deposit guide shows when a held sum is treated as received.
2. Set the reminder for day 25, not day 30.
3. Size the deposit first with the deposit cap calculator.
4. Put the date on the new tenancy checklist and the date tracker.

Where Overlyft fits

Overlyft can set up an AI assistant that reads each bank receipt, works out day 30 as above and drafts the day-25 reminder for the person handling the file. A person protects the deposit and sends the prescribed information; the assistant only counts and drafts.

This is general information for England, not legal advice.