Home › Letting agents › Deposits, rent and fees
Deposits, rent and fees
Tenancy deposit cap calculator: 5 or 6 weeks' rent, worked out the way the law does it
Work out the maximum deposit, holding deposit and rent in advance from the monthly rent, plus the 30-day protection deadline, and why rent ÷ 4 breaks the cap.
The Tenant Fees Act caps what a tenant can be asked to pay as a deposit. Most agents know the headline: five weeks' rent. Fewer work it out the way the law does, and the shortcut many people use takes the deposit over the limit. The calculator below does it properly and adds the deadlines that go with it.
Free tool
Deposit cap and protection deadline calculator
Works in your browser. Nothing you type leaves this device.
How the cap works
The cap depends on the annual rent:
- Annual rent under £50,000: the deposit can be no more than 5 weeks' rent.
- Annual rent of £50,000 or more: no more than 6 weeks' rent.
The government's guidance works out a week's rent as the annual rent divided by 52. For a monthly rent, that means multiplying by 12 first, then dividing by 52.
A holding deposit, taken to reserve a property while checks are done, is capped at one week's rent.
The shortcut that breaks the cap
The tempting sum is monthly rent divided by 4. It is wrong, because a month is longer than four weeks.
On a £1,250-a-month let:
| Method | Weekly rent | 5-week deposit |
|---|---|---|
| Annual ÷ 52 (correct) | £288.46 | £1,442.30 |
| Monthly ÷ 4 (wrong) | £312.50 | £1,562.50 |
The wrong method takes £120.20 more than the law allows. Taking a prohibited payment exposes the agent and landlord to a penalty from trading standards, and the excess has to be repaid.
Round down, never up. Five weeks of £288.4615 is £1,442.307, and rounding that to £1,442.31 takes a penny over the cap. It sounds trivial; it is still over.
Rent in advance after 1 May 2026
The Renters' Rights Act changed rent in advance. Under the government's guide, a landlord or agent can ask for up to one month's rent in advance (or 28 days' rent where rent is paid more often than monthly), and only once the tenancy agreement has been signed. You cannot ask for rent in advance before the agreement is entered into, and tenancy terms that require rent to be paid ahead of its normal due date cannot be enforced. The old practice of taking six months up front from a tenant who failed referencing is gone.
The 30-day protection deadline
Once the deposit is received, it has to be protected in a government-approved scheme, and the tenant given the prescribed information, within 30 days. The calculator gives you the date.
The clock runs from when the money arrives, not when the tenancy starts. Research for this guide found agents warned about exactly this: software that starts the 30-day count at the move-in date can miss the real deadline when the deposit is paid weeks earlier.
If the deadline is missed, a court can order the landlord to pay the tenant between one and three times the deposit, on top of returning it. On a full £1,442.30 deposit that is up to £4,326.90.
A worked set of figures
| Monthly rent | Annual rent | Cap | Maximum deposit | Holding deposit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £950 | £11,400 | 5 weeks | £1,096.15 | £219.23 |
| £1,250 | £15,000 | 5 weeks | £1,442.30 | £288.46 |
| £1,800 | £21,600 | 5 weeks | £2,076.92 | £415.38 |
| £4,200 | £50,400 | 6 weeks | £5,815.38 | £969.23 |
For the full list of what has to be done at the start of a tenancy, see our lettings compliance checklist. If a tenant falls behind later, the Ground 8 rent arrears checker shows whether the new threshold is met.
This is general information for England, not legal advice. Deposit rules differ in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Short answers from this page
What is the maximum tenancy deposit in England?
Five weeks' rent where the annual rent is under £50,000, and six weeks' rent above that. A week's rent is the monthly rent times 12 divided by 52, not the monthly rent divided by 4. On £1,250 a month the cap is £1,442.30; dividing by 4 gives £1,562.50, which is £120.20 over the limit.
Source: Tenant Fees Act 2019
Where this comes from: Tenant Fees Act 2019 and the government's Tenant Fees Act guidance for landlords and agents; GOV.UK "Tenancy deposit protection"; Housing Act 2004 section 214; GOV.UK "Guide to the Renters' Rights Act" on rent in advance; all read 2026-10-01. Our sums are saved in tests/lettwell/tools-check.txt.
AEO Lookup editorial team
We write practical guides for people who run small UK firms, and we check every fact against its source on the date shown. Read how we review, or tell us if something has changed.
