In short: Yes, it’s now restricted, since 1 May 2026, under the Renters’ Rights Act, you cannot require or accept more than one month’s rent in advance, and you cannot ask for or take any rent at all before the tenancy agreement is actually signed. Six-month or year-long upfront payments as a condition of granting a tenancy are now illegal, closing off a tactic some landlords used instead of a guarantor. You can still take a deposit (capped at 5–6 weeks’ rent) alongside the one month’s rent, and tenants can voluntarily choose to pay several months ahead once the tenancy is already running.
What used to happen, and why it’s changed
Before the Renters’ Rights Act, there was no statutory limit on rent in advance. Some landlords and agents, particularly when dealing with international students, tenants with no UK credit history, or self-employed applicants who couldn’t pass a standard affordability check, would ask for six or even twelve months’ rent upfront instead of (or as well as) a guarantor. For a landlord this felt like a sensible way to de-risk a marginal application. For prospective tenants, it operated as a huge barrier, someone with a good income but no savings buffer could be locked out of a tenancy despite being perfectly able to pay monthly, while wealthier applicants could effectively buy their way past referencing concerns.
This became one of the more contentious practices Parliament targeted in the Act, and MPs backed a one-month cap on advance rent payments as part of the final legislation.
The rule from 1 May 2026
The core restriction has two parts:
1. Nothing before signing. There is now an absolute prohibition on a landlord or agent accepting, or even inviting, any rent payment before the tenancy agreement itself has been signed. You cannot ask a prospective tenant to “pay a few months up front to secure it” while the paperwork is still being finalised, doing so is now unlawful, regardless of whether the tenant offers voluntarily.
2. One month’s cap once signed, before the tenancy starts. After the tenancy agreement is signed, a landlord can require one month’s rent (or the equivalent for a shorter rent period, e.g. 28 days) in advance, even if that’s paid before the tenancy officially begins. Anything beyond that one month, if written into the tenancy agreement as a requirement, is legally void, you cannot draft your way around the cap by putting a bigger upfront figure into the contract.
Put simply: you can ask for the deposit and one month’s rent to secure a signed tenancy. You cannot ask for two, three, six or twelve months’ rent as a condition of granting the tenancy, at any stage.
What you can still take
- The deposit, capped at five weeks’ rent (six weeks if the annual rent is £50,000 or more), under the Tenant Fees Act 2019, unaffected by this new rent-in-advance rule.
- One month’s rent in advance, once the tenancy agreement is signed.
- Voluntary advance payments after the tenancy has started. Once the tenancy is live, a tenant can choose to pay several months at a time for their own budgeting convenience, for example, someone paid annually by an employer, or receiving a lump sum from Universal Credit backdated payments, might prefer to pay three months in one go. This has to be the tenant’s own choice; you cannot require it, suggest it as a condition, or make continuation of the tenancy contingent on it.
Existing tenancies
If a tenancy was already in place before the Act’s rent-in-advance provisions commenced and its terms require rent to be paid in advance under the old arrangement, you generally don’t have to unwind or renegotiate that existing agreement, you can continue collecting rent as originally contracted until that specific tenancy ends. The restriction bites on new tenancies and new terms agreed from commencement onward.
What this means for how you screen instead
Losing the “ask for a year upfront” option pushes risk management back toward proper referencing and, where genuinely warranted, a guarantor or rent guarantee insurance (see our guide to guarantors) rather than a cash buffer. Practically, this means:
- Lean harder on income verification, employer references, and previous landlord references rather than trying to solve affordability doubts with money upfront.
- Where an applicant has no UK credit history or irregular income, a guarantor referenced properly (see our guide to guarantors) is now the compliant route, not a bigger deposit-equivalent payment.
- Rent guarantee insurance is worth considering as a landlord-side safety net that doesn’t touch the tenant’s cash flow at all, and sits entirely outside these advance-rent restrictions since it’s a policy you hold, not a payment you take from the tenant.
- Document your standard process (one month’s rent + deposit, referencing/guarantor as needed) and apply it consistently, a tenant who’s offered to pay extra rent upfront in the past could reasonably assume you’ll accept it again, so make clear in your listing and application process that this isn’t something you can now do.
Enforcement
Provisions that attempt to require excess rent in advance are void, and local housing authorities have enforcement powers (including financial penalties) for breaches of the wider Renters’ Rights Act framework. Given the penalties already in play elsewhere in the Act (see our guide to renting to tenants on benefits and our tenant referencing guide on discrimination and Right to Rent penalties), it’s not worth testing this one, build your advance-rent policy around the one-month cap and treat it as fixed going forward.
Related reading
Sources
- Renters’ Rights Act: changes for private renters, Shelter England
- Managing rent payments after the Renters’ Rights Act, NRLA
This is general information, not legal, tax, or financial advice. Rules referenced are accurate to the best of available information as of July 2026 for England unless stated otherwise. Always check current government guidance (gov.uk) or consult a solicitor for your specific situation.
Last Updated on September 21, 2026