Before a landlord can file a nonpayment eviction anywhere in the country, state law requires a written notice — and the details differ on the three questions that decide real cases: how many days the tenant gets, whether paying inside the window stops the case, and what the court action is called once it's filed. The table below compares all twenty states BuildMyLease covers; below it, each state gets a plain-English summary with links to the state's lease page and — where we've published one — a step-by-step eviction timeline.
This page is general information for landlords, not legal advice, and BuildMyLease does not prepare eviction notices or court filings. Eviction is a court process with strict service and content rules that vary by county and city — before serving a notice or filing, confirm the current rule and consult a local landlord-tenant attorney.
The comparison table
| State | Notice before filing | Can the tenant cure? | Eviction action | Statute |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arizona | 5 days (calendar) — pay or quit | Yes — pay arrears + any written late fee before filing | Special detainer | A.R.S. § 33-1368(B) |
| California | 3 days, excluding weekends & judicial holidays | Yes — pay within the window | Unlawful detainer | CCP § 1161(2) |
| Colorado | 10 days (5 for exempt small-landlord leases) | Yes — full payment must be accepted until judgment | Forcible entry & detainer | C.R.S. §§ 13-40-104, -115(4) |
| Florida | 3 days, excluding weekends & legal holidays | Yes — pay within the window | County-court summary procedure | Fla. Stat. § 83.56(3) |
| Georgia | 3 business days (leases entered/renewed since July 1, 2024) | Yes — plus a once-per-year cure after the summons | Dispossessory proceeding | O.C.G.A. §§ 44-7-50(c), -52 |
| Illinois | 5 days (state); Chicago & Cook County add cure rights | Yes — full payment within the period (partial doesn’t count) | Eviction action | 735 ILCS 5/9-209 |
| Indiana | 10 days — unless the lease waives it | Yes — pay in full before the period expires | Eviction action | IC 32-31-1-6 |
| Maryland | 10-day notice of intent to file | Yes — redemption until the eviction is executed (3-judgment limit) | Summary ejectment (failure to pay rent) | Md. Real Prop. § 8-401 |
| Massachusetts | 14 days + mandatory state accompanying form | Yes — lease tenants can cure up to the court answer date | Summary process | M.G.L. c. 186, §§ 11–12, 31 |
| Michigan | 7-day demand for possession | Yes — within 7 days, or pay the judgment before the writ | Summary proceedings | MCL 554.134(2); 600.5714(1)(a) |
| Minnesota | 14 days (since Jan 1, 2024) | Yes — plus redemption until possession is delivered | Eviction action | Minn. Stat. § 504B.321 subd. 1a |
| New Jersey | None required for ordinary nonpayment | Yes — pay all rent + costs by trial day and the case is dismissed | Summary dispossess | N.J.S.A. 2A:18-61.2, -55 |
| New York | 14-day rent demand (after a 5-day certified-mail late notice) | Yes — full payment before the hearing must be accepted | Nonpayment summary proceeding | RPAPL § 711(2); RPL § 235-e(d) |
| North Carolina | 10-day demand — unless the lease sets its own rule | Yes — pay within 10 days, or tender before judgment | Summary ejectment | N.C.G.S. §§ 42-3, 42-33 |
| Ohio | 3+ days notice to leave the premises | No statewide right — several cities add pay-to-stay | Forcible entry & detainer | R.C. § 1923.04 |
| Pennsylvania | 10 days — but leases may shorten or waive it | Effectively yes — pay arrears + costs before the writ executes | Landlord-tenant complaint (MDJ court) | 68 P.S. §§ 250.501, .503(c) |
| Tennessee | 14 days (URLTA and non-URLTA counties alike) | Yes — pay within the 14 days | Detainer warrant | Tenn. Code §§ 66-28-505; 66-7-109 |
| Texas | 3-day notice to vacate — lease may shorten or lengthen | No statutory right — lease-granted only | Eviction suit (forcible detainer) | Tex. Prop. Code § 24.005 |
| Virginia | 14 days (was 5 — changed July 1, 2026) | Yes — pay within 14 days; redemption later in the case | Unlawful detainer | Va. Code § 55.1-1245(F) |
| Washington | 14-day pay-or-vacate on the statutory form | Yes — pay within the 14 days | Unlawful detainer | RCW 59.12.030(3); 59.18.057 |
When rent is late: the week-by-week playbook
The notice deadlines above are the legal floor. Operationally, experienced landlords run a calm, documented ladder — every rung in writing:
Day 1 after the grace period: send a short written reminder. Most late rent is a payday-timing problem, and a friendly note in writing both solves the common case and starts the paper trail.
About 5 days late: send a second written notice referencing the lease's grace-period clause and any late fee that has begun to accrue. Keep it factual — quote the lease, state the balance, name the payment methods.
10–14 days late: serve your state's required pre-filing notice from the table above — the pay-or-quit notice or notice to quit your statute prescribes, served the way the statute prescribes. The notice is procedural, not personal: in most states it is a mandatory precondition to filing, and a defective one gets the case dismissed months later.
After the notice period runs: if the tenant hasn't paid or left, talk to a local landlord-tenant attorney before filing. Filing fees are small; a dismissed case re-served and re-filed costs a month or more.
Never, at any rung, self-help evict. Changing the locks, removing belongings, or shutting off utilities is illegal in every state on this page, and the statutory penalties (often per-day damages plus attorney's fees) routinely exceed the unpaid rent by an order of magnitude. The court process is the only process.
State-by-state details
Arizona
Arizona counts its five days in calendar days — the statute says so verbatim — so weekends don’t pause the clock. Tendering all past-due rent plus a late fee set out in a written lease reinstates the tenancy before filing; after filing, the tenant must also cover attorney fees and costs. Since 2024–25, eviction notices must include court-help and assistance resources.
California
California’s “3-day” notice counts only court days — Saturdays, Sundays, and judicial holidays are excluded — and the demand must offer payment as an alternative to vacating. AB 1482-covered tenancies need just-cause grounds, tenants now get 10 court days to answer the lawsuit (AB 2347, 2025), and Los Angeles adds an “eviction threshold”: no nonpayment eviction unless the amount owed exceeds one month of fair-market rent.
California lease agreement · California eviction timeline — from 3-day notice to writ
Colorado
Colorado’s demand runs ten days — five only when the landlord owns five or fewer single-family rentals AND the lease expressly discloses the shorter period. The cure right is the strongest in our set: the landlord must accept full payment of everything due at any time until the judge enters judgment, and timely payment vacates the judgment and dismisses the case with prejudice.
Florida
Florida’s three days exclude weekends and court-observed legal holidays, and the statute prescribes the notice wording — deviating from the statutory form is a classic basis for dismissal. Accepting rent with knowledge of the default waives the termination, and partial payments after notice trigger their own procedure. Since 2023, state law preempts all local tenancy ordinances.
Florida lease agreement · Florida eviction timeline — the 3-day notice, step by step
Georgia
Georgia’s 2024 Safe at Home Act created the state’s first pre-filing waiting period: a notice to vacate or pay, posted in a sealed envelope on the door, with three business days to pay — but only for leases entered or renewed on or after July 1, 2024; older leases still follow the old immediate-demand rule. After the summons, tendering all rent plus the warrant cost within 7 days is a complete defense the landlord must accept once in any 12-month period.
Illinois
Illinois’ five-day demand must carry the statutory warning that only FULL payment waives termination — partial payment cures nothing unless the landlord agrees in writing. The clock excludes the day of service and rolls past a weekend-or-holiday final day. Chicago’s RLTO lets tenants pay all rent plus filing fees up to entry of judgment, and suburban Cook County’s RTLO adds a one-time post-filing pay-and-stay plus a 30-day use-it-or-lose-it rule on served notices.
Illinois lease agreement · Illinois eviction timeline — 5-day notice, Chicago & Cook County rules
Indiana
Indiana’s ten-day notice to pay or vacate is explicitly waivable — the statute applies “unless the parties otherwise agreed,” and many Indiana leases do exactly that. Where it applies, paying in full before the period expires keeps the tenancy alive. Non-rent breaches have no statutory notice period at all; the lease’s own terms govern.
Maryland
Maryland’s notice is a notice of intent to file — not a pay-or-quit — served by first-class mail with a certificate of mailing, posting, or (if the tenant opted in) electronically. The real safety valve is the right of redemption: the tenant can defeat the eviction by tendering everything due plus court costs at any moment before the eviction is actually executed, unless three failure-to-pay judgments (four in Baltimore City) were entered in the prior 12 months.
Massachusetts
Massachusetts pairs its 14-day notice to quit with a hard procedural gate: every nonpayment notice must be delivered with the state’s official accompanying form (rental-assistance and RAFT information), and courts cannot accept the eviction filing without proof it went out. Lease tenants can cure every time by paying rent, interest, and costs by their court answer date; tenants at will get a 10-day cure if they haven’t received a similar notice in the past year.
Michigan
Michigan’s seven-day demand (court form DC 100a) excludes the day of service, so the landlord files on day eight at the earliest. Paying everything due within the seven days defeats the case, and even after a landlord judgment the tenant can stay by paying the full judgment amount during the ten-day window before the eviction order issues.
Minnesota
Minnesota’s 2023 reform added a mandatory 14-day pre-filing notice for nonpayment, delivered personally or by first-class mail — and the penalty for skipping it is unusually sharp: dismissal plus automatic expungement of the court file. Tenants can also redeem at any time before possession is delivered by paying arrears, interest, costs, and a $5 attorney fee. Local ordinances may require longer notice.
New Jersey
New Jersey is the outlier: the Anti-Eviction Act expressly exempts ordinary nonpayment from its notice-to-quit requirement, so a landlord may file without prior notice — though habitual late payers get a notice ladder, federally subsidized housing needs a 30-day federal notice, and the lease itself can require a demand. The tenant’s counterweight is strong: paying all rent and costs on or before trial day forces dismissal, and payment within three business days after lockout restores possession.
New York
New York stacks two notices: a certified-mail late-rent notice when rent is five days overdue (skipping it hands the tenant an affirmative defense) and then a written 14-day rent demand served under the formal service statute — oral demands died with the HSTPA. Full payment any time before the hearing must be accepted and ends the proceeding, and since April 2024 Good Cause notices must ride along with eviction papers where the law applies.
North Carolina
North Carolina’s ten-day demand is a gap-filler: it applies only when the lease is silent on forfeiture for nonpayment, and most written leases aren’t — their own forfeiture clause controls instead. Where the statute applies, paying within ten days prevents forfeiture, and in every case tendering rent and costs before judgment stops the proceedings.
Ohio
Ohio requires the notice to be given at least three days before filing and to carry the exact statutory warning text conspicuously. State law gives the tenant no right to stop the case by paying — but Cleveland, Toledo, Cincinnati, Dayton, Euclid, and other cities have enacted pay-to-stay ordinances that create exactly that defense locally, so the answer depends on the municipality.
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania’s ten-day notice to quit is freely waivable — the statute says the notice “may be for a lesser time or may be waived by the tenant if the lease so provides,” and most form leases do. The tenant’s backstop survives anyway: in a pure nonpayment case, paying the rent in arrears plus costs any time before the writ of possession is executed renders the writ ineffective. Philadelphia adds a mandatory pre-filing Eviction Diversion Program with a 30-day participation period.
Tennessee
Tennessee runs two statutory regimes — the URLTA in the 17 counties over 75,000 population (per the 2010 census, fixed list) and general law everywhere else — but both give a 14-day notice for nonpayment with a right to pay and stay. URLTA counties allow the lease to waive the notice, but only in 12-point bold or larger type.
Texas
Texas gives three days’ written notice to vacate by default, but the lease may contract for a shorter or longer period — and there is no statutory right to stop the case by paying, unless the lease grants one. Senate Bill 38 (effective January 1, 2026) overhauled service methods, adding electronic delivery where the lease authorizes it, and CARES Act-covered properties still owe the federal 30-day notice.
Texas lease agreement · Texas eviction timeline — the 3-day notice to vacate, step by step
Virginia
Virginia just rewrote this rule: effective July 1, 2026, the pay-or-quit period is 14 days, up from the long-standing five — a five-day notice served after that date is ineffective and gets the case dismissed. Landlords with more than four units must offer a payment plan for arrears of a month or less, and the separate right of redemption lets the tenant pay to stay later in the case.
Washington
Washington’s 14-day notice must use the statutory form — itemized amounts plus legal-aid resources — and may demand only rent, utilities, and recurring lease charges, never other fees. Paying within the window defeats the case. Seattle layers on winter (Dec 1–Mar 1) and school-year eviction defenses for qualifying households on top of its just-cause ordinance.
Patterns worth knowing
The window is not the timeline. A "3-day notice" doesn't mean a 3-day eviction — it means the landlord may file on day 4. Court scheduling, judgment, and the writ typically add weeks even in the fastest states.
Cure rights split the country. In cure states (California, Washington, Massachusetts among them), paying inside the window ends the matter. In quit states like Texas and Georgia's demand practice, the notice is to vacate — payment afterward is at the landlord's discretion. Accepting partial rent after serving notice can waive the notice in many states; know your rule before taking a payment.
Cities layer on top. Chicago's RLTO and Fair Notice ordinance, suburban Cook County's RTLO, Los Angeles's just-cause rules, and Philadelphia's eviction-diversion program all add duties that a state-law-only checklist misses. If your rental is in a big city, check the city layer every time.