Your new landlord has asked for two months' rent as a deposit. It sounds normal, the agent said it as if it were standard, and you need the flat, so you're about to pay it. Before you transfer the money, it's worth 60 seconds to check the number, because for most tenancies in England that amount is more than the law allows.
The deposit you pay to secure a tenancy is capped. Since June 2019, the Tenant Fees Act 2019 has limited a security deposit to five weeks' rent for most tenancies, and anything above that is a payment your landlord isn't allowed to take. Plenty of landlords and agents still ask for six weeks, two months, or a round number that sounds tidy but breaks the cap.
This post covers the exact limit, how to work out five weeks' rent from your monthly figure, and how to claw back anything you were overcharged.
How much deposit can a landlord legally charge in England?
For an assured tenancy, the deposit is capped at five weeks' rent where the total annual rent is under £50,000. That figure comes from Schedule 1 of the Tenant Fees Act 2019.
Put plainly: five weeks, not one month, not two. A "two months' rent" deposit is roughly 8.7 weeks, well over the cap. So is the common "six weeks" figure, unless your rent is high enough to qualify (more on that below).
The cap is on the tenancy deposit itself, the money held against damage or unpaid rent at the end. It's separate from your first month's rent, and separate from a holding deposit paid to reserve the property. Anything charged above the five-week limit is a prohibited payment under the Act, which means the landlord has to give it back.
When can a landlord charge six weeks' deposit instead of five?
There's one exception. Where the total annual rent is £50,000 or more, the cap rises to six weeks' rent (again, Schedule 1 of the Tenant Fees Act 2019).
That threshold is on the annual rent for the whole property, not per person, so on a shared flat it's the combined rent that counts. A room at £900 a month is £10,800 a year, nowhere near it. A whole house at £4,200 a month is £50,400 a year, so six weeks would be lawful there.
If your annual rent is below £50,000 and you were asked for six weeks, that's over the cap. The six-week figure only applies at the top of the market.
How to work out five weeks' rent from a monthly figure
Rent is usually quoted per month, but the cap is in weeks, so you need to convert. The formula is:
monthly rent × 12 ÷ 52 × 5
Take a rent of £1,200 a month. That's £14,400 a year, or roughly £276.92 a week. Five weeks works out at £1,384.62, so that's the most your landlord can lawfully hold as a deposit.
Now compare that to "two months' rent," which would be £2,400. The difference, more than £1,000, is money the landlord was never entitled to ask for. Run your own rent through the same sum and you'll have your number in under a minute.
Did the Renters' Rights Act change the deposit cap in 2026?
No. This is the part that trips people up. The Renters' Rights Act brought big changes from 1 May 2026, but the deposit cap wasn't one of them. Five weeks (or six above £50,000) is still the limit, exactly as it was.
What did change is rent in advance. A landlord can no longer demand several months' rent up front on an assured tenancy, and the advance is now capped at one month. So the old trick of a modest deposit plus a huge "advance" no longer works either. If you want the detail on that, see our guide on why a landlord can only ask for one month's rent in advance.
The deposit rules didn't loosen in 2026. If anything, the total a landlord can ask for before you move in got tighter.
How to get back a deposit that's more than the legal cap
If you were charged over the cap, the excess is a prohibited payment and it has to be repaid. You don't have to prove any harm, the overcharge itself is the breach.
Start in writing. Email the landlord or agent, quote the Tenant Fees Act five-week cap, state the correct figure and the amount you overpaid, and ask for the excess back within a set time. Keep it factual and keep a copy.
If they refuse or go quiet, you have two routes, and you can use both. You can apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) for recovery of a prohibited payment, and you can report the landlord to your local council's trading standards team, who enforce the Act. One older lever is gone. A landlord used to be blocked from serving a Section 21 notice while holding a prohibited payment, but Section 21 was abolished on 1 May 2026, so the remedy now is recovery plus the council's penalty rather than an eviction bar.
Once you've paid a lawful deposit, the next thing to check is that it's protected in a scheme. See how to check if your deposit is protected, and if there's a dispute over deductions later, what counts as a fair deduction.
The £5,000 penalty for charging more than the deposit cap
Charging over the cap is also an offence the council can fine for. A first breach of the Tenant Fees Act carries a civil penalty of up to £5,000. A repeat within five years can mean a penalty of up to £30,000 or prosecution.
That's why reporting it to trading standards matters even after you've got your money back. The council enforces the cap for every tenant in the area, not only you, and a landlord who charged you two months has probably charged others the same.
If you're not sure whether your deposit is over the limit, Remedy can check the figure against your rent and draft the letter asking for the excess back. It takes about two minutes.
