Your tenancy agreement has always said 1 month's notice. Now you have told your landlord you are leaving, and someone, maybe the landlord, maybe a letting agent, has told you the Renters' Rights Act means you owe 2 months instead. You are not sure whether you have to serve again, or whether the extra month is real.
This is one of the most common notice questions since the Act came in, and the confusion runs both ways. The 2-month figure in the Act is a default, not a floor that wipes out a shorter period your landlord already agreed to. Whether your particular 1-month clause still binds depends on what your agreement says and, for older tenancies, on a point the law has not fully settled. Here is how to work out where you stand.
Do you have to give 2 months' notice under the Renters' Rights Act?
The starting point is 2 months. Since 1 May 2026, almost every private renter in England has an assured periodic tenancy, and the notice you serve to end it is a notice to quit. Section 20 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 amended section 5 of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977, so your notice is valid if you give it at least 2 months before the tenancy ends.
That 2 months is a default, and the law lets you and your landlord agree a shorter period. What it does not allow is a longer one. So the Act never turns a shorter notice period you already had into a longer one. If anything, it caps how much notice a landlord can demand.
The real question is whether your 1 month still counts as an agreed shorter period.
Can you still use the 1 month notice period in your contract?
For most tenants whose agreement spells out 1 month, the better reading is yes. Section 5, as amended, makes a tenant's notice valid if it gives either at least 2 months, or at least any shorter period, up to 2 months, that the landlord has agreed to in writing. A clause in your signed tenancy agreement saying you can leave on 1 month's notice is a written agreement to a shorter period. On that reading, your 1 month still holds and you do not need to serve 2.
There is an honest caveat, and it matters most for agreements signed before 1 May 2026. The wording does not say when the written agreement has to have been made, and nothing in the Act or the commencement regulations spells out how a pre-existing 1-month clause carries across when your old tenancy converted to a periodic one. The stronger view is that a clear, continuing 1-month notice term reads as the landlord's written agreement and still binds. A cautious landlord may argue the old clause was spent when the fixed term ended. It has not been tested in court.
So if your agreement plainly gives you a rolling right to leave on 1 month's notice, rely on it, but put it beyond doubt. A short email to your landlord confirming you are giving 1 month's notice under the clause in your agreement, and asking them to confirm, turns a possible dispute into a paper trail. If they push back and you cannot afford the argument, serving the full 2 months is the safe fallback.
How to work out your notice end date from your rent day
You signed a 12-month tenancy in September 2025 with a clause letting you leave on 1 month's written notice. That tenancy became an assured periodic tenancy on 1 May 2026, and your rent falls on the 1st of each month. On 1 September 2026 you email your landlord giving 1 month's notice under the clause. A month later, 1 October, is a rent day, so the tenancy ends on 1 October. You keep the email and the landlord's reply.
The usual approach is to end your notice on a rent-period boundary, although how this rule applies under the amended law has not been settled in court. Serving after a rent day can push the safest end date into the following period. Agree the end date in writing with your landlord if you need certainty.
What if your tenancy says nothing about how much notice you give?
Here the answer flips. If your agreement is silent on how much notice you give as a tenant, there is no shorter period the landlord agreed to, so the 2-month default applies in full. This catches a lot of older tenancies, including statutory periodic tenancies where a single rent period or 4 weeks used to be enough. Those short common-law notice periods are gone for assured tenancies.
"1 month is still 1 month" is only true where your contract says 1 month. If it says nothing, plan for 2.
Can a landlord demand more than 2 months' notice?
No. A clause requiring 3 months' notice, or tying you to a minimum term, cannot make your 2-month notice invalid. Section 5 sets the length your notice needs to be valid, and 2 months meets it whatever the contract says. Serve your 2 months and the notice stands.
That is a point about the notice, not a ruling that the clause itself is unenforceable for every purpose, which would be a separate consumer-law question. For the job in front of you, ending your tenancy, a longer-notice clause simply does not bite. The mechanics of getting the notice right, including a template, are in our guide on how to end your tenancy with a notice to quit.
How much notice must a landlord give under the Renters' Rights Act?
The Act changed the other side of this too. Your landlord can no longer end your tenancy with a no-fault Section 21 notice. To get possession they need a legal ground under Section 8 and, if you do not leave, a court order. The notice they must give you depends on which ground they use, and some grounds carry 4 months. Our guide to the Section 8 grounds a landlord can use breaks down each one.
If you rent in Wales, different law applies. Notice periods there run under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 and its occupation contracts, not the Renters' Rights Act.
Working out whether a 1-month clause still protects you, or whether a landlord is trying to hold you to a notice period the law no longer allows, is exactly the kind of thing Remedy can check. Send us your tenancy agreement and we will tell you what notice you owe.
