Tenancy Agreement Template (APT, England 2026)

Since 1 May 2026, the standard residential tenancy in England is the assured periodic tenancy (APT). It replaced the assured shorthold tenancy (AST), which the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 abolished. An APT runs as a rolling periodic tenancy from the first day, with no fixed end date. This page explains what an APT template has to contain, the post-Renters’-Rights-Act rules every agreement now has to reflect, and the recommended template — with the documents you genuinely need alongside it, and the ones you don’t.

What an assured periodic tenancy agreement is

An assured periodic tenancy is an assured tenancy under the Housing Act 1988, as amended by the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. It runs from one rent period to the next — usually monthly — from the first day, with no fixed end date. It is the correct form of agreement for the great majority of private residential lets in England.

The tenant has security of tenure. The tenancy ends in only three ways: the tenant gives notice, both sides agree to end it, or the landlord proves one of the statutory grounds for possession in Schedule 2 of the Housing Act 1988, served by a section 8 notice and, if the tenant does not leave, pursued through the county court.

A workable template has to do four things well: identify the parties and the property without ambiguity; set the rent, the payment date and the payment method correctly; record the deposit, the protection scheme used and the prescribed information; and set out the repair, access and conduct obligations on both sides in language that holds up if it is ever tested. In our view the first two are where most templates are adequate and the last two are where weak ones fail — a vague repairs clause or a missing access provision is what turns into a dispute at the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber).

When to use this template — and when not to

Use an APT template where the tenant is an individual renting the property as their only or principal home, you do not live there yourself, and the rent falls within the assured-tenancy limits. Under Schedule 1 of the Housing Act 1988, a tenancy is not assured if the annual rent is more than £100,000, or if it is £250 or less (£1,000 or less in Greater London). Nearly all ordinary private lets — flats, terraces, semis, detached houses — sit comfortably inside those limits.

Some lets need a different document:

• Letting without furniture? The unfurnished tenancy agreement page covers the inventory and condition specifics for an unfurnished let.
• Letting furnished? The furnished tenancy agreement page deals with fittings, contents and the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988.
• Tenant bringing a pet? The pets-allowed tenancy agreement page covers the post-Renters’-Rights-Act position on pet requests.
• Letting a single room in a shared house? See the room-only tenancy agreement page.
• Tenant sharing your own home? That is not a tenancy at all — see the lodger agreement page for an excluded-occupier licence.
• Property in Wales? A different regime applies — the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016. See the Welsh occupation contract page.

A let to a company, a holiday let, or a commercial letting is not an assured periodic tenancy and needs its own form of agreement.

The post-Renters’-Rights-Act framework your agreement must reflect

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 took effect on 1 May 2026 and rewrote the residential tenancy regime in England. Any agreement created now has to reflect the following. A pre-Renters’-Rights-Act AST template reused with only the date changed will contain clauses that are void and will miss requirements that are now mandatory.

• Fixed terms are abolished. Every assured tenancy is periodic from the start. A clause committing the tenant to six or twelve months is void.
• Section 21 is abolished. The no-fault eviction route under section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 is gone. Possession is available only on the Schedule 2 grounds.
• Section 8 grounds are expanded and rebalanced. The grounds now cover rent arrears (Grounds 8, 10 and 11), the landlord moving in or selling (Grounds 1 and 1A), persistent breach (Ground 12) and antisocial behaviour (Ground 14), among others. Some grounds — sale, and the landlord moving in — cannot be used in the first 12 months of a tenancy, and each ground carries its own notice period.
• Bidding wars are ended. A property must be advertised at a stated rent and the landlord cannot accept more than the advertised figure.
• Pet requests cannot be unreasonably refused. A blanket no-pets clause is unenforceable. A request must be considered on its merits, with a written response.
• A Decent Homes Standard is coming to private lets. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 provides for it, but it is not yet in force — the Government has indicated it will apply to the private rented sector from 2035, with the detailed standard still to be confirmed.
• Rent increases are standardised. A rent review clause in the agreement no longer works. Increases run only through the section 13 process, on the prescribed Form 4A, no more than once in any 12-month period, with at least two months’ notice, capped at open market rent and challengeable at the First-tier Tribunal.
• Private Rented Sector Database registration is being introduced under the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 and is expected to become mandatory before a property can be marketed or let — it is not yet in force, so check the current position before your next let.

The recommended template

For an APT for any residential property in England, the template we point landlords to is Net Lawman’s Assured Periodic Tenancy Agreement: Any Type of Property. It is drafted for the post-Renters’-Rights-Act regime, was originally written for Net Lawman by a barrister specialising in residential property law, and is kept current as the law changes. It covers the parties, the property, the rent and payment terms, the deposit and protection-scheme reference, repairs and access, the Schedule 2 grounds wording, and the statutory written statement of terms required since 1 May 2026.

The template is supplied as an editable document (Word, Apple Pages or RTF), with an online questionnaire that customises the agreement to your property and tenant in about fifteen minutes and delivers it by email straight away. It carries a menu of more than 40 tenant covenants you can keep or remove, so the agreement matches the specific letting rather than being a single all-purpose form.

It also bundles, in the same download, the supporting paperwork most lets need: a guarantor provision built into the agreement itself, a draft inventory form, a security-deposit rent receipt, and template rent-increase and possession notices. That bundling matters for the next section.

What you genuinely need alongside it — and what you don’t

A lot of tenancy-template pages tell landlords to buy a separate guarantor agreement and a separate inventory. With this template you do not need to. The guarantor terms are written into the agreement — which is the right place for them, because a guarantee signed after the tenant has already moved in can be open to challenge — and a draft inventory is included in the download.

The one document most landlords still need as a genuinely separate item is the deposit prescribed-information notice. If you take a deposit, it must be protected in one of the three Government-approved schemes — the Deposit Protection Service, MyDeposits or the Tenancy Deposit Scheme — within 30 days of receipt, and the prescribed information served on the tenant in the same 30-day window, under the rules in the Housing Act 2004. Miss that and you cannot later rely on a section 8 notice on the rent-arrears ground. Net Lawman’s Tenancy Deposit Protection Scheme notice covers it for £3.60.

Net Lawman is a third-party provider — we earn a small commission if you buy via this link, at no extra cost to you.

If you already have an older agreement in place that has no guarantor clause or no inventory, Net Lawman’s standalone rent guarantee agreement and property inventory are both free to download. For a new APT created from the recommended template, you do not need either — they are already in it.

What to look for in a quality template

Most of the free tenancy templates in circulation are pre-Renters’-Rights-Act AST templates with the date changed. They carry clauses that are now void and miss requirements that are now mandatory. Whatever you use, check it against this list:

• Drafted under the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, not retro-fitted from an AST template. It should set the tenancy as periodic from day one.
• Customisable to your property — a questionnaire route that puts the right clauses in and leaves the wrong ones out.
• Includes the written statement of key tenancy terms the law now requires landlords to give in writing.
• References the deposit scheme correctly, with placeholders for the scheme name, certificate number and the date the prescribed information was served.
• Repair and access clauses that match the law — the implied repairing terms in section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 and the duty to keep the property fit for human habitation.
• No banned clauses — no fixed term, no blanket no-pets clause, no advance rent above one month, no fees prohibited by the Tenant Fees Act 2019.
• A refund or fix-it offer if the document does not suit. A provider that will not refund you is one that does not trust its own product.

Three mistakes that cost landlords money

Reusing an old AST template. A 2025 AST template with “2026” typed over the date still contains a fixed term, a no-pets clause and Section 21 wording — all void or unusable now. The fix is to start from a template drafted under the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, not to edit an old one.

Missing the deposit prescribed information. Take a landlord — call her Priya — letting a two-bed flat in Leeds at £1,150 a month with a £1,150 deposit. She protects the deposit in a scheme but never serves the prescribed information. Eighteen months later the tenant falls into arrears; Priya cannot rely on a section 8 notice on the arrears ground until she has put the prescribed-information failure right, and she may face a penalty of one to three times the deposit. The fix is the 30-day prescribed-information notice, served on time, every time.

Treating the Information Sheet as optional. The 31 May 2026 Information Sheet duty (see the notice near the top of this page) is not advisory. The penalty is up to £7,000, and up to £40,000 if the failure continues after a penalty is issued. The fix is to serve the exact GOV.UK PDF on every existing tenant before the deadline and keep a dated record that you did.

Frequently asked questions

Is the assured shorthold tenancy gone for good?

Yes. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 abolished the assured shorthold tenancy with effect from 1 May 2026. Every assured residential tenancy created on or after that date is an assured periodic tenancy. Tenancies that were ASTs on 1 May 2026 converted automatically to APTs on the same day — the tenancy itself did not end.

Do I have to give my existing tenants anything by 31 May 2026?

If you let on a tenancy that began before 1 May 2026 and there is a written record of its terms, you must give every named tenant the Government’s Renters’ Rights Act Information Sheet 2026 by 31 May 2026. If the tenancy is entirely verbal, you must instead provide a written statement of the tenancy terms by the same date. The penalty for missing it is up to £7,000, rising to up to £40,000 for continued non-compliance.

Can I still ask for six months’ rent in advance?

No. The Tenant Fees Act 2019 caps holding deposits and prohibits most up-front charges, and the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 limits advance rent to one month, with narrow exceptions. A clause requiring six months up front in an ordinary let is unenforceable.

Can I still refuse to allow pets?

Only with a genuine reason. A blanket no-pets clause is void. You must consider each request on its merits and respond in writing within the period the Act allows. A refusal needs to be reasonable — for example a superior landlord’s prohibition, or a property that is genuinely unsuitable.

How do I end a tenancy now that Section 21 is gone?

By a section 8 notice citing one or more of the Schedule 2 grounds for possession — rent arrears (Grounds 8, 10 and 11), the landlord moving in or selling (Grounds 1 and 1A), persistent breach (Ground 12), antisocial behaviour (Ground 14), and others. Each ground has its own notice period and evidence requirement, and if the tenant does not leave you apply to the county court for a possession order.

How do I increase the rent?

Through the section 13 process on the prescribed Form 4A. That is the only route since the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. You can increase the rent once in any 12-month period, must give at least two months’ notice, and cannot set the new rent above open market rent. The tenant can challenge an increase they think is above market rate at the First-tier Tribunal. A rent review clause in the agreement no longer overrides this.

Which deposit protection scheme should I use?

Any of the three Government-approved schemes: the Deposit Protection Service (DPS), MyDeposits or the Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS). Each offers a custodial option, where the scheme holds the money for free, and an insured option, where you hold it and pay a fee. The deposit must be protected and the prescribed information served within 30 days of receiving it.

Does the agreement have to be signed by both parties to be valid?

It is strongly advisable but not strictly required for a tenancy of less than three years — those can be created without a deed. Once the tenant is in occupation and paying rent, a tenancy exists whether or not anything is signed. The signed agreement matters because it records the terms: if there is a dispute, an unsigned or absent agreement helps no one. Sign it, witness it where the document asks, and keep a counterpart.

What other documents do I need to give a new tenant?

Alongside the agreement, a new APT in England needs: a written statement of the key terms of the tenancy, given before the agreement is signed; a valid Energy Performance Certificate; a Gas Safety Record (CP12) where there is gas at the property; an Electrical Installation Condition Report, with the installation inspected and tested at least every five years; and the deposit prescribed information within 30 days of taking a deposit. Right-to-rent checks must be carried out before the tenancy begins. The “How to Rent” guide was withdrawn on 1 May 2026 and is no longer required for new tenancies.

Get the template

Related templates and guides

• Unfurnished tenancy agreement — the variant for a property let without furniture.
• Furnished tenancy agreement — for a let with fittings and contents.
• Pets-allowed tenancy agreement — the post-Renters’-Rights-Act position on pet requests.
• Room-only tenancy agreement — for letting a single room in a shared house.
• Lodger agreement — if the tenant shares your own home.
• Renters’ Rights Act 2025 — the full guide to what changed on 1 May 2026.