The Tenant Fees Act 2019 caps the tenancy deposit at 5 weeks' rent, or 6 weeks where the annual rent is £50,000 or more. Taking more than the cap is a prohibited payment — the excess is recoverable by the tenant, and post-Renters' Rights Act, it can block a Section 8 possession claim entirely.
Enter the monthly rent to see the maximum tenancy deposit and holding deposit. Add a deposit amount to check it against the cap.
Enter a monthly rent to see the cap.
Not legal advice. This checks the Tenant Fees Act cap only — it doesn't confirm the deposit was protected within the 30-day window, which is a separate requirement.
Convert monthly rent to a weekly figure using annual rent ÷ 52, not monthly rent ÷ 4. That distinction matters more than it looks — dividing by 4 overstates the weekly figure and therefore overstates the cap, which lets real breaches through unflagged.
| Monthly rent | Annual rent | Cap applies | 5-week cap |
|---|---|---|---|
| £1,200 | £14,400 | 5 weeks | £1,385 |
| £4,166 | £49,992 | 5 weeks | £4,807 |
| £4,167 | £50,004 | 6 weeks | £5,770 |
The £50,000 boundary is on annual rent, not monthly. A single pound of extra monthly rent can cross it — as the table above shows, £4,166 and £4,167 a month land on opposite sides of the 5-week/6-week line.
Before the tenancy starts, a holding deposit is capped separately at one week's rent. This is often confused with the tenancy deposit, but they're different payments with different caps — a common area agents get wrong when moving quickly at the point of offer.
If you've already taken too much: refund the excess to the tenant as soon as you identify it. Acting promptly matters if the point is ever challenged.
The cap is set out in the Tenant Fees Act 2019 and the government's tenancy deposit protection guidance. Deposit protection itself — the requirement to place the deposit in an approved scheme within 30 days and serve the prescribed information — is a separate duty under the Housing Act 2004.
The deposit cap is calculated live as you enter the rent and deposit amount, with a warning before it becomes a problem rather than after. It also flags unprotected deposits and tracks the 30-day protection deadline against the tenancy start date.
See how it works