When must this deposit be protected?

If you take a deposit for a private tenancy in England or Wales (in England, an assured tenancy — assured shorthold before 1 May 2026), the law (Housing Act 2004, as amended) gives you 30 calendar days, counted from the day you receive the money and including that day, to do two things:

• Protect the deposit in a government-approved tenancy deposit scheme.
• Give the tenant the "prescribed information" — the scheme details, the deposit amount, the property address, and how to get the money back at the end.

Both have to happen inside the same 30-day window. Protecting the money but forgetting the prescribed information still counts as a breach.

The day you receive the money is day one. This is where most deposit calculators — and a lot of landlord guidance — quietly get it wrong by a day. Section 213(3) of the Housing Act 2004 says the initial requirements must be complied with "within the period of 30 days beginning with the date on which it is received", and section 213(6)(b) repeats it for the prescribed information. "Beginning with" includes the first day, so a deposit received on 1 June must be protected by 30 June, not 1 July. Wales words it as "the period of 30 days starting with the day on which the deposit is paid" (Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, section 45), which is the same count. Northern Ireland uses "beginning with" too. The calculator above counts it the statutory way.

Miss it and a tenant can take you to the county court. Where the tenancy is still running the court must order you to repay the deposit or pay it into a custodial scheme (section 214(3)); where it has already ended the court may order repayment (section 214(3A)). Either way the court must order you to pay the tenant a sum of not less than the deposit and not more than three times it. Section 214(4) says "must", not "may" — only the multiple is at the court's discretion. Wales runs the same band under paragraph 3(6) of Schedule 5 to the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, and an unprotected deposit there also blocks a no-fault (section 173) notice. In England the old rule blocking a Section 21 notice became historic when Section 21 was abolished on 1 May 2026 (Renters' Rights Act 2025) — but the penalty claim is unchanged, and a poor compliance record still counts against you in possession proceedings. Scotland and Northern Ireland do not work this way at all — see the four-nation breakdown in the calculator above.

Scotland works to a longer window: 30 working days from the start of the tenancy, and uses its own approved schemes. Both duties sit on that one clock, because regulation 42 of the Tenancy Deposit Schemes (Scotland) Regulations 2011 ties the prescribed information to the same timescale as the payment into the scheme. Scotland is also the one nation that counts differently: regulation 3 says "within 30 working days of the beginning of the tenancy", and a period running "of" or "from" an event excludes the day of the event — so working day one is the first working day after the tenancy starts, not the start date itself. Regulation 2 of the same regulations defines a working day as one that is not a Saturday or Sunday, nor any day that is a bank holiday under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 in any part of the United Kingdom — so UK bank holidays don't count either, and note that "in any part of the United Kingdom" means an English-only holiday like Easter Monday, or a Northern Irish one like 12 July, is excluded from a Scottish count as well. This calculator now deducts them exactly, using the published GOV.UK bank-holiday list for all three UK divisions, so the date it shows for a tenancy starting between 2019 and late 2028 is the statutory deadline itself. Outside those years it falls back to deducting weekends only and says so, which makes the date shown the same as, or a little earlier than, the legal deadline, never later — safe as a drop-dead date, but not proof a landlord was late. Because the Scottish clock runs from the tenancy start, the calculator asks for that date, not the date the deposit arrived.

Paid in instalments? Then there is a deadline for each payment, not one for the deposit. This is the trap in the deposit rules that costs landlords most often, because the first payment usually goes in on time and the rest quietly do not. In Scotland it is written down: regulation 3(2A) of the 2011 Regulations (inserted in November 2019) says that where the landlord and tenant agree the deposit is to be paid in instalments, regulation 3 applies "as if … the references to deposit were to each instalment of the deposit, and … the reference to the beginning of the tenancy were to the date when any instalment of the deposit is received by the landlord". Note what that does: it moves the clock off the tenancy start and onto each payment. If there was no such agreement, regulation 3(1) still governs the whole deposit from the beginning of the tenancy, which is usually the earlier date. A list of payments is not evidence of that agreement, so in Scotland the calculator asks: answer "no" and it works to the regulation 3(1) date for the whole deposit, answer "yes" and each payment gets its own window, and leave it unanswered and it works to whichever of the two falls earlier — the date you are exposed to if the agreement cannot be shown. Either way it shows you both dates. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland no special provision was needed, because those windows already run from receipt: section 213(3) of the Housing Act 2004 is triggered "where a landlord receives a tenancy deposit" and runs "beginning with the date on which it is received" (section 213(1) goes further — the money must be dealt with in an authorised scheme "as from the time when it is received"); section 45(2) of the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 runs from "the day on which the deposit is paid"; article 5B(3) of the Private Tenancies (NI) Order 2006 uses the same words as England. So each payment starts its own clock — and in Northern Ireland each payment also picks its own regime, so instalments straddling 1 April 2023 are judged partly on 14/28 days and partly on 28/35. Press "Paid in instalments? Add a payment" above and the calculator gives you every deadline, and a calendar reminder for each.

Northern Ireland is the one nation that splits the clock in two, and it is the trap most easily missed. For deposits received on or after 1 April 2023, the Private Tenancies Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 gives you:

• 28 calendar days beginning with the day you received the deposit to protect it in an approved scheme.
• 35 calendar days beginning with that same day to give the tenant the prescribed information about it.

Both windows are worded "beginning with the date on which it is received" (Article 5B(3) and 5B(6)(b) of the Private Tenancies (Northern Ireland) Order 2006, as amended by section 5 of the 2022 Act), so the day the money arrives is day one. A deposit received on 1 June must be protected by 28 June and the information served by 5 July.

A deposit received before 1 April 2023 is judged on the shorter, older windows — 14 days and 28 days. Article 5B originally read "within the period of 14 days" to protect and "28 days" for the prescribed information; section 5 of the 2022 Act substituted 28 and 35, and that came into operation on 1 April 2023 (S.R. 2023/20) with no transitional or saving provision. So the date the money arrived decides which pair applies, and the longer windows were not backdated. That matters more here than anywhere else in the UK, because failing to protect is a continuing offence with no time limit on prosecution: an old deposit that was never protected is still an offence today, and it is being measured against a 14-day window, not a 28-day one. A deposit received on 1 June 2022 had to be protected by 14 June 2022 and the information served by 28 June 2022. The calculator above switches to the older windows automatically when you enter a date before 1 April 2023, and tells you which regime it applied.

Those are two separate deadlines, not one. Protecting the money on day 20 and never sending the written information is still a breach on day 36. In Northern Ireland both failures are criminal offences, prosecuted by the district council: article 5B(11) of the 2006 Order makes them punishable by a fine of up to £20,000 on summary conviction. The council can instead offer a fixed penalty, which for a deposit offence under article 5B(11) is three times the deposit and is paid to the council, not to the tenant (article 68A(7)) — a way of discharging the liability to conviction, not compensation, and it is routinely mis-described as a fine. There is no tenant award of one to three times the deposit in Northern Ireland; that is the England and Wales rule. Section 6 of the 2022 Act also made these continuing offences: the offence is committed afresh throughout the period the failure continues, so the six-month limit for prosecuting a summary offence never starts running in your favour while the deposit sits unprotected. The calculator above tracks both deadlines separately, and the calendar file carries one reminder for each.

England & Wales — the Deposit Protection Service (DPS), MyDeposits, and the Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS). Each offers a free "custodial" option (the scheme holds the money) and a paid "insured" option (you hold it, they insure it).

Scotland — SafeDeposits Scotland, the Letting Protection Service Scotland, and mydeposits Scotland. All custodial.

Northern Ireland — TDS Northern Ireland and MyDeposits Northern Ireland. No other company is authorised to protect deposits in Northern Ireland (the Letting Protection Service NI closed to new deposits in 2023).

Pick one, register the deposit, and keep the certificate and the prescribed information you sent — that paperwork is what defends you if a tenant ever disputes it. Stead keeps all of it filed against the property, with renewal and end-of-tenancy reminders.