SA rental law changes 2026: what landlords must know

The SA rental law changes for 2026 are the tail end of a reform program that rewrote the Residential Tenancies Act 1995 (SA) in stages. The most recent piece, the mandatory Form A1 rental application, started on 1 January 2026, but it sits on top of bigger changes that came in through 2024. If you are a landlord or an investor buying your first rental, the safest assumption is that anything you remember from a few years ago has probably moved. This guide walks through each change, in the order it took effect, so you can see where you stand today.

What has changed in SA rental law, and when?

The reforms rolled out over roughly two years rather than all at once. Here is the timeline at a glance.

Date	What changed
1 March 2024	Rent bidding banned. No rent ranges, no rent auctions, no soliciting offers above the advertised price.
1 July 2024	The main tranche: pets allowed subject to reasonable conditions, rent increases limited to once every 12 months, no-reason evictions ended, and minimum notice to end a fixed-term tenancy lifted from 28 to 60 days.
1 September 2025	Form A1 introduced by regulation (with a transition period), plus a 60-day notice rule where a property is being sold with vacant possession.
1 January 2026	Form A1 became mandatory. Every applicant must use the standard form.
15 January 2026	Minor technical changes to align how fixed-term and periodic tenancies are treated.
During 2026	A new online bond release process is being rolled out, with disputes decided by the Commissioner for Consumer Protection.

The rest of this guide takes the changes that matter most to a landlord and explains what each one means in practice.

The new Form A1 rental application (from 1 January 2026)

This is the change most landlords will actually feel first. From 1 January 2026, a prospective tenant applying for a residential tenancy must apply using Form A1, the standardised application form. It was introduced by regulation on 1 September 2025 with a transition period, and became compulsory at the start of 2026.

Form A1 does two things. First, it makes every application look the same, so you compare applicants on a consistent set of information rather than whatever each person chose to hand over. Second, it limits what you are allowed to ask. The form does not ask for an applicant's date of birth, for example, only confirmation that they are over 18, and it standardises the personal details you can request. Each applicant over 18 completes their own separate Form A1.

• Use the current form. Old application templates from before September 2025 are no longer compliant. Consumer and Business Services publishes the current Form A1.
• One form per applicant. A couple applying together fills in two forms, not one shared form.
• Some providers are exempt. SA Housing Trust, community housing, NDIS and registered charity providers sit outside the Form A1 requirement.

No more rent bidding

Since 1 March 2024, rent bidding is banned in South Australia. In practice that means you cannot advertise a property with a rent range (for example "$550 to $600 per week"), you cannot run a rent auction, and you cannot invite or accept offers above the advertised rent. The property has to be advertised at one fixed number.

A tenant can still choose, entirely off their own bat, to offer more. What you cannot do is ask for it, hint at it, or set the campaign up to encourage it. If you are working out what that fixed number should be, our free Rental Yield Calculator pulls the real median weekly rent for the suburb from Consumer and Business Services bond data, so you can advertise at a defensible market figure rather than guessing high and hoping.

Ending a tenancy: 60 days and a valid reason

Two of the 1 July 2024 changes reshaped how tenancies end. First, the minimum notice to end a fixed-term tenancy rose from 28 days to 60 days. Second, no-reason terminations are gone. You can only end a periodic tenancy, or decline to renew a fixed term, for a prescribed reason.

Those reasons include the usual ones: the tenant has breached the agreement, you are selling with vacant possession, you are renovating, or you or a family member intends to move in. The reason has to be genuine, and where you are selling with vacant possession there is a 60-day notice rule to give the tenant. The grounds and the exact notice periods are set out in the Act, so confirm the current position with CBS before you serve anything.

The days of ending a lease simply because the fixed term ran out, with no reason given, are over. Plan around a genuine ground and a longer notice period.

Bonds, pets and the new release process

The bond caps themselves have not changed with these reforms: it is four weeks' rent if the weekly rent is $800 or less, and six weeks' rent if it is above $800. The bond must be lodged with Consumer and Business Services, not held in your own account, and you cannot ask for any security beyond it. That last point matters for pets: because no additional security is allowed, you cannot charge a separate pet bond.

On pets, tenants have had the right to keep one since 1 July 2024, and a landlord can only refuse on prescribed grounds. You can attach reasonable conditions (for instance, that a pet is kept outside where that is appropriate, or that carpets are professionally cleaned at the end of the tenancy), but a blanket "no pets" position no longer holds.

The newest piece is the bond release process. During 2026 South Australia is moving to an online system where either the landlord or the tenant can apply to release the bond, and where a disagreement is decided by the Commissioner for Consumer Protection rather than going to the Magistrates Court. The practical effect is a faster, lower-friction path at the end of a tenancy, and one more reason to keep a thorough condition report from day one.

What this means if you are buying an investment property

If you are weighing up a rental purchase, treat these rules as part of the numbers, not just the paperwork. Longer notice periods and prescribed-reason terminations make it slower and less certain to get vacant possession, which matters if your plan involves selling or moving in later. Once-a-year rent increases cap how quickly you can reset an under-market rent. Pets are now close to a default rather than an exception.

None of that makes SA a bad place to be a landlord, the vacancy rate is among the tightest in the country, but it does reward buying at a sensible entry price and running the yield honestly. Start with the Rental Yield Calculator for the rent side, and read our SA land tax guide before you assume an investment is cash-flow positive, land tax catches a lot of new investors off guard.

The bottom line

The 2026 SA rental law changes are less a single event than the final stage of a long reform. The practical checklist for a landlord today: use the current Form A1 for every applicant, advertise at one fixed rent, plan for a 60-day notice and a valid reason to end a tenancy, expect to accommodate pets, and get ready for online bond release. When you are drawing up or renewing a lease, our free SA Lease Agreement Generator builds a Residential Tenancies Act 1995 (SA) compliant agreement, and for the authoritative, up-to-date detail on every reform, Consumer and Business Services publishes it at cbs.sa.gov.au.

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