Outline of the eviction process in Arkansas

Arkansas gives a landlord three different statutes to choose from, and most mistakes come from mixing them up. The workhorse is the civil unlawful detainer action (Ark. Code §§ 18-60-301 to 18-60-312), filed in circuit court. The second is the civil eviction procedure added by the Arkansas Residential Landlord-Tenant Act of 2007 (§§ 18-17-901 to 18-17-913), which the statute assigns to “a district court having jurisdiction,” although the Supreme Court order defining district court jurisdiction does not list eviction cases, so this route is often unavailable in practice (see section 3). The third is the criminal “failure to vacate” statute (§ 18-16-101).

The criminal statute is still on the books, but it produces a small fine, not an order putting you back in possession. Pick one route before you serve anything.

1. Grounds

Arkansas has no just-cause eviction requirement, and state law bars any city or county from controlling the amount charged for rent, rental application fees or rental deposits (§ 14-16-601, as amended by Act 459 of 2025). The grounds depend on the route:

• Unlawful detainer (§ 18-60-304). Holding over after the term ends; holding possession after a written demand to surrender it; failing to pay rent when due and refusing to leave after three days’ written notice to quit; failing to maintain the premises in a safe, healthy or habitable condition; or causing or permitting the premises to become a common or public nuisance.
• Civil eviction (§ 18-17-901). Rent unpaid when due or when demanded; the term has ended; or the rental agreement has been violated.
• Failure to vacate (§ 18-16-101). Nonpayment of rent only.

A landlord may not terminate or refuse to renew because of domestic abuse documented in a court order (§ 18-16-112).

2. Notices

• Unlawful detainer, nonpayment: three days. A written notice to quit and demand for possession, given by the person entitled to possession or that person’s agent or attorney (§ 18-60-304(3)). The statute gives no right to cure by paying. The complaint’s affidavit must say the tenant is detaining “after lawful demand,” so make a written demand on any ground (§ 18-60-307(a)).
• Landlord-Tenant Act, nonpayment: five days from the due date. If rent is unpaid when due and the tenant fails to pay within five days from the date due, the landlord may terminate the rental agreement (§ 18-17-701(b)). For residential agreements, nonpayment within five days of the date due itself “constitutes legal notice” that the landlord may begin eviction proceedings (§ 18-17-901(b)).
• Landlord-Tenant Act, lease violation: 14 days with a right to cure. The written notice must specify the acts and omissions and state that the agreement will terminate on a date not less than 14 days after receipt if not remedied in 14 days. If the tenant adequately remedies a remediable breach before that date, it does not terminate (§ 18-17-701(a)).
• Ending a periodic tenancy. Written notice at least seven days before the termination date for week-to-week and at least 30 days for month-to-month (§ 18-17-704(a), (b)).
• Criminal failure to vacate: ten days written notice to vacate from the landlord or the landlord’s agent or attorney (§ 18-16-101(b)(1)).
• Federally backed or subsidized properties may also be subject to the federal CARES Act 30-day notice before a nonpayment eviction; confirm before relying on a shorter state notice.

How notices are served and how days are counted. The unlawful detainer subchapter and § 18-16-101 require the notice to be in writing but do not prescribe a method of delivery, so use one you can prove in court. Under the Landlord-Tenant Act a tenant receives a notice when it is delivered in hand or mailed by registered or certified mail to the place the tenant designated or, if none, the last known residence; proof of mailing is notice without proof of receipt (§ 18-17-303(b)). Posting is not a listed method. Time under the Act is computed by reference to the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure (§ 18-17-303(d)).

3. Filing: which court

Unlawful detainer is filed in the circuit court of the county where the property is located; a district court has concurrent jurisdiction only if a rule or order of the Supreme Court permits it (§ 18-60-306). Under Supreme Court Administrative Order 18, a circuit court may refer pending unlawful detainer matters to a state district court judge. You file a signed complaint with an affidavit of your right to possession (§ 18-60-307(a)).

Civil eviction is filed, according to the statute, in “a district court having jurisdiction,” by complaint and a supporting affidavit that specifies the grounds and is signed by a person with personal knowledge (§ 18-17-902(a)); filing fees are governed by § 16-17-705. The jurisdiction problem is real. Administrative Order 18, the Supreme Court order that defines district court jurisdiction, limits district court civil jurisdiction to contract matters, damage to personal property and recovery of personal property up to $25,000. Possession of real estate is not on that list, and the order’s referral provision names only forcible entry and detainer and unlawful detainer under §§ 18-60-301 to 18-60-312, not the 18-17-901 procedure. We found no amendment to the order, no 2025 or 2026 act and no appellate decision that fixes this. Ask the district court clerk whether that court accepts these filings; if not, file unlawful detainer in circuit court.

4. Service and the tenant’s response

Unlawful detainer. The clerk issues a summons and a statutory “Notice of Intention to Issue Writ of Possession,” served with the complaint by the sheriff or a process server (§ 18-60-307(a)). The tenant has five days, excluding Sundays and legal holidays, after service to file a written objection. If none is filed, the clerk, upon order of the court, issues a writ of possession immediately (§ 18-60-307(b)). If the tenant objects, you must obtain a hearing date and send notice of the date, time and place by certified mail to the tenant or the tenant’s counsel of record (§ 18-60-307(c)). If the court finds you are likely to succeed on the merits it orders the writ issued, but that is not a final adjudication (§ 18-60-307(d)). The court may let the tenant stay, on motion and good cause, only if the tenant posts within five days of the writ’s issuance security of at least the delinquent rent plus rent to accrue (§ 18-60-307(e)). The current section does not condition the objection on depositing rent with the court.

Civil eviction (where a district court will hear it). On filing, the district court issues an order requiring the tenant to vacate or to show cause why he or she should not be evicted within ten calendar days after service of the order (§ 18-17-902(b)). The order is served the way a district court summons is served. It may be affixed to the premises only when regular service was attempted unsuccessfully and no one is found in possession (§ 18-17-903). If the tenant does not appear and show cause, the court enters judgment and directs a writ of possession (§ 18-17-904); if the tenant contests, the case is heard as any other civil case (§ 18-17-905). A tenant who raises defenses or counterclaims must keep paying rent as it comes due after the order, and pay the rent allegedly owed or show proof of payment, or the court issues a writ of possession (§ 18-17-706).

5. Judgment and appeal

In unlawful detainer, a final judgment for the landlord awards possession, rent through judgment, costs and, for residential property, liquidated damages equal to the rental value for each month or part of a month of unlawful detention (§ 18-60-309). In a civil eviction, the district court must issue a writ of eviction within three days of a judgment for the landlord (§ 18-17-907).

Either party may appeal a civil eviction as in other civil cases (§ 18-17-909). The appeal does not stay the eviction unless the tenant gives an appeal bond in an amount fixed by the court, and if the tenant fails to file the bond within five days after service of the notice of appeal, the appeal is dismissed (§ 18-17-910). On appeal to circuit court, a bond to pay rent as it comes due stays execution (§ 18-17-707). Appeal deadlines come from the court rules, not these statutes; confirm the current deadline.

6. The writ, the sheriff and the tenant’s property

Only the county sheriff executes the writ, under the same procedure for both civil routes (§§ 18-60-310, 18-17-913). The sheriff delivers a copy of the writ like a summons and, if no one is found within eight hours of receiving it, may post it on the front door. If the tenant is still there 24 hours after service of the writ, the sheriff notifies the landlord, who must supply the labor to remove the tenant’s belongings.

Tenant property. When the writ is executed before a final determination, the belongings go to storage in a public warehouse or another reasonable safe place under the landlord’s control until the court finally decides the case. If the tenant wins, the property is returned and storage costs are assessed against the landlord. If the landlord wins a money judgment, the court orders the property sold in a commercially reasonable manner, with proceeds going to storage, then the judgment, then the tenant (§ 18-60-310(c)). Separately, § 18-16-108 says that on the voluntary or involuntary termination of a lease, property left in and about the premises by the lessee is considered abandoned and may be disposed of by the lessor as the lessor sees fit without recourse by the lessee, and that property the tenant placed on the premises is subject to a lien for sums the lessee agreed to pay. Do not rely on it while an unlawful detainer case is still pending.

Self-help. Entry is allowed only where given by law, “and then only in a peaceable manner” (§ 18-60-302). As a matter of case law, the Arkansas Supreme Court’s 1986 decision in Gorman v. Ratliff is widely cited for the rule that self-help eviction is illegal: a landlord may not lock out a tenant or retake possession without a court order.

7. The criminal “failure to vacate” statute

Under § 18-16-101 a tenant who willfully refuses to leave after ten days’ written notice is guilty of a misdemeanor, fined not less than $1 and not more than $25 for each offense, with each day of holding over a separate offense. The statute does not authorize the criminal court to order the tenant out or to issue a writ of possession, as Legal Aid of Arkansas also tells tenants. You still need a civil case for possession.

The current text dates from Act 159 of 2017, which returned the statute to essentially its original form after the 2001 version, which required a tenant to deposit the rent with the court in order to defend, was held unconstitutional in State v. Smith (Pulaski County Circuit Court, 2015). That was a trial-court ruling, not a statewide appellate decision. A 2022 UA Little Rock Law Review article reports that most counties’ district courts, and some prosecutors, do not use it.

Recent law changes landlords should know

• Unlawful squatting (Act 238 of 2025). Approved March 4, 2025, with no emergency clause, so it took effect on the general effective date for 2025 acts, the 91st day after the May 5, 2025 sine die adjournment (early August 2025). New § 5-39-215 makes it a crime to knowingly enter and reside on another person’s premises without lawful authority when the person cannot produce a deed, lease or similar proof and the owner has directed the person to leave: a Class B misdemeanor for a first offense, rising to a Class D felony for a third. It does not apply to a current tenant or a person with a valid occupancy agreement, so it is not a substitute for eviction. It did not amend § 18-16-101 or the unlawful detainer subchapter.
• Rent-control preemption (Act 459 of 2025, SB 91). Approved April 3, 2025, with no emergency clause, effective on the same general effective date. It amends both § 14-16-601 and § 14-54-1409. It extended the existing ban on local rent control in § 14-16-601 to rental application fees and rental deposits, for residential and commercial leasing.
• Nothing else found. The 2025 Code shows no 2025 amendment to § 18-16-101 or to the unlawful detainer and civil eviction sections cited here, and the 2026 fiscal session was almost entirely appropriation bills.

What actually goes wrong

• Filing a civil eviction in a district court that will not hear it. Administrative Order 18 does not give district courts jurisdiction over possession of real property; check with the clerk first.
• Serving the wrong notice for the route. A ten-day failure-to-vacate notice is not the three-day notice to quit under § 18-60-304(3), and neither is the 14-day cure notice under § 18-17-701(a).
• Expecting the criminal case to empty the unit. It ends in a fine.
• No hearing set after an objection. In unlawful detainer it is the landlord’s job to get the date and mail certified notice of it.
• Disposing of belongings removed under a pre-judgment writ. They must be stored until the final decision.
• Changing the locks without a writ.

When to bring in an attorney

Use counsel for circuit court unlawful detainer, any objection or counterclaim, subsidized or federally backed housing, disputes over stored property, and whenever the owner is an entity. The Arkansas attorneys listed below represent landlords.

Sources

• Ark. Code §§ 18-60-302, 18-60-304, 18-60-306, 18-60-307, 18-60-309 and 18-60-310 (forcible entry and detainer, unlawful detainer), 2025 edition.
• Ark. Code §§ 18-17-303, 18-17-701, 18-17-704, 18-17-706, 18-17-707 and 18-17-901 to 18-17-913 (Residential Landlord-Tenant Act of 2007).
• Ark. Code §§ 18-16-101, 18-16-108 and 18-16-112; § 14-16-601; § 5-39-215.
• Acts 238 and 459 of 2025 (Arkansas General Assembly); Supreme Court Administrative Order 18; Arkansas Judiciary, District Courts page.
• Legal Aid of Arkansas (Arkansas Law Help) eviction pages; Encyclopedia of Arkansas; UA Little Rock Law Review (2022) article on the failure to vacate statute.

This guide is general information about Arkansas procedure and is not legal advice. Court practice varies by county. Confirm current statutes and rules before relying on any deadline.