Open-Ended Tenancies (APT) 2026: The New Default UK Tenancy

An open-ended tenancy is one with no end date: since 1 May 2026 every assured tenancy in England is an assured periodic tenancy (APT), rolling from one rent period to the next until the tenant gives two months’ notice or a court orders possession on a Section 8 ground. This guide shows what that changes for your notices, your rent reviews and your tenancy agreement. On 1 May 2026 the assured shorthold tenancy (AST) was abolished, after 30 years as the framework for private renting in England. Every existing AST converted on that date to an Assured Periodic Tenancy (APT), and every new tenancy since is an APT from day one.

APTs are open-ended. There is no fixed term. There is no 6-month or 12-month period the tenant is locked in for. There is no break clause. The tenancy continues month-to-month until the tenant serves 2 months’ notice to leave, or the landlord obtains possession on a Section 8 ground.

For landlords used to the AST regime, this is a substantial mental shift. There is no natural "end date" to a tenancy any more. Rent reviews work differently. Renewals don’t exist. Fixed-term addendums are void. Clauses in your old tenancy agreement (early termination, minimum term, tenant fixed obligations) either no longer apply or expose you to fines.

Below: what an APT is, how it differs from an AST in practice, what stays the same, what you can still negotiate, and how your tenancy agreement needs to be updated.

Not legal advice. Take specific advice on your own tenancy agreement, because agreements made before 1 May 2026 may need substantial revision.

What an APT is

An Assured Periodic Tenancy is a form of assured tenancy under Chapter 1 of the Housing Act 1988, with the amendments made by the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. The key legal features:

• Periodic from day one. No fixed term. The tenancy runs month-to-month (or whatever the rental period is).
• Tenant can end it on 2 months’ notice, at any time, without penalty.
• Landlord can only end it on a Section 8 ground. Section 21 is repealed. There is no other route.
• Rent can only be increased once every 52 weeks, by Section 13 notice. No rent review clauses. No fixed-term increases baked into the agreement.
• All other assured-tenancy protections apply: security of tenure, deposit protection, statutory succession rules, Right to Rent, gas safety, EICR, EPC.

The APT is called "periodic" because the tenancy legally exists as a series of rental periods that renew automatically. Practically, it feels to a landlord and tenant like a rolling monthly tenancy that continues until someone deliberately ends it.

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The 1 May 2026 conversion

Under the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, all existing ASTs in force on 1 May 2026 automatically converted to APTs on that date. That was true even if the AST was in its fixed-term period. A tenancy that started as an 18-month AST in November 2025 became an APT on 1 May 2026, so the tenant is no longer locked in for the roughly 12 months of fixed term that were left.

Two categories of tenancy were not converted:

• Non-assured tenancies (holiday lets, company lets, agricultural lets, resident-landlord lets, tenancies over £100,000 annual rent). These continue under their existing framework.
• Rent Act 1977 tenancies (very few remain). Untouched by the RRA.

For everyone else, 1 May 2026 was the changeover date. Every landlord operating pre-RRA has, by law, transitioned to the APT regime.

Tenant notice: 2 months, any time

Under an APT the tenant can end the tenancy at any time by giving 2 months’ written notice, ending at the end of a rental period. There is no minimum tenancy length. There is no early-termination penalty.

For landlords this is the single biggest practical change. Under an AST a landlord could rely on the tenant’s fixed term as a defence against void periods: a signed 12-month contract meant 12 months of rent (or a break clause). Under an APT there is no such contract; every tenancy is functionally month-to-month.

What you cannot do:

• Charge a break-clause fee. Void.
• Require the tenant to give more than 2 months’ notice. Void.
• Impose an early-termination penalty. Void.
• Withhold the deposit for leaving inside a "minimum term". Void. Deposit return is governed by the deposit-scheme rules, not by any clause about early leaving.

Landlord notice: only Section 8

The other big change is on the landlord side. Under an AST, landlords used Section 21 (the "no-fault" notice) for most routine endings: end of tenancy, sale, moving in, or a difficult tenant who wasn’t worth a court case. Section 21 gave 2 months’ notice with no ground to prove.

Section 21 is repealed. From 1 May 2026 the only route to end a tenancy is Section 8 of the Housing Act 1988, on one of the grounds in Schedule 2 (as amended by the RRA).

The main practical grounds:

• Ground 1: landlord (or defined family) moving in. 4 months’ notice.
• Ground 1A: landlord selling. 4 months’ notice.
• Ground 8: at least 3 months’ arrears at date of notice and hearing. 4 weeks’ notice.
• Ground 10/11: persistent late payment / any arrears (discretionary). 4 weeks’ notice.
• Ground 12: breach of tenancy other than rent. 2 weeks’ notice.
• Ground 14: anti-social behaviour. 0 days’ notice.

Each of these has evidential requirements, procedural traps and hearing risk. There is no more no-fault route. That is why compliance evidence matters more than it did. Only the deposit rules can bar a Section 8 order outright: while a deposit is unprotected, or the prescribed information has not been given, the court cannot make an order on most grounds (doing both, even late, lifts the bar). Gas safety, the EPC and the rest are still the law, with their own penalties, and they can count against you on the discretionary grounds, where the court decides what is reasonable.

Rent reviews: only Section 13, only once a year

The RRA 2025 also changed how rent can be increased. Under an AST a landlord could either use a fixed-term increase clause ("rent will increase by 5% at the start of year 2") or serve a Section 13 notice at the end of the fixed term.

Under an APT:

• Rent can only be increased by Section 13 notice. All rent-review clauses in tenancy agreements are void.
• Section 13 requires at least 2 months’ notice.
• Section 13 can be served at most once every 52 weeks. No mid-year adjustments.
• The proposed rent must be "at market rate" for a comparable property. Wildly excessive Section 13 rents can be challenged at the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber), which can set a market rent that may be lower than the current rent.
• Section 13 form is Form 4A: the private-sector rent-increase form from 1 May 2026.

Two practical implications:

1. 1Rent-review clauses in old tenancy agreements are void. Do not attempt to enforce them.
2. 2Time your annual Section 13 notice carefully. A poorly-drafted or aggressive Section 13 can result in a tribunal-set rent that is worse than not raising rent at all. On paid plans, LetCompliance drafts the Section 13 notice (Form 4A). It does not include comparable-rent evidence, so keep your own note of what similar homes nearby let for.

Tenancy agreements: what needs updating

If you were using a standard AST template pre-1 May 2026, the following clauses are now void or need rewording:

Void (do not enforce):

• Fixed-term / minimum term
• Break clause with penalty
• Rent review / rent escalation clauses
• Tenant early-termination fee
• Landlord early-termination for "no reason"

Needs rewording:

• Notice provisions: the tenant now has a statutory 2 months, and the landlord has statutory Section 8 grounds only
• Rent: the amount and payment cycle only, with no review formula
• Grounds for termination: refer to Section 8 rather than repeating grounds in the agreement
• Right to Rent clause: updated post-2026 wording
• Awaab’s Law: reference the RRA 2025 framework and note secondary legislation is awaited before the timescales bind private landlords (no date has been set)

Can still include:

• Property condition and end-of-tenancy standards
• Deposit amount (still capped at 5 weeks’ rent)
• Reasonable clauses on pets (subject to the RRA 2025 pet-consent rules: 28 days, unreasonable refusal void)
• Reasonable clauses on lodgers, alterations, insurance
• ASB clause (belt-and-braces alongside Ground 14)

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What stays the same

Not everything changed on 1 May 2026. The core landlord duties are unchanged:

• Gas Safety Certificate: annual, HSE-approved engineer
• EICR: every 5 years
• EPC: minimum band E for now (a planned move to band C from 1 October 2030 for all tenancies, not yet law)
• Deposit protection: 30-day rule, Prescribed Information, one of the three schemes
• Right to Rent: pre-tenancy check, follow-up for time-limited leave
• Fire safety: smoke alarms, CO alarms, HMO fire safety
• Awaab’s Law: currently in force in social housing; the RRA 2025 contains the framework to extend it to private landlords, but secondary legislation is required first. No date has been set for the private sector; treat social-housing timescales as the direction of travel, not yet as private-landlord duty.

If anything, the shift to an APT regime makes these compliance duties more important, not less, because they are now the evidence base for every Section 8 possession claim.

Sources

• legislation.gov.uk: Renters’ Rights Act 2025, Part 1 (assured periodic tenancies)
• legislation.gov.uk: Housing Act 1988, Chapter 1 (as amended)
• GOV.UK: How to end a tenancy (post-RRA guide)
• GOV.UK: Rent increases: Section 13 notice