What Is the Best Way to Track Lease Expiration Dates? Tools for Small Landlords, by Portfolio Size (2026)

The question comes up in every landlord forum in roughly the same words: how do you guys keep track of your lease dates? With one rental the answer is memory, and memory works until the year it does not. With three or four units on different cycles, leases start ending in months you were not thinking about, and the first sign is a tenant asking whether they are still on a lease, or a rent increase you meant to send arriving too late to take effect.

Why the Lease End Date Matters More Than It Looks

Nothing dramatic happens on the day a lease ends. That is the problem. The tenant keeps living there and keeps paying, and the consequences arrive quietly:

• The lease rolls month-to-month. In many states, a tenant who stays and pays after the term ends becomes a month-to-month tenant on the old terms. You lose the fixed term you planned to renew, and the tenant can now leave on 30 days' notice in most states.
• The rent increase waits. A new rent needs written notice before it takes effect: 30 days in most states for a month-to-month tenancy, and longer in some, such as California's 90 days for an increase over 10%. Send it late and every month of delay is a month at the old rent. Our guide to when a landlord can raise rent mid-lease covers the notice rules state by state.
• An automatic renewal clause fires. Some leases renew themselves for another full term unless someone gives notice. In New York, a landlord who wants to enforce one must remind the tenant of it in writing 15 to 30 days before the tenant's own notice deadline (General Obligations Law § 5-905), or the clause does not hold.
• The turnover is rushed. A tenant who gives notice 30 days out leaves you 30 days to show, screen and clean. Ninety days of warning is the difference between a vacant month and none.

The Seven Dates Every Lease Sets

Tracking the end date alone is the most common mistake. Each lease carries seven dates worth a reminder, and most of them come before the end:

1. The lease end date. The last day of the term, from the lease itself, not from memory.
2. The renewal offer date. When you plan to send the tenant a renewal or a non-renewal. About 60 days out is common.
3. The tenant's notice deadline. The date the lease says the tenant must tell you whether they are staying, often 30 or 60 days before the end.
4. The last day to send a rent increase notice. Count back from the date the new rent starts by your state's notice period, and add mailing days if your state adds them.
5. Rent due dates and the grace period. The day rent is due each month, and the day a late fee can start. Our guide to late rent fees by state lists the grace periods.
6. The security deposit return deadline. Counted from move-out, and as short as 14 days in some states. The full list is in our guide to security deposit return deadlines by state.
7. Any deposit interest date. Some states and cities require interest on a held deposit, paid yearly or at move-out.

The 90/60/30-Day Schedule

The schedule most landlords and property managers settle on gives each reminder a job, so the alert is a prompt to do something rather than a warning that time is short.

When	What to do
90 days before	Decide: renew, renew at a new rent, or not renew. Check local rents and your state's rent cap. Work out the last day the increase notice can go out.
60 days before	Send the renewal offer or the non-renewal, in writing, with any rent increase notice. Give the tenant a date to answer by.
30 days before	Have the answer. Sign the renewal, or schedule the move-out inspection, list the unit, and put the deposit return deadline on the calendar.
End date	The new term starts, or the tenancy ends. If the tenant is still there with nothing signed, you are probably month-to-month now.

Where your lease or your state requires more notice than 60 days, move the whole schedule earlier. The earliest required date always sets the start.

How to Track Lease Dates in Your Phone Calendar, Step by Step

For one or two units, this is all you need, and it costs nothing.

1. Pull every lease out and read the dates off the paper. Start, end, rent due day, grace period, and the notice clause.
2. Create one all-day event on each lease end date. Name it with the address and tenant, such as "Lease ends: 12 Oak St #2, Rivera."
3. Add three alerts to it: 90, 60 and 30 days before. Apple Calendar and Google Calendar both allow custom alert times on an event.
4. Create a separate event for the last day to send notice. This is the one that costs money when missed, so it gets its own alert a week ahead.
5. Add a repeating monthly event for rent due, with an alert on the last day of the grace period.
6. When a tenant gives notice, add the deposit return deadline counted from the move-out date.
7. At every renewal, delete the old events and create the next year's. This is the step that gets skipped.

The method works. Its weakness is that every date is worked out and typed by hand, and the calendar knows nothing about the lease behind it: not the notice period, not the state, not which unit is up next.

The Best Way to Track Lease Expiration Dates, by Portfolio Size

Tool	Best for	Cost	Limitation
Phone calendar	1 or 2 units	Free	Every date worked out and entered by hand; nothing about the lease behind it.
Spreadsheet	Keeping the record, sharing with a bookkeeper	Free	Sends no reminders on its own.
Rent Calculator: Lease Tracker	A handful of units, managed from an iPhone	Premium: $5.99/mo, $39.99/yr, or $99.99 once	iPhone and iPad only. No rent collection, tenant screening or e-signing.
Property management software	Larger portfolios, or anyone who wants rent collection and screening in the same system	Monthly subscription	More system than one or two units need; some plans keep reminders on paid tiers.

Best for one or two units: your phone calendar

If you have one rental and one lease cycle, a calendar event with three alerts is genuinely enough. It is free, it is already on your phone, and it will not ask you to sign up for anything. Follow the steps above and add the notice date as its own event.

Best for a handful of units on iPhone: Rent Calculator: Lease Tracker

Once leases end in different months, the hand-entered calendar starts to slip. Our app keeps each lease with its status, days remaining, deposit and move-in and move-out photos, and sends the 90, 60 and 30-day alerts along with rent due, deposit return and rent increase notice reminders. Open a calculator from a lease and the numbers are pre-filled, so a prorated move-out or a capped rent increase is worked out from the same record, with the state statute shown. Data syncs across iPhone and iPad through iCloud. What it does not do: collect rent, screen tenants or send leases for e-signature, and there is no Android or web version. The free version covers 3 calculations; the lease tracker and alerts are Premium.

Best as a record: a spreadsheet

One row per lease, with columns for address, tenant, start, end, rent, deposit, notice period and renewal status, is the easiest way to see a whole portfolio at once or hand it to an accountant at tax time. It does not remind anyone of anything, so pair it with calendar alerts or an app.

Best for a larger portfolio or an all-in-one system: property management software

If you also want online rent collection, tenant screening, maintenance requests and e-signed renewals, a full platform is the better fit. RentRedi emails landlords about leases expiring within 90 days and lists them on an expiring-leases dashboard. AppFolio and Buildium report upcoming lease expirations across a portfolio and are built for property managers with many doors. Landlord Studio offers lease expiry reminders on its paid plans. Check each one's current pricing page before you pick, since what is included on a free tier changes.

Five Habits That Keep Dates From Slipping

• One place, not three. A date in the calendar, another in an email and a third on the lease is how one of them goes wrong.
• Enter dates the day the lease is signed. Not at the end of the month, and not when the reminder would have been useful.
• Track the notice date, not just the end date. The end date is when it is too late; the notice date is when you can still act.
• Put renewals in writing. A text that says "sounds good" is not a signed renewal.
• Check your state and city rules once a year. Notice periods and rent caps change, and the trend has been toward longer notice. Our guide to how much a landlord can raise rent in 2027 has this year's caps.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. For a specific lease, read the lease and your state's landlord-tenant statute, or ask a local attorney.

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