A room rental agreement is a contract for renting out a single bedroom in a home, with shared use of the kitchen, bathroom or living areas. Homeowners renting a spare room use it most, and so do people who hold the lease on a house and bring in a housemate. This free room rental agreement template comes in Word and PDF and is written in plain English.

When do you need a room rental agreement?

Use it when someone will live in one room of a home and share the rest. Think of an Orlando homeowner with a three-bedroom house who works from one bedroom and wants to rent another to a grad student for $850 a month. A full-home lease doesn’t fit. It won’t say whether the student can use the garage, who buys dish soap, or whether the student’s partner can stay over four nights a week. A room rental agreement handles exactly that.

Other documents fit other situations. If you’re renting a whole house or apartment, use the residential lease agreement. If a tenant is handing their whole place (or their whole lease) to someone else for a while, you want a sublease agreement. And if you want the room arrangement to be easy to end on short notice, this template lets you tick month to month, or a fixed term instead.

What should a room rental agreement include?

Here’s what each section of our template does.

Parties and the room. Who’s renting, who owns or controls the home, the address, and which room. Describe the room clearly (“the northeast bedroom on the second floor”) so there’s no argument later.

Private and shared areas. A short list of what the tenant has to themselves and what they share. This small section prevents a surprising number of fights.

Term. Choose month to month or a fixed term with an end date.

Rent and utilities. Rent amount and due date, and how utilities work. Shared homes usually either include utilities in the rent or split them. The template has a checkbox for each approach, plus a blank for the split.

Deposit. The amount and a promise to return it, minus lawful deductions with an itemized list, within your state’s deadline. States set their own caps and deadlines, so check before you fill it in.

House rules. Quiet hours, overnight guests, cleaning of shared spaces, smoking, pets, and parking. Keep these reasonable and specific. “Overnight guests up to 3 nights a week” is better than “no excessive guests.”

Entry and privacy. Even in a shared house, the tenant’s bedroom is their private space. The template says the landlord enters only with notice or in an emergency.

Ending the arrangement, notices and boilerplate. How much notice each side gives, what happens with belongings and keys, governing law, and permission to sign electronically.

What do you need to check before renting a room?

Fair housing. The federal Fair Housing Act has a narrow exemption for rooms or units in a dwelling for no more than four families where the owner lives in one of the units. Even under that exemption, the law’s ban on discriminatory advertising and notices still applies, so watch how you word the listing. Your state or city may have its own fair housing law with fewer exemptions, so read it before assuming the federal one is the whole story.

Your own lease, if you rent. If you’re a tenant bringing in a housemate, your lease and local law decide whether you can. New York’s attorney general, for example, explains that tenants there may generally share an apartment with immediate family and one additional occupant (plus that person’s dependent children), and must tell the landlord about new occupants within 30 days. Other states handle it differently.

Lead paint. Federal rules require lead disclosures for leases of most housing built before 1978, with exemptions such as leases of 100 days or less that can’t be renewed or extended. If your home is older, read the EPA’s disclosure page to see whether the rule covers your arrangement and, if in doubt, give the disclosure.

Local rules. Some cities regulate room rentals, occupancy limits or short-term stays. A quick check with your city or county can save you trouble.

How do you fill it in and get it signed?

  1. Describe the room and the shared areas precisely.
  2. Fill in rent, deposit, utilities and the notice period.
  3. Edit the house rules so they match how your home actually runs. If a rule matters to you, write it down; unwritten rules are where shared housing goes wrong.
  4. Attach anything referenced, like a lead disclosure or an inventory of furniture in the room.
  5. Both of you sign, and both keep a copy.

E-signing works fine for a room rental agreement. Under the federal ESIGN Act, a contract can’t be refused legal effect just because it’s electronic. The exceptions include notices of default, eviction or the right to cure under a rental agreement for a primary residence, so if things go wrong later, send those notices the way your state requires. Our article on whether electronic signatures are legally binding explains the basics.

Download it, fill in the blanks, and send it for e-signature with any tool you like. (If you’d like to try SignWren when it launches, join the waitlist.)

This template and guide are general information, not legal advice. For a specific rental or dispute, talk to a lawyer licensed where the property is.