The New Tenancy Agreement for 2026: What Replaced the AST

If you have been searching for a "new tenancy agreement 2026 template", here is the answer nobody selling one will give you: the government has not published a tenancy agreement template, and it never did. There is no official Form for a tenancy agreement, no prescribed PDF, no Word file on GOV.UK waiting to be downloaded.

What the Renters' Rights Act 2025 actually created is different, and more specific: a legal duty to give every tenant a written statement of terms, with content set by regulations. Your tenancy agreement is still your own document. The statement is the part the law prescribes. This guide covers what changed on 1 May 2026, what must now be in writing, and — the part most guidance skips — what you lose if you get it wrong.

What this means for you. Three separate things are often muddled into "the new tenancy agreement": (1) the tenancy type changed automatically, and you did nothing to cause it; (2) your agreement template needs clauses removed, because several are now legally ineffective; (3) a written statement of terms is a new, separate statutory duty with real consequences for possession. You can keep using a tenancy agreement. You cannot skip the statement.

First: what actually happened to the AST

The assured shorthold tenancy no longer exists as a tenancy type. Section 2 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 is blunt about it — it provides that in the Housing Act 1988 you "omit Chapter 2 of Part 1 (assured shorthold tenancies)". That whole chapter is gone.

Separately, the new section 4A of the Housing Act 1988 (inserted by RRA 2025 s.1) removes fixed terms. Terms of an assured tenancy "are of no effect so far as they provide for a tenancy to be a fixed term tenancy, or for periods of the tenancy to be different from the periods for which rent is payable." Where that bites, "the tenancy has effect as a periodic tenancy under which the periods of the tenancy are the same as the rent periods."

Put together: every let in the private rented sector in England is now an assured periodic tenancy, rolling on the same cycle as the rent. If rent is monthly, the tenancy is monthly. Both provisions came into force on 1 May 2026 under SI 2026/421.

You did not need to re-paper anything for this to happen. It happened by operation of law. Our guide to AST to periodic conversion covers the mechanics for existing tenancies.

So what do you give a new tenant?

Two documents, doing two different jobs.

1. Your tenancy agreement. Still your own drafting. Nothing in the Act requires a particular format or wording for the agreement itself. It sets out the commercial deal — rent, address, deposit, who is responsible for what.

2. A written statement of terms. This is the new statutory duty, in Housing Act 1988 s.16D. The landlord must give the tenant "a written statement of ... such terms of the tenancy as are specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State", plus any other prescribed information.

The regulations are SI 2026/324. Regulation 2 applies the duty "to assured tenancies to which section 16D of the 1988 Act (duty of landlord and contractor to give statement of terms etc) applies, except for social housing assured tenancies", and provides that "the terms and information which must be included in a written statement are set out in the Schedule to these Regulations."

You are allowed to satisfy the statement duty inside the tenancy agreement rather than as a standalone document, provided all the prescribed content is actually there. Many landlords find a separate statement easier to keep current.

The deadline is before the tenancy starts — not after

This catches people out, because most landlord paperwork deadlines run from the start of the tenancy. This one runs to it.

Under s.16D, "the statement under subsection (2) must be given before the tenancy is entered into." Signing the tenant up and sending the statement the following week does not comply.

There are exceptions, each with a 28-day window rather than a before-you-start rule:

Situation	Deadline
New tenancy (the normal case)	Before the tenancy is entered into
Succession tenancy	Within 28 days beginning with the date the landlord acknowledges the tenant's right to a tenancy
Landlord changes on a demoted tenancy	Within 28 days beginning with the date the new landlord becomes the landlord
A tenancy otherwise becomes subject to s.16D	Within 28 days beginning with the date the tenancy becomes an assured tenancy

Existing tenants who were already in place on 1 May 2026 sit under a different rule again — they had to receive the government's Information Sheet by 31 May 2026. That is covered in our guide to the tenant information sheet.

What it costs you to skip it

This is the part worth reading twice, because it is widely reported as only half the picture.

Failing to give the written statement carries two separate consequences, and both matter — a financial penalty, and a statutory prohibition on relying on certain possession grounds.

First, the penalty. Housing Act 1988 s.16I(1) lets a local housing authority impose a financial penalty on a landlord it is satisfied "beyond reasonable doubt" has contravened s.16D — that is, failed to give the statement at all, or gave it late. The maximum is £7,000 (s.16I(6)). This is not automatic on every missed statement; a council has to investigate and act to the criminal standard of proof.

What there is not is a reasonable-excuse or late-delivery defence. Nothing in s.16D or s.16I excuses a landlord who gave the statement late because of matters outside their control. The one carve-out, s.16I(2), is commonly misdescribed and points the other way — it protects your agent, not you. Section 16D(8) extends the statement duty to anyone the landlord has contracted to ensure compliance: "where a landlord has entered into a contract with a person which requires that person to ensure compliance with this section … subsection (2) also applies to that person, as it applies to the landlord." Section 16I(2) then provides that "where a landlord fulfils the requirement in section 16D, a local housing authority may not impose a financial penalty on a person who contravenes section 16D only by virtue of subsection (8) of that section." In other words: if you complied, your letting agent cannot separately be fined for the same tenancy. If you did not comply, s.16I(2) does nothing for either of you.

Second, the ground restriction. Section 16E(1) provides that a relevant person must not, in relation to an assured tenancy, "(f) where the tenancy is one to which section 16D applies, rely on one or more of Grounds 1B, 2ZA to 2ZD, 4, 5 to 5H, 6A or 18 in Schedule 2 if no statement was given to the tenant under section 16D(3) in respect of them."

In plain terms: a group of possession grounds carries a statutory prohibition on relying on them unless you told the tenant, in the statement, that you might use them. Be precise about what that prohibition does, because it is routinely overstated. It bites on you — the "relevant person" — not on the court. Rely on one of those grounds without having given the statement and you are in breach of s.16E(1)(f), and that breach is one a local housing authority can penalise under s.16I(1)(a). What it does not do is remove the ground from the court's reach: s.16E(5) says so expressly, and we come back to it below. So the practical effect for that tenancy — potentially for years, until it ends — is not "these grounds no longer exist for me"; it is "using these grounds exposes me to a financial penalty". This exposure applies regardless of whether a council ever penalises you for the missed statement itself.

Two qualifications, both worth knowing:

• The grounds affected are the ones tied to a landlord's particular circumstances or status. The everyday grounds most landlords actually reach for — Ground 8 and the other rent-arrears grounds, and Ground 14 anti-social behaviour — are not in that list. Missing the statement does not leave you unable to recover a property from a non-paying tenant.
• Section 16E(5) provides that a breach of subsection (1)(f) "does not prevent a court from making an order for possession of the dwelling-house on the ground in question (but see section 16I(1)(a))." That last clause is the statute pointing you straight back to the financial penalty — the ground restriction and the penalty are not alternatives, they can both apply to the same missed statement.

If you want the full picture of which grounds do what, see Section 8 grounds for possession.

Clauses to strip out of an old AST template

If you are adapting a pre-2026 template rather than starting fresh, these are the clauses that no longer do what they say:

Old AST clause	Status from 1 May 2026
"This is an assured shorthold tenancy"	Wrong tenancy type — ASTs no longer exist (RRA 2025 s.2)
Fixed term of 6 or 12 months	Of no effect (HA 1988 s.4A) — the tenancy is periodic
Break clause	Redundant — a tenant can already end a periodic assured tenancy on 2 months' notice (the statutory minimum; shorter only if the landlord agrees in writing) under Protection from Eviction Act 1977 s.5(1ZA), as amended by RRA 2025
Rent review / RPI or CPI escalator clause	Of no effect for increases (HA 1988 s.13(4A)) — you must use Form 4A
"Landlord may serve notice under s.21"	Section 21 is repealed
Blanket "no pets" prohibition	Now runs against the tenant's right to request a pet

The rent-increase point trips up more landlords than any other: a clause saying rent rises annually with inflation is simply inert now. Increases run through the prescribed Form 4A procedure. Our guide to Form 4A rent increases covers that route, and the rent increase calculator will work out your earliest valid date.

A practical sequence for a new let

1. Draft or update your tenancy agreement, with the dead clauses above removed.
2. Prepare the written statement of terms against the SI 2026/324 Schedule — including the grounds you may wish to rely on later, given s.16E.
3. Give the statement to the tenant before they sign.
4. Keep dated proof of what you gave and when.
5. Complete the rest of the pre-tenancy pack as normal — deposit protection, gas safety, EICR, EPC, How to Rent.

Step 4 is cheap and people skip it. If a possession ground is ever challenged on the basis that no statement was given, the question will be evidential, and "I always send one" is not evidence.

To check where a specific property stands across every Phase 1 duty, the free RRA Readiness Checker scores your compliance and produces a prioritised action list.

Where the "official template" sites get it wrong

Search results for tenancy agreement templates are full of pages implying there is a government-issued 2026 agreement. There isn't. The GOV.UK assured tenancy forms page (last updated 1 May 2026) lists the prescribed notices — Form 3A for possession, Form 4A for rent increases, and the agricultural and succession forms — and none of them is a tenancy agreement.

The practical test for any template you are considering: does it describe the tenancy as assured periodic rather than assured shorthold, does it omit a fixed term, and does it address the written statement duty? A template that still says "assured shorthold tenancy" was written for a legal regime that ended on 1 May 2026.

Related guides

• AST to Periodic Conversion Explained — what happened to tenancies already running on 1 May 2026.
• Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement Template: What Changes Under the RRA — clause-by-clause detail on updating a template.
• The Tenant Information Sheet — the parallel duty for tenants already in place.
• The Complete Landlord Compliance Checklist — every Phase 1 obligation in one place.

Sources

• Housing Act 1988 s.16D — the duty to give a written statement of terms and the deadlines.
• Housing Act 1988 s.16E — the possession-ground restrictions where no statement was given.
• Housing Act 1988 s.16I — the financial penalty (up to £7,000) for contravening s.16D.
• Protection from Eviction Act 1977 s.5(1ZA) — the tenant's 2-month minimum notice to end an assured periodic tenancy.
• Housing Act 1988 s.4A — fixed terms of no effect; tenancies periodic on the rent cycle.
• Renters' Rights Act 2025 s.2 — omission of Chapter 2 of Part 1 (assured shorthold tenancies).
• SI 2026/324 reg.2 — prescribed written statement content, set out in the Schedule.
• GOV.UK — Assured tenancy forms — the prescribed notice forms, last updated 1 May 2026.

This is general information about tenancy documentation under the Renters' Rights Act 2025 and is not legal advice. The prescribed content of a written statement is set by regulations and the consequences of omitting it fall on specific possession grounds — for a tenancy where possession is likely to be contested, have your documents reviewed by a qualified housing solicitor. Crocker Digital Ltd (Company No. 17008789) and RentersActReady accept no liability for action taken solely on the basis of this article.