Work out what a tenant owes for a partial first or last month. No sign-up, nothing to install, and the arithmetic is shown so you can put it in front of the tenant.
Check the lease — whichever method it names is the one that governs. Where the lease is silent, actual days in the month is the usual default.
$1,500.00 ÷ 31 days = $48.39 per day, x 17 days.
For general information only — not legal or tax advice. Your lease and local rules govern how rent must be prorated.
Actual days in the month. Rent divided by the real length of that month. A February move-in costs more per day than a July one, but a full month always totals exactly one month's rent. This is the usual default.
Flat 30-day month. Rent divided by 30, regardless of the calendar. Simple and predictable, and it is what many leases specify. Note it slightly overcharges in 31-day months and undercharges in February.
Annualised. Annual rent divided by 365. The most even daily rate across a year, and the one accountants tend to prefer, but the least intuitive to explain to a tenant.
On a $1,500 rent with a move-in on the 15th of a 31-day month, those three give $822.58, $850.00, and $838.36. None is wrong — but only one matches your lease, and that is the number you can enforce.
Actual days, a flat 30-day month, and an annualised daily rate all give different answers. The lease decides; the calculator just does the arithmetic for whichever one you choose.
Show the tenant the daily rate and the day count on the first invoice. Almost every prorated-rent dispute is really a dispute about an unexplained number.
A partial payment that lands in the wrong period quietly distorts your per-property P&L for the year. This is the most common bookkeeping error in a move-in month.
Deposits are a liability you hold, not rent for a period. Prorating one, or booking it as income, misstates both your profit and what you owe.
Related: how to collect rent online, how to record security deposits, and rent collection software.
Rentwelly prorates the first and last month automatically and posts it to a real ledger — right property, right period, no spreadsheet.
Divide the full monthly rent by the number of days used as the base, then multiply by the number of days the tenant is actually responsible for. The base is usually the actual days in that month, so a $1,500 rent in a 31-day month is $48.39 per day. A tenant moving in on the 15th owes 17 days, or $822.58.
Whichever one the lease names. If the lease specifies a flat 30-day month or an annualised daily rate, that governs even when it differs from the actual calendar. Where the lease is silent, actual days in the month is the common default and the easiest to defend, because it always totals exactly one month's rent over a full month.
Both, whenever the tenancy starts or ends mid-month. Move-in proration runs from the start date through the end of that month. Move-out proration runs from the 1st through the last day of occupancy. Use the toggle above to switch between them.
No. A deposit is a fixed amount you hold on the tenant's behalf, not rent for a period, so it is never prorated. It also should not be recorded as income — it is a liability until you return it or lawfully apply it.
Not the treatment, only the amount. Prorated rent is ordinary rental income in the period you received it. What matters is that the partial amount is recorded against the right property and period, which is exactly where hand-kept spreadsheets tend to drift.
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