Ghana’s Acting Rent Commissioner has put landlords across the country on notice that collecting more than six months of rent in advance is a criminal offence under existing law and that the newly activated Rent Commission intends to prosecute violators, ahead of the nationwide launch of a mandatory Rent Card system on March 1, 2026.
Frederick Opoku made the warning on Monday during a public appearance, describing the routine collection of one, two, and even three years of rent in advance as both illegal and an unconscionable burden on tenants that the Commission intends to dismantle through active enforcement rather than education alone. “Rent advance exceeding six months is a crime, and we will come for you,” he warned.
The Commission is deploying a nationwide Rent Taskforce whose members will be identifiable by yellow uniforms and will operate in collaboration with Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) across the country. The taskforce will be responsible for ensuring the registration of tenancy agreements, monitoring rentable properties, and overseeing the payment of taxes on rental income.
The six-month cap on advance rent is grounded in the Rent Act, 1963 (Act 220) as amended under People’s National Defence Council (PNDC) Law 5. Under the law, where a tenancy exceeds six months, a landlord may not demand more than six months’ rent in advance. For short tenancies, the maximum advance permitted is two months. Despite the law being decades old, the prevailing norm in Ghana’s rental housing market has been a mandatory advance rent payment of two years or more, which the law clearly prohibits.
Opoku disclosed that approximately 60 percent of tenants in Ghana do not have formal tenancy agreements, a situation the Commission intends to reverse by making both landlords and tenants legally accountable. He said tenants who fail to demand a tenancy agreement are equally committing an offence of abetment under the Act. The Rent Commission will work closely with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) to ensure landlords pay taxes on rental income. Residential properties attract an eight percent tax, while commercial properties are taxed at 15 percent.
The Rent Card, which will be mandatory for all registered landlords and tenants from March 1, is rooted in Section 20 of the Rent Act as amended. It will serve as an official record of each tenancy agreement and will underpin the Commission’s database of the country’s rental housing stock, enabling more systematic enforcement of rent laws going forward.
