Rent receipt generator: print it or save a PDF, then get it signed

A rent receipt says who paid, how much, when, for which home and for which period, and it is signed by the person who received the money. Fill in the fields below and the receipt builds itself on this page. Print it, or save it as a PDF through your browser's print dialog. There is no account and no charge.

Landlords and agents can use it as it is. Tenants can prepare one and ask the person taking the payment to sign it. A receipt you filled in yourself and nobody signed is your own note, not a receipt from your landlord.

What you type stays in this browser tab. The page has no form to submit, and its script makes no network requests and saves nothing. A Content-Security-Policy rule in the page's source also tells your browser to refuse script connections and form submissions from this page, so you can check this yourself. My server sees a request for the page itself, as any website does, and never sees what you type. Extensions you have installed in your browser are outside the page's control.

I develop Lease Log, an iPhone app where renters keep their own rental records, so I wrote this page around the payment records it holds. The generator and the notes below work without the app.

Receipt generator

Leave a field blank and the receipt prints an empty row to write in, so you can also print a blank one and fill it in by hand. Amounts are in US dollars.

Before anyone signs

• Check each row against the payment. This page checks only that dates and amounts can be read. It cannot know what was paid.
• Leave no row blank. Write "none" in any row that does not apply, so that nothing can be added after signing.
• Show a partial payment as partial. Fill in the balance still owed, so that nobody later reads the receipt as full payment for the period.
• Keep a copy each. The person who paid and the person who was paid should each hold one.
• Only for a real payment. A receipt for a payment that was not made, or a signature in someone else's name, is not a record, and it can be fraud.

What three states require

Rules differ by state. This page covers three, and the rows above follow the most detailed of them.

• New York. Real Property Law § 235-e requires a written receipt when rent is paid in cash or by any instrument other than the tenant's personal check. A tenant who pays by personal check can ask for one in writing, and the Attorney General's tenants' rights guide says that after one request the landlord must give a receipt every month. A receipt for rent paid in person is due immediately, and one for rent sent indirectly is due within 15 days of the landlord or agent receiving it. It must show the date, the amount, the premises and period, and the signature and title of the person who received the rent. The landlord must keep a record of cash receipts for at least three years.
• Washington. RCW 59.18.063 lets a landlord refuse cash, but a landlord who accepts cash must give a receipt. For any other form of payment, the landlord must give a written receipt when the tenant asks.
• Minnesota. Minnesota Statutes 504B.118 requires a written receipt for rent or other payments made in cash, immediately if the payment is made in person and within three business days if it is not.

That is three states, not a survey, and laws change. These were read on November 3, 2026. For your own state, look for the statute itself or a tenant guide from your attorney general or courts. The date, amount, address, period, signature and title rows come from New York's list. The other rows are my additions, because they make a receipt easier to match to a bank record later.

What to keep as proof you paid rent

This is record-keeping practice, not a rule from the statutes above. Keep more than one kind of record where you can.

• Cash. A signed receipt may be the only record you have, so ask for it when you hand over the money. If you can pay another way, that method leaves a record of its own.
• Check. Keep the canceled check or your bank's image of it, along with the statement that shows it cleared.
• Money order. Keep the purchaser's stub and a note of when and how you delivered it. The stub shows that you bought it, not that your landlord received it.
• Bank transfer, card, payment app or landlord portal. Save the confirmation and the history entry showing the date, amount and recipient. Keep your own copy, because you may lose access to an account or portal later.
• Messages. A text or email in which your landlord acknowledges a payment is worth keeping in its original app, as well as in any copy you make.
• Your own list. One line per payment: date, amount, method, the period it covers and the reference number. A list is only your own note, but it makes the other records quick to find.
• If no receipt comes. Ask in writing, say which payment you mean, and keep the request. For payments other than cash in Washington, and for personal checks in New York, the request is what triggers the landlord's duty. If the landlord still refuses or a dispute starts, local legal aid or a tenant organization can tell you what applies where you live.
• How long. The statute sections above set no period for tenants, and New York's three years applies to the landlord's cash records. My suggestion is to keep them for the whole tenancy and until the deposit is settled after it ends, and longer if anything is still in dispute.

Moving in soon? The move-in photo checklist covers the other record that tends to matter later, and it needs no app either.

What this page does not do

It makes one receipt at a time, in US dollars. It does not save receipts, send them, keep a history, sign anything or check that a payment happened. Several other generators also say they run in your browser with no sign-up, and some add a saved history on a paid tier, a direct PDF download or another country's format. If you need one of those, use one of them.

Keeping the record on your iPhone

Lease Log is for renters who want their payment record in one place. You add each payment by hand with its date, amount, method and notes, attach a photo of the receipt if you have one, and the app shows the total recorded. Amounts are in US dollars. The payments sit next to your move-in photos, repair notes and communication notes for one tenancy. The app does not create receipts like the one above, connect to a bank or collect rent, and it is not landlord software. After a receipt is signed, you can photograph it and attach the picture to that payment from your photo library.

Lease Log is free to download for iPhone with iOS 18 or later, in English, with no account. Records and manual backup are free. An optional one-time purchase, $4.99 in the US with prices varying by territory, unlocks generating and exporting the complete PDF report, which compiles the records you enter and does not certify them. There is no subscription.