Giving notice is simple, and almost everyone gets one part of it wrong: the termination date has to be the last day of a rental period, not sixty days from whenever you happen to hand in the letter.
The rules
Month-to-month: at least 60 days' notice, and the termination date must be the last day of a rental period. Your rental period is anchored to the day your tenancy began. If your lease started on the 15th, periods run the 15th to the 14th and your notice has to terminate on the 14th, not month-end.
Fixed term: at least 60 days' notice, and the termination date must be the last day of the term. You generally cannot end a fixed term early without the landlord's agreement.
Weekly or daily tenancy: at least 28 days' notice, ending on the last day of a rental period.
Use Form N9: the Landlord and Tenant Board's Tenant's Notice to End the Tenancy. A text message is not notice.
Because the date has to land on the end of a rental period, sixty days from the day you hand in the letter is almost never the day you leave.
Say your lease began on the 15th, so your rental periods run the 15th to the 14th. You give notice on 4 March. Sixty days later is 3 May, but that is mid-period, so your tenancy actually ends on 14 May.
Now the part that costs money. You could have waited until 15 March and still been out on 14 May: eleven days of thinking about it, at no cost. Give notice on 16 March instead, one day later, and the earliest you can leave becomes 14 June. A single day of hesitation, a full extra month of rent.
So work backwards from the date you want to leave rather than forwards from today.
What happens when a fixed term runs out
This is the part that can trip up many tenants, and being wrong about it costs people money and homes every year.
When a one-year lease reaches its end date, the tenancy does not end. It converts automatically, month to month, on exactly the same terms and at the same rent, unless you and the landlord both sign something new, or the landlord has given proper notice of a rent increase. You do not have to move. You do not have to sign a renewal. Nobody needs to do anything at all.
You cannot be evicted for declining to sign again. Refusing a new fixed term is not a ground to end a tenancy.
A clause saying you must vacate at the end of the term is void. It does not matter that it is in the lease or that you initialled it.
Your rent does not change on its own. An increase needs proper notice, ninety days, on the Board's form, and no more often than once every twelve months. See Rent Increases.
Should you sign another fixed term?
Once you are month to month you can leave on sixty days' notice at any point. Signing a new one-year term gives that up. It is sometimes worth giving up and often is not.
Staying month to month
Maximum flexibility. Sixty days' notice and you are free, whenever you want. Rent increases still capped by the guideline. This is the default and, for most tenants, the better position.
Signing a new fixed term
You are committed for the whole term. Worth it if you want certainty and the landlord is offering something for it: a rent freeze, a reduction, work done to the unit. Worth much less if you are being asked to sign simply because it is that time of year.
"Thanks, I would rather stay month to month" is a complete answer and an entirely lawful one. If the reply is a threat to end your tenancy, that is worth a conversation with me or with a legal clinic, because the threat has no legal basis behind it.
Getting out before a fixed term ends
You cannot simply give sixty days' notice partway through a fixed term. There are three real routes out, and they are not the same thing.
An assignment. Somebody takes over your tenancy permanently. They become the tenant, you walk away, and your obligations end on the day it takes effect. This is the clean exit and the one most tenants have never heard of.
A sublet. Somebody occupies the unit for a defined period and you come back afterwards. You remain the tenant throughout, which means you remain liable for the rent and for their conduct. If they stop paying, the landlord looks to you.
A mutual agreement to end it, on Form N11, signed by both sides. No ground required, no notice period, no compensation. Frequently the simplest answer where the landlord has somebody waiting or wants the unit back anyway.
A landlord's permission is needed for an assignment or a sublet, and a blanket "no assignment or subletting" clause does not survive contact with the Act. If consent is refused unreasonably you can apply to the Board, and one of the remedies available is an order ending your tenancy outright.
Ask in writing, with the proposed person's full application attached in the same shape as your own. A landlord handed a complete, verifiable file usually says yes, and it is hard to argue a refusal was reasonable when they did not.
Leases often set a fixed charge for leaving early, two months' rent or similar. What a landlord is actually entitled to is their real loss, and they have to take reasonable steps to reduce it by re-renting. If they fill the unit in three weeks, the loss is roughly three weeks, whatever the schedule says.
When to start looking
The single most common mistake, in both directions.
If you have given notice
Start now. You have a hard date and no way to extend it. Begin viewing six to eight weeks out, and understand that most landlords will not hold a unit more than about a month, so the sweet spot for actually applying is around four to six weeks before you need to move.
If you have not given notice yet
Look first, give notice second. Because you must give sixty days ending on a period end, notice given today typically means moving in just over two months. Find the place, agree the lease, then serve your N9 counting backwards from a date you can actually meet.
The catch is that an owner sitting on an empty unit is unlikely to hold it two months for you. They would be carrying it vacant the whole time, and somebody who can move in next month will get it.
Look at places that are currently tenanted. A unit with a tenant still in it has a possession date set by their notice rather than by the owner's patience, and those dates are often six to eight weeks out, which is exactly where you are. These listings get far less competition from renters who need somewhere next week.
Ask your current landlord. It is worth finding out whether they would let you go earlier than the full sixty days, on an N11, particularly if they have somebody waiting or would welcome the chance to re-let at market. The worst answer is no, and a great many landlords say yes.
Serving notice because a lease is "ending", then discovering the good units are gone and taking something worse at a higher rent. Nothing was forcing you out. Your tenancy would have rolled on month to month indefinitely, and you could have moved whenever the right place appeared. Never give notice until you know where you are going.
When do I need to give notice?
I built a simple tool to help with this. Fill in the three fields below and you'll have your answer.
Now add the date you need to be in your new place.
Notice periods are one of the easiest things to get wrong by a couple of days, and it costs a full month's rent. Happy to check yours.
Hand it to the landlord in person, leave it in their mailbox, or send it by registered mail or courier. Keep proof. If you mail it, the Board treats mailed documents as delivered five days later, so build that into your timing rather than posting it on the deadline itself.
Three routes exist: agree a mutual termination with your landlord in writing (Form N11), assign the tenancy to someone else, or sublet for part of the term. A landlord cannot unreasonably refuse an assignment or sublet. Walking away without one of these leaves you liable for the remaining rent.
The calculator implements the rules as I've described them, but a notice period is a legal deadline and worth confirming. The Landlord and Tenant Board publishes Form N9 with its own instructions. Use those as the final word.