How to Write a Roommate Agreement (Free Template)

If you’re moving in with someone new — or trying to fix things with the roommate you already have — knowing how to write a roommate agreement is the single most useful thing you can do before things get awkward. It’s not a lease. It’s not legally enforceable in most cases. It’s a written record of what you both agreed to so nobody can pretend they “didn’t know.”

A roommate agreement should cover rent, bills, chores, guests, quiet hours, food, and what happens if someone wants to leave the lease early. That’s it. Six to eight short sections. You don’t need a lawyer.

Here’s how to actually put one together, what to include, and the clauses most people forget until it’s too late.

What is a roommate agreement, and do I really need one?

A roommate agreement is a written document between the people sharing a place — separate from the lease you sign with the landlord. It exists for one reason: to make assumptions explicit. The number one cause of roommate blowups isn’t bad people. It’s two reasonable people who thought “obviously” meant the same thing.

You need one if any of this is true: you’re moving in with someone you didn’t grow up with, you’ve had roommate issues before, the money isn’t perfectly even, or one of you is on the lease and the other isn’t. If you’re three months in and already fighting, write one now. Better late than never.

What to include in a roommate agreement

These are the sections every solid agreement should have. Keep each one to a few sentences. Don’t try to be a lawyer.

Rent and the security deposit. Who pays what amount, by what date, to who. If one person Venmos the landlord, the others Venmo them — and the date. Write down who put down the deposit and how it gets refunded when someone leaves.

Utilities and shared bills. Internet, electricity, water, gas, streaming. Who’s the account holder, how it’s split (even split? by usage? by room size?), and when it’s due. Decide once. Stop arguing every month.

Chores. A simple rotating list works better than vague “we all clean.” Pick weekly tasks, assign or rotate, agree on a standard. If you’ve already got a working chore split going, document the one you have.

Guests. This is the one nobody wants to talk about, and the one that breaks more leases than anything else. Decide: how many nights a month a guest can stay over, whether overnight guests need a heads up, what counts as a guest vs. a partner who basically lives there.

Quiet hours. A weekday number and a weekend number. “11pm on weeknights, 1am on weekends” beats “be considerate.”

Food and groceries. Shared, separate, or hybrid (shared staples, separate everything else). Label rules if anything is off-limits.

Personal space and shared items. Borrowing rules. What’s communal (couch, TV) and what’s not (your AirPods, your shampoo). If something’s off-limits, write it down.

The exit clause. What happens if someone breaks the lease early, has to leave for the summer, or finds a replacement. This is the one everyone skips and everyone regrets.

How do I get my roommate to actually sign it?

Frame it as a favor to both of you, not as a control move. Say: “I want to make sure we’re on the same page about a few things so we don’t have to have weird conversations later.” Most people respond well to that. People who refuse to write anything down are telling you something useful — believe them.

Sit down together for thirty minutes. Open a shared doc. Fill it in together, not before. If you arrive with a finished contract, it feels like you’re handing them paperwork. If you build it together, it feels like a plan. Both of you sign it (digital signature, or just type your names with the date). Save it somewhere both of you can find it.

Revisit it every six months or when something major changes — a new roommate, a new job schedule, a partner who’s started staying over a lot. Things drift. The agreement should drift with you.

The clauses people forget

A few specific things nobody includes that always come up later:

• Late payment policy. What happens if rent or a bill is late? If you’re not sure how to handle that conversation, here’s what to do when a roommate pays rent late.
• Move-out notice. How many days before someone moves out do they have to tell the others.
• Pets. Even if nobody has one now. Whether it’s allowed, who pays for damage, who walks it.
• Dispute process. Promise to bring it up within seven days, not let it stew.

How homies helps

homies turns the roommate agreement from a doc nobody reads into a living thing. Rent and bills are tracked automatically, chores rotate on schedule, and the AI mediator helps draft the awkward “we agreed on this” messages when someone slips. The agreement becomes how the apartment actually runs, not a file buried in Google Drive.

rooming, minus the drama. Join the waitlist at joinhomies.app.