Rentals · Move-in and move-out

Move-in inspection checklist: room by room, with photos

Walk every room in the same order, shoot it wide then close, and write down what's already wrong. At move-out, do it again from the same spots.

By Andre Gaz, developer of InspectCam™ · Published 18 October 2026 · Last updated 18 October 2026

Every deposit argument comes down to one question: was that there when they moved in? The answer is a set of photos taken a year or more earlier, often by someone else. They're buried in a camera roll between a parking receipt and a birthday, or stuck in text messages that squeezed them small. Then someone has to retrieve the right image weeks or months later and reconstruct the rest from memory.

This checklist fixes that at the start. It's for landlords and property managers walking a unit before a new lease, and for tenants who want their own record. It borrows the move-in and move-out layout of HUD's sample inspection form and adds the shots that settle the usual arguments.

What is a move-in inspection, and who does it?

It's a walkthrough of the empty unit, done just before or on the day the tenant moves in, that records the condition of every room. Done well, it's a written checklist plus photos, signed and dated by both sides.

Do it together if you can. HUD's handbook for its multifamily housing has the owner and the resident inspect the unit jointly, and its sample move-in/move-out inspection form lists each item with space for its condition at move-in and at move-out. That layout is worth copying even if your building has nothing to do with HUD: the move-out walk then fills in the move-out side of the same sheet.

Some states write the inspection into law. Washington requires a written checklist or statement of the unit's condition before a landlord can collect a deposit, and Washington LawHelp tells tenants to sign and date it, keep a copy, and take detailed photos and video before moving in. In New York, LawNY explains that a landlord must offer an inspection with the tenant present and put any existing damage in a written agreement. Wisconsin gives tenants seven days to hand in a check-in sheet, according to the state's consumer protection agency.

If the landlord doesn't offer a walkthrough, the tenant can do one alone: fill in the list, photograph everything, and send a copy to the landlord the same day so there's a dated record that they received it.

The room-by-room move-in inspection checklist

Work in the same order every time: the entry, then clockwise through the unit, then the outside. A fixed order means the move-out walk follows the same path and nothing gets skipped. For every item, mark it good, worn or damaged, and leave no blanks: a blank line looks like an item nobody checked.

Photograph things that work as well as things that don't. A clean oven and a carpet with no stains on day one is what lets you say, a year later, that the stain is new.

How do you shoot a move-in inspection fast?

Shoot in the same pattern every time. It adds only a few minutes to the walk.

1. Start at the unit door. Get the number in the frame. Every photo after it then belongs to that unit, which matters in a building where the units look alike.
2. Wide from the doorway, then each wall. Stand in the doorway and take the room, then turn and take each wall left to right, then the ceiling and the floor. Wide shots tell a viewer which wall the close-up came from.
3. Then the close-ups. Go close on each problem you wrote down: the chip, the burn, the stain. Put a tape measure or your hand in the frame for size.
4. Open everything. Cabinets, drawers, the oven, the fridge, the closets, the vanity. The insides are where most surprises sit.
5. Read the labels. Photograph each appliance's model and serial label and each meter, so you never have to copy numbers by hand.
6. Add a short video. A slow walk through each room, saying out loud what you see, ties the photos together. Hold the camera steady and pause on each problem.
7. File them the same day. Put the photos in one folder named for the unit and the date, keep the originals, and send copies to the other side. Original files keep the date and time the phone saved; screenshots and copies sent through some chat apps may not. What a date stamp shows, and doesn't, is on our timestamp camera app page.

Matching move-out photos to move-in

A move-out photo only settles an argument if there's a move-in photo of the same spot to hold it against. So the move-out walk copies the move-in walk.

• Take the same path. Start at the unit door and follow the move-in order, room by room.
• Stand in the same place. Open the move-in photo and match it: same doorway, same height, same zoom. A wall shot from the other side of the room is hard to compare.
• Shoot before anyone cleans or repairs. California's rules, described below, now ask landlords for move-out photos before cleaning and repairs and again after them.
• Put the pairs side by side. For each new problem, put the move-in photo next to the move-out photo of the same spot in the report or the email. That pair is what an owner, a tenant or a judge will actually look at.
• Note wear separately from damage. Carpet that's flattened along the walkway after three years is different from a burn. Mark which is which as you go.

Tenants should do the same on their last day, after cleaning and before handing back the keys. Wisconsin's consumer protection agency suggests taking detailed photos of the unit before the final walkthrough to record the condition you left it in.

What do landlords and tenants dispute most?

The same short list comes up at almost every turnover. Each item has a shot that settles it:

• Carpet. Stains, burns, pet damage and wear. Shoot every carpeted room's floor wide, then any mark close up.
• Walls and paint. Nail holes, anchors, scuffs, crayon, patches. Each wall, every room, both walks.
• Cleaning. The oven, the fridge, the bathroom and the floors. Inside the oven and the fridge, open, every time.
• Appliances. Whether they worked on day one. A photo of the fridge running, or a short video of the stovetop lit, helps.
• Blinds, screens and fixtures. Bent slats, torn screens, missing light covers and alarm batteries are cheap, small, and easy to forget.
• Water damage under sinks. A swollen cabinet floor is either an old leak or a new one. Only a move-in photo says which.
• Keys. How many sets and fobs were handed over, and how many came back.

Normal wear and tear or damage?

Most deposit laws let a landlord deduct for damage but not for ordinary wear. California's courts put it as repairing damage, other than normal wear and tear, caused by the tenant and the tenant's guests. Washington's statute speaks of wear resulting from ordinary use of the premises. Neither draws a line for each item, and other states vary. As a rough guide, many sources treat faded paint, a few small nail holes and carpet worn thin by walking as wear, and large holes, burns, pet stains and broken fixtures as damage. That's exactly why the move-in photos matter: a worn carpet on day one can't be charged as damage on the last day.

Security deposit rules: where to look

Deposit rules come from your state, and sometimes your city. A few examples show how different they are:

• California. The courts' self-help guide on security deposits gives landlords 21 days after the tenant moves out to return the deposit, with an itemized statement for any deductions, and says the tenant must be told in writing that they can ask for an inspection before moving out. Under AB 2801, summarized by the San Francisco Rent Board, landlords take photos after the tenant returns possession and before repairs or cleaning they deduct for, and again after the work, and, for tenancies starting on or after 1 July 2025, at or just before move-in.
• Washington. A signed, dated checklist of the unit's condition is a condition of collecting a deposit, and Washington LawHelp puts the refund deadline at 30 days.
• New York. LawNY says the landlord must offer a move-in inspection, should give at least two days' notice of a move-out inspection, and must provide an itemized statement within 14 days of move-out to keep any of the deposit.
• Wisconsin. Seven days to hand in a check-in sheet, and the deposit back, minus lawful deductions, within 21 days of move-out.

Check the current rules for your own state and city before you rely on any of these: your state attorney general, a local tenant or landlord association, or legal aid can point you to them.

Closets, under sinks and the water heater: the dark spots

The photos that go wrong are the dark ones: the inside of a closet with no bulb, the back of the cabinet under the sink, the water heater in a utility closet, the meter in a basement room. A phone's flash fires for a split second, so you can't see what you're aiming at, and holding a flashlight in the other hand leaves nothing to open the door with.

InspectCam™ is free on Google Play (I build it). One tap and the light stays on while you look, take photos and record video, so you see the stain before you shoot it.

• Tap to focus on the corner of the cabinet floor or the base of the water heater.
• Pinch to zoom, or use the wide and close presets your phone supports, to read a meter or a label without climbing in.
• Reach in with the timer (3 or 6 seconds), or press a volume button to take the shot when the screen is out of sight behind the pipes.
• Record the walk-through: one tap and the light stays on while you record.

The light turns off after 10 minutes untouched, with a warning first, or if the phone gets very hot; tap it to turn it back on. Free photos carry a small, faint InspectCam™ mark in one corner. Found a drip under the sink during the walk? Our guide to finding a leak under the sink shows where to look.

Pro, coming soon: move-in and move-out in one job

For property managers and landlords who turn units every month, InspectCam™ Pro is coming soon, in the same app. It keeps a tenancy in one job on your Android phone, from the move-in walk to the move-out walk. None of this is in the free app on Google Play today.

• The checklist, built in. The ready-made Property manager template adds Unit, Tenant and Move-in or move-out to the job and lists the shots to take: the unit door and number (required), kitchen, bathroom, living room, bedrooms, floors and walls, appliances and meters. Add your own, such as closets or the water heater.
• Rooms as sections. Each shot on the list is a room. A line on the camera shows the next one, and the photo you take files under it. The report prints each room's photos together under its own heading.
• The right unit, picked for you. With location allowed, the camera picks the job you're standing at, if you've taken photos for it there before. In a building where you've shot several units, it asks “Which job?” instead of guessing.
• Stamped photos. Every photo and video taken into a job carries the date, time, street address and GPS position the phone reports, in one thin line along the bottom. It's a record of when and where the photo was taken, not a certificate. With location off it's the date and time only, and videos in both-cameras mode aren't stamped.
• Marks and notes. Draw numbered arrows and circles on a photo, give each mark a line of words, and hold Talk to keep a voice note with the photo. On Android 13 and later the phone also writes out the words where it can.

• Move-in and move-out on one page. Pick the move-in photo of a wall and the move-out photo of the same wall, and they become a pair. The full report gives each pair a page: move-in on top, move-out below, the same size, each with its own time, note and marks.
• Move-in photos you already have. Tenants who moved in before you had Pro? Add their move-in photos from your phone's gallery and pair them. They're marked “Added from phone gallery”, and they may have no time or location stamp.
• Signed on your phone. Switch on a signing page in your copy of the template, and write your walkthrough wording once in Settings. At the end of the walk, hand the phone over: the tenant marks themselves as Tenant, types a name and signs with a finger, and the report prints it on its own page with the wording, the name and the time it was signed. (The page's title reads Certificate of completion.) Whether a signature binds anyone is a question for your lease or your own legal advice.
• A report under your name. One tap builds the PDF with your company name, logo and contact details, a report number, the template's Unit, Tenant and Move-in or move-out lines, the rooms, the pairs and the signed page, and a small “Generated with InspectCam” credit on the last page.

On a company account, the leasing agent's photos upload to the same job, so the manager sees the unit's move-in on their own phone without photos stuck in text messages. On Team and Business, the painter, the cleaner and the flooring crew can send their turnover photos into the job from their phone's browser, by QR code or link, with no app.

Pro comes in three plans, all coming soon: Duo for up to 2 people at $39.99 a month, Team for up to 5 at $89.99, and Business for up to 10 at $159.99. On Duo and Team, paying yearly gets you a year for the price of ten months; Business is monthly only. US prices, plus any tax, charged by Google Play. At launch, Pro is sold in the United States; the free app is available everywhere. For now, each person on your team needs an Android phone; the iPhone app is coming soon, with Pro included. The details are on the Pro page, and the rental walkthrough in full is on the move-in and move-out inspection app page.

Questions landlords and tenants ask

What should a move-in inspection checklist include?

Every room in a fixed order, starting at the unit door: walls, ceilings, floors, windows, blinds and screens, doors and locks, closets, the kitchen cabinets and appliances inside and out, under the sinks, the bathroom fixtures and caulk, smoke and CO alarms, heating, cooling and the water heater, the meters and the keys handed over. For each item, mark it good, worn or damaged, and photograph it. Both sides sign and date the list.

Should tenants take their own move-in photos?

Yes, even if the landlord takes some. Photograph every room and every existing problem before your things go in, send copies to the landlord the same day, and keep the original files. Washington LawHelp tells tenants to take detailed photos and video before moving in.

How many photos does a move-in inspection need?

There's no set number. A wide shot of each room from the doorway, one of each wall, the floor and the ceiling, then close-ups of every problem and the insides of cabinets, appliances and closets. Even a small unit adds up to a lot of photos, which is why a fixed order matters.

What goes on a move-out inspection checklist with photos?

The same rooms and items as the move-in checklist, in the same order, shot from the same spots, before any cleaning or repairs. For each new problem, put the move-in photo and the move-out photo of the same spot side by side, and note whether it is ordinary wear or damage.

What should a move-in inspection report include?

The address and unit, the date, who walked it, and each room in order with its condition: good, worn or damaged, with a note for every problem. Attach the photos, wide and close, and the appliance labels and meter readings. Both sides sign and date it, and each keeps a copy. What a date stamp on the photos shows, and doesn't, is on our timestamp camera app page.

Can a landlord charge for normal wear and tear?

Generally no. Deposit laws let a landlord deduct for damage beyond ordinary wear: California's courts say damage other than normal wear and tear caused by the tenant and guests, and Washington's law speaks of wear resulting from ordinary use. Faded paint and carpet worn by walking are usually wear; burns, large holes and pet stains usually damage. Check your own state's rules.

Do I need a move-in inspection for a security deposit?

It depends on your state. Washington requires a written checklist or statement of the unit's condition before a landlord can collect a deposit, and in New York the landlord must offer a move-in inspection. Where it isn't required, it's still the record that settles most deposit arguments, so do one either way. Check your own state's rules.

This page is general guidance, not legal advice. Deposit rules depend on your state, your city and your lease. If something here didn't match your state's rules, tell us and it may help the next person.