Day County, South Dakota Eviction Risk: Very Low

Day County, South Dakota eviction laws carries an average eviction-risk score of 1.6/10 (Low) across 10 cities, which at first glance looks reassuring for landlords and investors. The intra-county range, however, tells a more nuanced story: individual cities score as low as 1.1/10 and as high as 1.7/10, so the operating environment is not uniform countywide. With an average rent of $624 and an average rent burden of 23.1%, tenants here are not severely stretched, which tends to keep non-payment pressures contained. That said, Day County ranks 22nd of 66 South Dakota counties on risk, placing it in the higher-risk third of the state, with only 21 counties carrying a higher score.

A total county population of 3,269 means rental demand is thin and concentrated in a handful of small towns. Roughly 33.1% of residents are renters, and a poverty rate of 18.2% is high enough to warrant careful tenant screening and conservative vacancy assumptions. Landlords who understand the local market at the city level, rather than relying on county averages, will be better positioned to evaluate whether a specific acquisition makes sense.

The cities inside Day County

The highest risk in the county sits with Enemy Swim, which scores 1.7/10 and has a population of 301. Webster, the county's largest city at 1,896 residents, comes in right at the county average with a score of 1.6/10, making it the most active rental market in Day County and the one where landlord decisions carry the greatest scale. Bristol, Pierpont, Roslyn, and Wallace each score 1.5/10, representing the middle tier of risk and a broad swath of the county's smaller communities.

At the lower end, Grenville scores just 1.1/10, the lowest in the county, while Waubay comes in at 1.4/10 with a population of 337. The spread from 1.1 to 1.7 across cities within a single county is a good reminder that risk is hyper-local: a property five miles from another can carry a meaningfully different profile. Investors should evaluate each city individually rather than treating Day County as a single homogeneous market.

State-level laws that apply here

Under South Dakota eviction laws state law, governed by SDCL § 43-32 (Lease of Real Property), the notice requirements are landlord-friendly by national standards. Non-payment of rent and lease violations each require only a 3-day notice, while a no-cause or end-of-term notice requires 30 days. South Dakota eviction laws does not require just cause for eviction and, through state preemption, prohibits local rent control ordinances, meaning no Day County jurisdiction can impose rent caps or additional just-cause requirements on top of state law. Anyone researching the full South Dakota eviction laws eviction process will find those procedural steps work in landlords' favor in contested and uncontested cases alike.

When an eviction does proceed to court, landlords should budget for court filing fees of $95 to $180, sheriff lockout fees of $40 to $150, and attorney fees of $500 to $2,500 depending on case complexity. An uncontested proceeding typically resolves in 21 to 40 days; a contested case can stretch to 45 to 100 days. A full breakdown is available in the South Dakota eviction costs guide. Source of income is not a protected class under state law, and fair housing matters are handled by the South Dakota eviction laws Division of Human Rights.

With a poverty rate of 18.2% and roughly one in three residents renting, Day County rewards careful underwriting at the city level; the city grid above breaks out risk scores and populations for each of the 10 cities tracked in the county.