Lease the space. Name every cost.
Leave nothing to statute.
A commercial lease for office, retail or light-industrial space. Base rent and the expense structure, a permitted use that actually restricts, insurance, assignment — and an optional personal guaranty with its own signature line.
- Gross, modified gross or NNN
- Optional personal guaranty
- ESIGN & UETA valid
How it works
From answers to a signed commercial lease — in about three minutes
- 01
Name the parties and the premises
The registered entity on each side — not a trade name — then the building address, the suite, the rentable square footage, and what the space may be used for. The use clause is a restriction, so write it deliberately.
- 02
Set the rent, the structure and the guaranty
Base rent and the day it falls due, then the expense structure: gross, modified gross or triple net, with the pro-rata share and reconciliation spelled out. Add the security deposit, and decide whether a named person guarantees the lease.
- 03
E-sign & download
Landlord, tenant and — where there is one — the guarantor each sign, legally valid under ESIGN/UETA. Download the PDF and keep it with the building file alongside the tenant's insurance certificate.
Last updated August 20, 2026
Written by LawLease EditorialReviewed by LawLease Legal Team
By occupier
Which lease you need
One question settles this before any other: is anyone going to live in the space? If they are, it is a residential tenancy and residential law follows it in — whatever the zoning says, whatever the tenant is called on the paper. A commercial lease is for a business occupying space to trade from, and it is written on the assumption that both sides are looking after themselves.
- RL
Residential lease agreement
Anyone living in the space makes it a residential tenancy, whatever the zoning says — and residential law brings protections this lease does not carry.
Learn more - LA
Lease amendment
Change a lease that is already signed — the rent, the term, a name on it.
Learn more - RT
Rent-to-own agreement
A lease plus a severable option to buy at a price locked in on day one.
Learn more - SA
Sublease agreement
You hold the lease and are handing the place to someone else for a while.
Learn more - ST
Short-term rental agreement
A vacation or transient stay booked by the night or the week — a licence to occupy, not a tenancy.
Learn more
What is a commercial lease?
A commercial lease is the contract under which a business occupies space to trade from — a shop, an office, a studio, a light-industrial unit. It fixes the premises and the square footage, the term and the base rent, how building expenses are divided, what the space may be used for, who maintains what, the insurance each side carries, whether the tenant may assign or sublet, and what happens on default. It is signed between legal entities dealing at arm's length, which is a phrase worth taking literally.
What separates it from a residential lease is not length or formality — it is that almost none of residential law's protections reach it. There is no statutory deposit cap, no prescribed deadline to return one, no implied warranty of habitability in most states, and far more room to agree remedies that a residential tenant could never be asked to accept. Commercial parties are presumed to negotiate for themselves, so the written terms carry nearly all the weight. That cuts both ways: nothing stops you agreeing to something bad, and nothing will rescue you from it afterwards. Precision is the protection. It is also called:
- Commercial lease agreement
- Office lease
- Retail lease
- NNN lease
- Business premises lease
- Shop lease
Anyone actually living in the space — a flat over the shop, a live/work unit? That is a residential tenancy with protections this lease does not carry, whatever the zoning says. Use the residential lease agreement instead, and build it on your state's law.
Legal considerations
Start from what is absent. The statutory scaffolding a residential landlord works inside — deposit caps and return deadlines, notice periods, habitability duties, limits on what a lease may ask a tenant to waive — largely does not apply to a commercial tenancy. Some state law still reaches in, mostly around eviction procedure and the notice required before it, and Section 10 defers to it. But for the terms that decide the money, there is no floor and no ceiling: there is the lease. That is why a commercial lease rewards being read line by line in a way a residential one does not, and why a clause you skimmed can cost real money three years in.
Three terms carry most of that weight. The expense structure decides what the rent actually is, and on a triple net deal the number in Section 3 is only the beginning of it. The permitted use decides what the tenant may do in the space, and it restricts rather than describes — too narrow and the business cannot adapt, too broad and the landlord loses control of who is trading in the building. The personal guaranty decides whether the lease is worth anything if the tenant entity fails, which for the LLC that most small businesses are is very often the whole question. Each of those is drafted here as a first-class section rather than buried in boilerplate, because that is where the argument happens.
3 structures
gross, modified gross or triple net — the term that decides the real rent
Few statutes
commercial tenants get little of the protection residential law provides
One signature
a personal guaranty is what makes a lease to an LLC collectable
- Residential protections mostly do not reach a commercial tenancy
- No statutory deposit cap or return deadline, no implied warranty of habitability in most states, and far more freedom to agree remedies. Eviction procedure and the notice before it still come from state law, and this lease defers to it — but everything about the money is whatever the two of you wrote down.
- On a triple net lease, the base rent is not the rent
- Taxes, building insurance and common-area maintenance ride on top of it, move year to year, and are commonly reconciled annually — which can arrive as a lump sum long after the budget was set. Ask for the last two years' actual figures and the reconciliation mechanics before signing, and write the pro-rata share into the expense details rather than agreeing it later.
- The permitted use clause restricts, it does not describe
- Draw it too narrowly and the tenant cannot add a product line without asking; too broadly and the landlord has lost control of the tenant mix. Zoning, licensing, and any building or association rules are separate questions — the lease does not grant permission the municipality has not, and checking that is the tenant's job before signing.
- A personal guaranty is a serious signature
- It makes a named individual personally liable for the whole lease, as a guaranty of payment rather than of collection — the landlord can proceed against the guarantor without first exhausting remedies against the tenant — and it survives assignment, amendment and renewal. Landlords should understand it is often the only reason a lease to an LLC is collectable; guarantors should consider asking for a cap or a burn-off before they sign.
- Insurance and the waiver of subrogation are not boilerplate
- The tenant carries commercial general liability naming the landlord as additional insured, plus cover on its own contents, with certificates on request; each side waives claims against the other to the extent its own property insurance responds. Get the certificate in hand before handover rather than after the first incident.
- Some spaces need a lawyer, not a form
- Ground leases, anchor retail, medical or lab space, heavy industrial, and anything involving percentage rent, exclusive-use or co-tenancy clauses, or a landlord build-out allowance. This document is drafted for ordinary office, retail and light-industrial deals, and it is better to know which one you have before you sign than after.
How to write a commercial lease
Six steps take an empty form to a signed lease. None of them is filler — in a commercial deal the clause you did not think about is the one that gets argued over.
Whoever is named is who is liable. A trade name on the signature page is not a party.
- The registered entity name on each side, not a DBA or a trading name
- Confirm the tenant entity exists and is in good standing before signing
- Check the person signing has authority to bind it
Free sample commercial lease
Here's the wording before you start — the same clauses the generator produces, with the figures left blank. Term, rent, deposit, maintenance and insurance read much as they do in any lease, so the preview skips to the sections a commercial deal is argued over. Section 4 is shown in its triple-net wording; the generator writes it three ways.
Commercial Lease Agreement
1. PARTIES AND PREMISES. This Commercial Lease Agreement (the “Lease”) is entered into between (“Landlord”) and (“Tenant”). Landlord leases to Tenant , comprising approximately rentable square feet at (the “Premises”), together with non-exclusive use of the building’s common areas. The parties are entering into this Lease as businesses dealing at arm’s length.
4. EXPENSE STRUCTURE. This is a TRIPLE NET (NNN) lease. In addition to base rent, Tenant pays its proportionate share of real estate taxes, building insurance and common area maintenance, as set out below, plus its own utilities, janitorial service and contents insurance.
6. PERMITTED USE. The Premises shall be used only for . Tenant shall comply with all laws, permits and rules applicable to its use, shall obtain any licence its business requires, and shall not commit waste or nuisance.
9. ASSIGNMENT AND SUBLETTING. Tenant shall not assign this Lease or sublet any part of the Premises without Landlord’s prior written consent, which shall not be unreasonably withheld. No assignment or sublease releases Tenant from its obligations.
12. PERSONAL GUARANTY. In consideration of Landlord entering into this Lease, (the “Guarantor”) personally, absolutely and unconditionally guarantees Tenant’s payment and performance of every obligation under this Lease. This is a guaranty of payment, not of collection; Landlord may proceed against Guarantor without first exhausting remedies against Tenant. The guaranty survives assignment, amendment or renewal of the Lease.
Leasing space to a business?
Real humans read every message — whether it's about triple-net reconciliations, how tightly to draw a permitted use, or when a guaranty is worth asking for. For an unusual space, get a lawyer on it.