Nevada statutes do not create a status called “squatter” or a package of “squatters’ rights.” Two different bodies of law get pulled into that search. Adverse possession is a title doctrine in NRS Chapter 11: after five years of continuous occupation that meets the statute’s use-and-enclosure rules, and payment of all taxes levied on the land, a claimant may be able to establish adverse possession. Unlawful occupancy of a vacant dwelling is a crime under NRS 205.0817. The Residential Landlord and Tenant Act does not apply to occupancy by a person guilty of forcible entry or forcible detainer (NRS 118A.180(2)(j)). This page states those elements. It is not a removal playbook.
What does NRS 11 require for adverse possession?
NRS 11.150 is the additional-requirements statute. “In no case shall adverse possession be considered established unless it be shown, in addition to the requirements of NRS 11.120 or 11.140, that the land has been occupied and claimed for the period of 5 years, continuously, and that the party or persons, their predecessors and grantors have paid all taxes, state, county and municipal, which may have been levied and assessed against the land for the period mentioned, or have tendered payment thereof.”
NRS 11.120 (claim founded on a written instrument, judgment, or decree) treats land as possessed and occupied where it has been usually cultivated or improved; protected by a substantial enclosure; used for fuel, fencing timber, pasturage, or ordinary uses of the occupant; or, for a known farm or single lot, partly improved in the manner the subsection describes.
NRS 11.140 (claim not founded on a writing, judgment, or decree) is narrower: land is deemed possessed and occupied only where it has been protected by a substantial enclosure or usually cultivated or improved. NRS 11.130 limits that kind of claim to the premises actually occupied.
NRS 11.100 starts from the other direction: the person who establishes legal title is presumed to have been in possession, and another person’s occupation is deemed under that title, unless the occupation has been protected by a substantial enclosure or cultivated or improved in the ordinary methods of husbandry.
NRS 11.160 addresses landlord and tenant expressly. Whenever that relation has existed, the tenant’s possession is deemed the landlord’s until 5 years from the expiration of the tenancy, or, where there has been no written lease, until 5 years from the last payment of rent — even if the tenant acquired another title or claimed to hold adversely. A current tenant is not, under that section, accumulating adverse-possession time against the landlord.
Those are title-claim elements. They are not a license to occupy someone else’s dwelling.
What do NRS 205.0813 and 205.0817 say about occupying a vacant dwelling?
NRS 205.0817(1) provides that a person who takes up residence in an uninhabited or vacant dwelling and knows or has reason to believe that the residency is without the owner’s or authorized representative’s permission is guilty of unlawful occupancy. Subsection 2 creates a presumption that the person knows the residency is without permission unless the person provides a written rental agreement that is notarized or signed by a permitted property manager under NRS Chapter 645 and includes the current address and telephone number of the owner or authorized representative. A first conviction is a gross misdemeanor; a person convicted three or more times is guilty of a category D felony (NRS 205.0817(3)).
NRS 205.0813 defines housebreaking: forcibly entering an uninhabited or vacant dwelling, knowing or having reason to believe the entry is without permission, with intent to take up residence or provide a residency to another. “Forcibly enters” means an entry involving physical force that damages the structure, or changing or manipulating a lock. The same written-agreement presumption appears. A first offense is a gross misdemeanor; a second or subsequent offense is a category D felony.
NRS 118A.200(4) requires certain single-family written leases that are not signed by a permitted property manager to disclose those same NRS 205.0813 and 205.0817 presumptions at the top of the first page.
How does Chapter 40 treat forcible entry and forcible detainer?
NRS 40.230 defines forcible entry (physical force damaging a structure; violence or terror; or peaceable entry followed by locking the owner out or turning the owner or authorized occupant out by force or threats). NRS 40.240 defines forcible detainer (holding by force or threats, or entering without authority and remaining after a written notice to surrender). Those sections describe a 4-judicial-day notice to surrender and a path into NRS 40.290 to 40.420. They are not the residential tenant notices in NRS 40.251–40.253.
NRS 40.412 addresses a narrow situation in which all known unlawful or unauthorized adult occupants have been arrested for housebreaking or unlawful occupancy and minor occupants are in state custody: the owner may retake possession and change the locks, with a posted notice that includes a 21-day window to file a verified complaint for reentry. NRS 40.416 describes that reentry complaint. Those sections are about unauthorized occupants after an arrest, not about a Chapter 118A tenancy.
What this page does not do
The statutes above describe how title by adverse possession is established, how unlawful occupancy and housebreaking are defined, and how forcible entry and detainer are defined. They do not set out a field guide for removing an occupant. Residential tenant evictions are a different legal relationship and are summarized in How does eviction work in Nevada? and walked through at /courts/eviction-process/.